Education on Demand

Two recent projects using retrieval television, which permits teachers to request program transmissions for individual classrooms, are compared. Retrieval television cost about $4 a classroom viewing in an experimental project in Ottawa where schools were connected by cable to the transmitting centre. The cost is a little over $2 a viewing in a system now functioning in London, Ontario, which uses eight 2,500 megahertz broadcast channels; this system also permits videotape recordings to be made in schools at night by remote control from the transmitting centre. Many dimensions of student and teacher reaction to retrieval television are reported for the Ottawa Project. These results and the expense and/or channel restrictions of retrieval television, lead to the conclusion that it will not at present be used by individual students in the classroom.