Archive for December 3rd, 2010

Radio days

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

The OU was not the first to use radio programmes in conjunction with printed material and study groups in order to support higher education among adults. There was considerable experience of educational broadcasting within the BBC but also, in Germany a two-semester introductory course on education was run in the late 1960s. It is described in Georg Rückreim, ‘The radio course “science of education”‘, Western European Education, Summer/Fall 1970, 2, 2, pp. 176-191.  The course was credited by educational departments of universities and the study groups met in local adult educaiton institutes. There were assignments and computer-graded examinations and it was intended that rather than monologues or one-way transmission the learners would engage in dialogue. Nevertheless, much of the broadcast material was lectures and these were revised and then published in 1970.