When it aired in 1989, Ken Burns's epic documentary about America's Civil War garnered the largest audience in PBS history. Viewers who had little interest or knowledge of the Civil War were attracted to the powerful images and sounds as well as the narration by David McCullough and commentary by Shelby Foote--the combination of which served to…

Baby media have exploded in the past decade, and children younger than 2 are showing increased use of these baby media. This paper examines the historical evidence of babies' use of television since the 1950s as well as the various factors that have given rise to the current increase in screen media for babies. We also consider the ubiquitous role…

Distance education is used for teacher training at different levels and fields in Turkey. Launched in the 2000-2001 academic year and still applied by Anadolu University, the Pre-School Teacher Training Program is one of those programs offered by distance education. This study aims to evaluate Anadolu University's Preschool Teacher Training…

This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of educational television programs in distance learning system. Using the procedure of survey method, this study finds out the worth of educational television programs. Its results are based on the responses of the learners of distance teaching system. The views of students were collected by…

The developments in the last ten years in the form of DVD, streaming video, video on demand, interactive television and digital language laboratories call for an assessment of the research into language teaching and learning making use of these technologies and the learning paradigms underpinning them. This paper surveys research on language…

Educational media serve as informal educators within the home by supplementing young children's development. Substantial evidence documents the contributions of educational television to preschoolers' acquisition of a variety of skills; however, television's natural capacity as storyteller and the role it plays in preschoolers' early literacy…

Distance education is among the significant fields for the application of educational technology. Distance education in China has gone through three phases, namely: correspondence-based education, radio and TV-based education and online education. This paper was based on educational technology application, and the historical, dialectic and…

One of the serious problems associated with Indian school education has been high dropout rate. The reasons are many and varied but the major constraints are: non-availability of adequate number of competent and trained teachers in most of the schools and separate room for each class. To overcome such problems and increase equitable access to all,…

When "technology" is used in reference to education today, the term is most often thought of as being synonymous with computers. In the past, however, the term "educational technology" also included other apparatus, either to disseminate information in a classroom, e.g., the overhead projector, or to transmit information some…

For nearly four decades, Sesame Workshop has brought the joy of learning to the world's youngest citizens through the introduction of locally-produced coproductions of the preschool television series, "Sesame Street". Many of these television shows have been specifically designed to forward important prosocial messages directly linked to…

Described here is a study on the efficacy of a media-rich curriculum based on the idea that children can learn best from "media synergy," that is, when children have opportunities to learn a focused set of skills by engaging in repeated practice with them in many different formats and media. Participants in this study were low-income…

This paper evaluates the effects of federal initiatives in educational technology in elementary and secondary education over the past half-century. While federal resources have been diluted across many programs, this paper focuses on the few initiatives in which the federal role was substantial and integral. The findings from this paper have…

As television transitions from analog to digital, questions arise as to how to best meet the needs of children. What are the potential benefits of digital television? How can the technology be used to serve children and families, while at the same time protect them from possible harm? The transition to digital television offers a unique…

This article explores the literature in the intersecting fields of media, technology and schooling in the United States across the past two centuries. It organizes the research from a social-historical perspective through a fictionalized interview with an archetypal third-generation urban public school teacher. This topography illustrates the…

Since the creation of "Sesame Street", children's educational television programs have grown in both number and popularity. However, controversy has shadowed the children's television arena for many years. Some have claimed that viewing television is a passive event, requiring little or no effort on the part of the viewer. However, research on…