One of the factors which influenced the introduction of interactive video into the UK education sector was the high cost of the equipment. The main areas of activity were confined to institutions employing individual enthusiasts or institutions involved in government funded initiatives. Between 1986 and 1989 the DTI and DfEE funded interactive video initiatives in both the Further Education and School sector. A small amount of funding was directed towards the Higher Education sector through a project targeting initial teacher education. Studies on the use of interactive video in Higher Education are therefore limited and had a tendency to focus on the use of a specific application in a limited and controlled environment. The emphasis was towards the design of material and studies were often carried out by individual teachers using a single delivery system in a classroom environment. In Higher Education in the early nineties there was little evidence that a broad view of the learning environment was considered in relation to the effective use of interactive video.
Although the use of interactive video in Higher Education was not widespread a number of useful studies were carried out.
Laurillard’s (1984) early studies into the effective use of video examine the kind of learning experience interactive video offers students. She explores modes of learning and summarises the results of field trials which were designed to examine students ’ behaviour with the medium, the focus being the learning environment that existed between the learner and the medium. The learning environment that extends beyond the learner and the medium is not considered. Laurillard (1987) presents a wider view of the issues that surround interactive video in a book contributed to by a number of authors with a wide range of experience in the design, development and use of interactive video in education and training.
Laurillard acknowledges that:
these new instructional forms make the learners active, rather than allow them to be passive recipients o f knowledge. Assembling educational material for an interactive video lesson is radically different from assembling materials for a lecture...
These issues force educators to consider carefully how far interactive media bring welcome assistance to the teacher, and how far they bring unwelcome problems.
(Laurillard, 1987) Laurillard (1987) emphasises the importance of design and the need to understand how to use media effectively. The fifteen contributors to the book focus on technological issues, design issues, applications and the learning process. The physical environment and the process of implementation and integration are not identified as important issues. Implementation is mentioned by Pask and Boyd:
...it becomes clear that implementation o f this kind o f system requires several independent processors.
(Pask and Boyd, 1987, p. 110) The scope of their terms of reference is limited to the number of systems used and the design of the material.
The second part of the book sets out to illustrate the potential of the media and the constraints such as economic feasibility, the need for organisation and planning, the limitations o f existing hardware and software. Economics,
planning and hardware are presented in relation to producing material and not the learning environment. Laurillard (1987), in her postscript, urges teachers to record, analyse and articulate their experiences. Towards the end of her postscript she raises issues which relate to the environment when she
emphasises the flexibility o f existing education systems to adapt to the kind o f resourcing demands technology makes.
Although Laurillard (1987) does not address the importance of management and institutional infrastructure, she begins to acknowledge the wider context of implementation in her book Rethinking University Teaching (1993).
In addressing the issues that Higher Education will face in the nineties she identifies the role of learning technology and institutional change:
I see the solution as being found in a new organisational infrastructure, not in guidelines on how to teach...
(Laurillard, 1993, p. 4) She suggests that the use of a methodology based on mechanisms, tasks and responsibilities is more productive in terms of developing an organisational infrastructure. Although Laurillard (1993) does not relate specifically to
interactive video she describes the use of media, interactive media and learning technology in terms of their technical potential and application to learning processes and begins to explore issues which affect implementation within the context of teaching and learning and an organisational infrastructure:
...new teaching methods, such as educational media, dependfor their success upon being properly embedded into the existing learning context. Innovation will necessarily require changes in what exists already, and if this is not acknowledged and accommodated, then the innovation will not succeed.
(Laurillard, 1993, p. 221) Sprunt (1989, p. 5) offers three possible approaches to supporting institutional needs in interactive video:
• the institution responds in an ad hoc way to individual needs
• the institution takes a direct market orientated approach in which certain courses are targeted
• the institution takes a positive, proactive approach which introduces interactive video into the curriculum on a wide front.
Sprunt acknowledges that the management of these methods is important. He suggests that a central unit can provide a coordinating function, and that there will be an associated need for technical support, training and general advice on establishing interactive video approaches within the curriculum.
Bork (1987, p. 29), attempts to identify the potential of interactive video by examining research related to the full facilities o f the modern computer and the best current video practices. He considers the importance of an interactive
learning conversation and the effect it has on the learner. He suggests that good interaction will adapt to suit the individual learner and is therefore more likely to motivate the learner. The style of interaction, the degree of interaction and the quality of interaction relate to the design of the material and the learning
process.
In a study carried out at Thames Valley University into the effective use of interactive video with large groups, Jones (1993) identifies key issues for successful learning. He suggests that the tutor must:
• be familiar with the content and mode of learning • decide on appropriate learner interaction
• decide what is appropriate in terms of support for the learner • adopt an effective evaluation process.
Jones highlights the need for teachers to influence the design of materials and stresses the difficulties involved in managing the use of technology-based courseware.
It is crucially important that tutors learn to integrate current interactive media into their programmes... Understanding current training
technology will at least give us a fighting chance o f making effective use o f the emerging training technologies.
(Jones, 1993, p. 188).