Film 



among the general public is becoming increasingly 

 desirable. 



USING THE OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY 

 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 

 EDUCATIONAL PROCESS 



There are new demands on the educational system to 

 prepare all segments of society to use technological infor- 

 mation and products, and science and technology can 

 provide a means to update our educational system to meet 

 those and other needs. Information-handling and com- 

 puter technologies, and the cognitive sciences, provide 

 special opportunities over the next 5 years to enrich the 

 learning process, both through the application of recent 

 basic research findings and through the utilization of new 

 technologies (NRC^; EDUC). However, there are sever- 

 al major factors that can inhibit their incorporation into 

 our formal educational system. Therefore, the process of 

 transferring the varied research findings and new tech- 

 nologies into the classroom will require concomitant at- 

 tention and action (EDUC). 



THE OPPORTUNITY PROVIDED BY INFORMATION 

 TECHNOLOGIES 



Computer-based learning devices and communications 

 technologies can provide the basis of effective and effi- 

 cient strategies for classroom teaching by, for example, 

 offering means for individualized, interactive instruction 

 and for more sophisticated performance testing and eval- 

 uation. Of course, some use has been made of teaching 

 machines for many years in language classrooms and in 

 undergraduate science courses. In addition, those tech- 

 nologies are being used extensively in training military 

 personnel (NS). However, examination of the overall 

 school curriculum reveals little evidence of the impact on 

 education of the contemporary electronics revolution that, 

 by radically altering the ways business and industry are 

 conducted, is changing the nature of many jobs. For 

 example, there are suggestions that the ability to use 

 computers may be judged a basic skill in the future, but 

 there presently does not exist a recognized curriculum for 

 teaching computer skills or a system for measuring 

 competency. 



Advances in computer technologies include expansions 

 in disc storage capacity, easy access to stored information, 

 sophisticated visual displays of information in a variety of 

 formats, and audio tracks and computers that can simulate 

 the human voice, fnirthermore, in recent years, both the 

 size and the cost of computer hardware have been reduced 

 substantially, and its portability has increased signifi- 

 cantly. Handheld calculators with a variety of functions 

 now sell for between $10 and $100, and electronic games 

 that teach mathematics and spelling retail for about $65. 



tionul Area Problems. Opportunities . ami Constraints 11 



Personal computers with a visual display and memory and 

 weighing less than 50 pounds now cost as little as S400. 

 They are comparable to computers that cost more than 

 $100,000 15 years ago, and future costs are expected to 

 remain constant while the computational power of the 

 computer is expected to double every 2 years (EDUC). 

 Recent trends in cost reduction and augmentation of com- 

 puter performance are shown in Figures 5 and 6, 

 respectively. 



The new developments open up a wide range of pos- 

 sibilities for innovative instructional activities and pro- 

 cedures. As such, they have the potential for adapting 



0.001 



1980 



FIGURE 5. Relative Computer Processor Price. 



Source: DP. Kenney. Microcomputers. New York: AMACOM, 1978. 



10.000 r- 



z 

 < 



z 

 g 



< 



£ s 



uj O 



O 



I 



100 - 



1980 



FIGURE 6. Relative Computer Processor Performance. 



Source: D.P. Kenney. Microcomputers. New York: AMACOM. 1978. 



