MIT Professor Hopes to See More Educational Technology

An MIT professor said yesterday that technical devices will become more important in all kinds of education despite the resistance of the academic establishment.

Speaking as a guest lecturer before the Cambridge Forum, Caroll G. Bowen, research associate at MIT, said that "it took Sesame Street to prove what can be done with instructional mechanisms."

He said that the university professors are too skeptical about the effectiveness of such devices, and that "the present divination of pedagogical competence is a result of only indirect and questionable measures." But he added that teacher's reactions against changes in the format of education only reflect the temper of the times.

Bowen said that the influence of such devices such as cable television and video-tape machines is potentially as powerful as television, which consumes 54 per cent of the waking hours of the average American adult.

One of the boons of "packaged" instruction cited by Bowen is that it allows the opportunity for self-paced education, which is not possible in a formalized class structure.

Bowen said that the biggest problem of establishing technical educational programs is not the hardware but the "software," which includes the high cost of preparing course work. For technical instruction to work, he said that the software requires twice the lead time and three to ten times the cost of the mechanisms.

A tape of Bowen's lecture will be broadcast on WGBH-FM from 9 to 10:30 p.m. tonight.

Bowen said that no one had even conceived of the possible uses of technology in education until a few years ago, when they became relatively fashionable.