Because educational television series are informal education experiences, their production is subject to considerations that are less critical in the classroom. Perhaps most critical is the need for the television program to be highly appealing to children. After all, if children do not enjoy the program, they simply will not turn it on.
In addition, the series’ educational approach must be designed to fit the constraints of informal education. For example, unlike classroom instruction, the educational content of a television series typically cannot depend on being presented in a particular sequence over a period of days, weeks, or months. Although there is great educational value to structuring classroom instruction to begin with simple concepts and subsequently build on previous lessons as more complex concepts are introduced, this typically is not feasible in educational television because there is no guarantee that the episodes will be broadcast in order or that children will see
every episode (e.g., Fisch & Truglio, 2001b; Lesser, 1974).
One of the consequences of this point is that, when versions of existing broadcast television programs have been created for school use, they often have had to be adapted to fit the constraints of the classroom. For example, when the mathematics series Square One TV was adapted into its school version, Square One Math Talk, material was re-edited to shorten the videos to an appropriate length for classroom use, and to organize tapes thematically by mathematical content (e.g., probability, statistics) so that it would be simpler for teachers to use the videos when they reached the relevant topic in their own lessons (Yotive, 1995).
Educational television is not intended to replace formal education in school. Rather, it is intended to supplement formal education in several ways:
- By exposing children to topics that they might not encounter otherwise (or that might only be introduced formally in later grades),
- By providing compelling experiences that coax children into spending additional time exploring concepts that they are learning about in school,
- By encouraging positive attitudes toward academic subjects (particularly among populations that are typically less likely to pursue these subjects on their own), and
- By motivating children to engage actively in learning both in and outside the classroom.
OVERVIEW OF CONTENTS
The bulk of this volume is divided into two sections. The first section reviews research that assesses the impact of educational television in a variety of subject areas. Because of its pioneering role and prominence in the literature, chapter 2 is devoted to Sesame Street, both the domestic version seen in the United States and international co-productions that were created in other countries. Chapter 3 turns to other television series aimed at preschool children (e.g., Barney & Friends, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Blue’s Clues) and their impact on school readiness. Subsequent chapters review research on the educational effectiveness of school-age programs in the areas of literacy (e.g., The Electric Company, Ghostwriter, Reading Rainbow), mathematics and problem solving (e.g., Square One TV, Cyberchase), science and technology (e.g., 3-2-1 Contact, Bill Nye the Science Guy), and civics and social studies (e.g., news programs, Schoolhouse Rock, Channel One). These reviews include significant effects on children’s academic knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Each chapter ends with a discussion of lessons learned and implications for the future production of educational television.
Having documented the impact of educational television, the second section of the book proposes theoretical models to explain how such learning occurs. Chapter 10 discusses the capacity model, which uses children’s
allocation of working memory resources to help explain how children extract and comprehend the educational content embedded in television programs. Chapter 11 explores transfer of learning from educational television (i.e., children’s application of the knowledge and/or skills acquired from educational television beyond the contexts and problems shown on the screen) and the factors that can determine whether transfer will occur. Finally, chapter 12 attempts to bridge the gap between academic and social influences of television by showing how social aspects of educational television influence learning of academic content.
The concluding chapter (chap. 13) turns to the future of educational television. At the time of this writing, new technologies are emerging to change the face of television. This chapter draws on the lessons of the past to chart out directions for maximizing the power of educational television in the future.
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