Further reading on:
Broadcasting Checklists
for Planning Case StudiesChoosing & Using Technologies in Education & Training
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Conventional television broadcasting enables a wide audience to be reached anywhere within the transmission area. Since specialised studio facilities are required, and program production must be at commercial standards, it is expensive both to produce and to distribute. It is most successfully used in conjunction with print or other materials to reach learners in high volume subjects. Often, the broadcast is used for overview material or interviews with high profile speakers, with the detailed program content provided in other media.
Television is also successful in introducing potential learners to the concept of open learning, which they may follow up by enrolling for programs using different delivery methods. The dependence on time and place is greatly reduced when learners video tape programs to watch at a later time.
Satellite broadcasting, like television, enables a widespread audience to be reached in the satellite receive area. Programs may be available to anyone who has a receiving dish; or they may be encoded so that only those who have purchased a decoder can receive them. Satellite transmission has been used in the form of ‘interactive television’, where viewers can respond or ask questions by telephone or fax, which can then be answered on air. This interactivity is obviously limited, especially if the audience is very large. More sophisticated forms of interaction are likely to be available in the future.
Generally speaking, broadcasting is most useful for introductory material or where programs are uniform across a wide audience, as in schools or lockstep classroom situations. The diversity of the vocational education and training sector, and the need to customise programs to specific needs, means that its use is more limited in this sector. It can, however, be useful to present specialist material (for example, to capture a presentation by an international expert), and has been used successfully in professional development programs.
One emerging development of television is ‘video on demand’, where viewers choose when they wish to receive programs. This will reduce the time dependence of broadcasting, but will eliminate real-time interaction. For the producer, it may provide greater flexibility (especially for updating materials) than producing videos as stand-alone programs available to students through libraries or the post.
Another emerging development is the convergence of television and telephone to provide access to a range of broadcast programs, Internet resources, and interactive computer-based learning.
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