Hello. I'm Jay Harriman, past president of AECT
from 2003 to 2004. Recently I
had the distinct privilege of visiting with another past president
from an earlier era in our associations history. Mendel
Sherman was president of D A. V. I
, the forerunner of A E C T in 1964
and 65. A time when the organization was one
of few involved in the field. Mendel began his
career teaching with his wife in a one room country
school outside Cincinnati Ohio in the thirties and later completed
a master's thesis outlining a program of audiovisual education for
the Cincinnati schools. While an assistant principal during World
War two, he was drafted in the army and
later trained as a combat motion picture camera man.
He was assigned to the european theater during the famous
Battle of the Bulge and attained the rank of captain
and eventually headed up all of the training film libraries
for the army in the field. After the war
he returned to the Cincinnati schools as supervisor of the
audiovisual center and during that time, Life magazine selected
six schools nationwide, including Cincinnati to televise classroom instruction
, highlighting what was going on inside our schools at
the time. Later using the G. I.
Bill, he enrolled in the doctoral program at the
University of southern California, studying with a major force
in the I. T. Field. Jim Finn
. After his return he accepted a position at indiana
University where he helped coordinate the film library, teach
a V. Courses, consult on a major project
with Thailand in the late fifties And eventually head the
IST. Department before his retirement in 1975. At
the time of this interview, dr Sherman, an
avid user of video technology to this day, decided
to provide a significant contribution to act to help support
a joint project with phi delta kappa that has its
roots in his early experiences in classroom education. Mendel
believes students today have the tools and the skills to
develop their own video stories of what is going on
inside our schools to provide advocacy and support for good
education. Join me now, as we take a
look at this recent visit with Mendel Sherman, you
can look back to the time to when we had
, we had tools and software that was peculiar to
our organization And uh, they such things as a
16 MB projector that people don't hardly remember that anymore
. But anyhow, this project gives us something that
we can tie into that I think extends the dimensions
of the act. This is our can be our
field, we have the, we have the know
how to make the motion pictures and we're going to
apply that to the classroom and give the schools and
the community something they really haven't had before. And
that's to interpret what goes on in their schools,
their schools to the community, to the gatekeepers,
to people in a rotary club, the different clubs
and churches and so on. They're going to see
what goes on in the classroom in a typical unit
of work. Many in a were the long range
of things. But anyhow they inside our schools is
going to be made by students. We have so
many of them now that are pretty good camera people
and we want them to apply their skills to a
special category within the media student media uh festival.
And this category will be one at is inside our
schools types of P. D. Hey if I
tell the cap would like to have it will show
what the teacher does, what the Children's do what
their Children do, what materials they use under what
circumstances. And we'll show that to the public instead
of trying to tell him, I think the most
immediate answer was that to be this when I was
in the Cincinnati schools, we got two days a
year when we could visit another place and see what
the teacher was doing. And the supervisor asked me
to see I wasn't teaching quite the way she would
like. So she had me visited another school where
the focus was on the learner, where they this
uh, when I went to see that she had
a summation of what they had done and different committees
would report. And I got so much out of
those two days that changed my teaching and after we
got back, I thought, I wish I could
have seen the development of that unit when you go
out and visit your, therefore even two hours you
only get a little piece of what went on.
And so I thought if you could have a motion
picture that would show different stages of development. And
so I wrote an article that appeared in educational screen
. Do you know about educational screen? That was
the forerunner of our magazines Way. And now it
was called the film for purpose of the school made
film for purposes of supervision of instruction. It's really
for a consultant, what he called him. People's
supervisors that came out The so I mentioned the word
supervisor in the film, but it was doing exactly
the same show the development of a unit, so
that instead of going out for two days in the
year, I could turn on a projector and see
the whole development of the unit. And so back
in 1945, I wrote in 1941, 4 went
in the army, But it finally appeared in 1944
. The school made film for purposes of inside our
schools are doing now 1951 life magazine and local station
and about six school systems into this country. Put
on a program. They called Inside our schools and
they came to Cincinnati asked if we would be one
of them when they would come into our classroom for
a week for a half day and televised what was
going on right in schools. I was called inside
our schools to the superintendent turned the whole program into
my department and I had to help select the teachers
of the range, the whole thing and then do
the commentary in a remote truck while they were in
the classroom. At first they were going to do
it. But superintendent got cold feet of what they
might say. And so he said, I want
you to do it. So I had a wonderful
experience of city and uh, remote with a supervisor
of the particular subject area we were in and the
number one station announcer and then I had notes and
I would talk and the supervisor would help me we
know what to say. And then the station announced
he would tell me how to talk. So that
all led up to this. And when I saw
the effect of that upon the community, they were
able to go right inside our schools and they had
tremendous cameras that they had to lift them and carried
to the next room was quite a story. But
any, I would say those were two of the
things that contributed to this idea of, we want
to show the community what's going on in the schools
. So the tools were different 50 odd years ago
. But today you think with even the newer tools
and the and the little different spin on it is
that the students would actually be making these videos.
That would provide the same message to the community.
That's right. I think that in 1949 I made
a film in the Cincinnati schools at the request of
the Committee of elementary teachers. They would like to
see new teachers coming in, see scenes that would
help them in their teaching at the same time,
would tell the public what we're doing. So we
made that little film called What makes plants grow in
the second grade. And in it they saw the
focus upon the learner in which they were doing work
and the teacher was a guy in the counselor and
all the things that the teacher can do to help
. It showed the material that showed audiovisual materials being
integrated and so on. And that film was made
in 1949 and used shortly after I went to University
of Southern, cal so I didn't see all the
uses. But it did so much good that I
like to have at that time. I thought it
would be wonderful if schools could all make it to
show their local community the way we did that film
, we showed that the rotary clubs, the parents
groups of teachers had many uses, curricular uses to
and I thought it would be fine if if all
schools could do that. But I realized they didn't
have the kind of training. But then a couple
of years ago dawned on me when I began and
saw the Media Festival. Yes, they've got camera
skills most of a lot of and what they need
to do is to apply this to the special kind
of a film, not the dramatizations they were showing
and they think the other kind but the very special
kind of a film. The Mhm. Well,
I guess teaching the grades and wanting the Children to
understand and see. And of course, when you
think you want them to understand, you want them
to see. And then my wife was a right
brain person being an artist. And she realized that
right from the beginning, she was cooperating with me
. We in this one room country, then the
two room country and in the full room, that's
where we worked our way through school. We would
cooperate, she would teach art and geography and so
on. And she very early in our career,
she started going down to the Cincinnati public library on
a saturday and bring him back a bunch of keystone
slides, three and a quarter by four and that
. And when I saw the effect upon the kids
, I wanted to be as good as teacher she
was. So I began to look into it and
then I looked into the idea of 16 millimeter,
they were just beginning to come in in the head
of state repository. So I got interested in the
16 millimeter motion picture especially. And then in the
late 30s, um, I wrote a master's degree
thesis on a program of visual education for the Cincinnati
public schools. I had been in the schools a
couple of years and the route that I learned something
that if you get there early, you don't have
to be so good. So my, my master's
thesis because it was so new was judged to be
something that the suggests that I write into a book
, some book company. Yes. So after I
felt that preparing that masters was a step then when
I was drafted in the military, I ended up
eventually after basic trading and I won't go through all
the details. But I was sent for training as
a combat motion picture cameramen and officer. We went
to a historian to some old studios that the army
had bought and for four months I was put through
a training that Was the most wonderful to be in
the army to get that training. And they live
on 93rd Street with my wife and I just,
it was unbelievable to be in the army, but
officers sometimes get a break. So I went out
every day and learned to shoot motion pictures and bring
back the basic shots, the elements that make up
a motion picture. And you knew what you were
supposed to do in the first two days. But
you found out that you had to go out and
do it, shoot it over and over again so
that as soon as you saw a scene you can
see your different elements that you're going to put together
. So that was another thing that led up to
my interest in the field. And I I think
I mentioned earlier that you ended up as an officer
in charge of the signal court. Oh yes.
I always send across during the Battle of the Bulge
. Does the Battle of the Bulge mean anything to
you? They had last six of our Signal corps
officers. They didn't know where they were. So
they grabbed six of us that were in the last
part of a training and sent us over on the
Queen Elizabeth. And uh when we got over there
, they lost us in the replacement depot, which
traveled all through europe, wondering when we're gonna be
picked up and sent to our assignment? When they
finally found us? They sent us up to paris
there, they be reassigned. And while I was
up there they put me for work temporarily in the
film library. The main one, we had the
branches all over by that time and I won't go
into what happened. But I got breaks all the
way through the army on that ended up being in
charge of all the Signal Corps training film libraries in
the european theater. Talking about the early research,
I don't know How familiar with this whole business is
instructional research back from 19 and the research was on
what films could do in the army, to training
you and how to clean a rifle, how to
do combat. But they could use some of that
today when you get into a village, how do
you do a ladder movement? Moving down had films
in medicine, basic training and for combat medical Trainee
. And when I went through that course for four
months after the war, did you return to the
Cincinnati schools to serve as the director of the audiovisual
program for the school system? Yes, that was
in 1947 after four years in the army. And
I went back and was and within that program supervisor
, the Audio visual Center at that time. Well
, you see there was something free hanging around there
and that was a that was a G. I
Bill. So after five years in Cincinnati. Very
interesting five years. And it included that moving into
the schools, you know, with television. So
I've been through films for television and so on.
And I felt there were two things that there was
a G. I. Bill and then I began
the field of the desire to go on and learn
more and Jim Finn was out in southern California and
so I got to leave of absence for a year
and after I got out there it was wonderful having
nothing but study as my occupation for the first time
in my life it was just working on the program
. What did you do your dissertation topic? Yeah
. Well that grew out of my work in Cincinnati
and when we when I got into the program and
with all the details but I insisted there were certain
things I was going to be free to do.
I didn't like the idea of the supervisor or that
exchanged selecting the films. I wanted the teachers and
supervisors select them. So I'd have committee. They
had 16 different committees coming in. It could be
high school english and so on. And we'd come
in and I say you know what are you doing
, what are your needs? And so they would
help decide what among the films were available. They'd
like to see, we'd order in for them to
view, then we would discuss it. But they
had a lot of trouble coming down to the exchange
. Had to come from the schools there. And
I thought at that time if we could get the
films on television, they could fume at home,
would they be able to give the same evaluation that
they gave us a group to select them? So
even though I was taking the southern calories, taking
similar courses, television courses and so on. I
did the the dissertation on on that topic could teachers
individually sitting at home given the evaluation that would get
us to purchase the same film as if they were
in a group talking it over. And so I
got where I was in L. A. And
I got stations to televise the films and the teachers
would evaluate them at home To do that. I
had to develop an evaluation form and called eventually Sherman
evaluation for them because the only validated one that they
really had. And I had said things as how
does that, the curriculum and the level of interest
and so on. And that was used to evaluate
the films midway. And that that since those schools
superintendent called me when we come back home two because
they were putting television in schools and he wanted to
be in my department. And I said, I've
got to finish my dissertation there. So they said
, well if you come home we'll give you a
couple of secretaries and you can television in Cincinnati to
stations. So I went back and the most horrendous
year of my life get a television in working on
my dissertation and my poor wife on a tractor out
during the work that I've been doing on a little
nine acre farm. We had, well anyhow that
was the it was the I'm trying to remember the
title of the but it was the use of television
to evaluate instructional films And we found the results were
they accept on one colour film. The evaluations were
the same, whether they were at home or meeting
in the group. Yeah. I went back to
Cincinnati and was involved in everything. Everything was great
. And I got this offer from Ali Larson they
kept in the anniversary, called me on the phone
and told me something what the job would be about
. It was interesting but he said he'd send me
a letter. I said I think then I got
off the phone and I said to Martha Martha,
why did I tell me to write you a letter
? We're happy here. We got to like our
little farm, we like our job and you're at
the university. And she said, I guess it's
31 of the reasons why we've been married 77 years
. She said, I know what it is to
be offered an associate professorship right off the bat and
it's your field in the and university is the greatest
. So she said I go where you go,
you make up your mind and the more I thought
of it we went down and we looked the place
over, I think I'm wondering a little bit but
the offer was to come and be spend half my
time in charge of the film library, which was
a little stuff in the other half of my time
in academic, in teaching and so on. And
so what kinds of courses did you teach did I
teach? Well, I started teaching the basic course
and it was very pleasurable because I could work out
the whole course and it was getting them the students
acquainted with all the different media. So it was
nice field, what could the motion picture do,
What could these do? And then the final assignment
, they had to each make a presentation using a
variety of materials on the topic that they selected.
The only. He was a fascinating person. I
think a little recognized a person in the field.
He did things there that nobody else did you see
? He came in about 1940. He said,
if I can have a film library that rents films
and we take in more than the cost, that's
, we need enough to buy a new film.
But I can use that money to give assistance ships
. And so and put these people at work.
Some of the film library somewhat different professors. So
, And at one time we had as many as
over 50 assistant ships, which enables a lot of
people to come to school. They wouldn't have,
I think my part of my job was as they
came in, I would talk to him and if
they needed an assistantship and they were good material,
they would get that at a very pleasurable part of
my job was to listen to these students come in
and tell me about their career and how they saved
and saved to come to the university and needed just
another$1,500 to two. But it was the cost
of the 16 millimeter film that started the whole audiovisual
center. Sorry that ours in Cincinnati and all over
the, uh, the increasing number of films that
had curricular value with Britannica films and coordinate and so
on were so great that teachers are wanting them.
Principles were wanting them. But the schools can't afford
the$50 a real color real. Now, that
doesn't sound like much now. But back in 1939
$50 with an awful lot of money. That was
for the 10 minute colour film. And so they
said we ought to have an exchange. And so
it was called the visual aids Exchange at first where
we have no money by the films and then have
a way of getting them out of the schools for
their use. And so in Cincinnati we got what
we call the pony Express, made a couple of
trucks that ran around delivering the films. A lot
of what we're doing that we had them deliver other
audiovisual materials, a suitcase museum that we designed the
film strips and so on. And the theory was
of course it's uh, learned more in less time
and then see the world as it really is and
that you couldn't get it all through words you had
to see it and everybody was was an agreement of
that. And so they feel grew fast. But
the problem was money to buy films and for the
schools to get projectors. So it was a 50
millim, the$50 film that really started our,
if it had been a videotape then for a couple
of dollars, I don't think there have been individuals
. We began the people, the early people in
charge of these programs had a background in science curriculum
and we weren't satisfied to just deliver the film.
We were interested in how they were going to be
used. And so we talked about, here's how
you introduce the film, here's how you clear up
misconceptions and our writings were a good bid and how
to use the materials to do better what you're already
doing as far as designing a whole new approach,
which I think design people do nowadays. In some
cases, we were not so much involved in that
. It was helping teachers do better what they're already
doing. Mhm Yeah. Well I guess the first
one was the Edgar deal. A two year deal
was Ohio State. I was in Cincinnati and I
had read some of his early materials and so I
wrote to him and he did with some advising on
sort of an individual of course that I took with
him from Cincinnati about his writings and his thinking in
the field and his cone of experience meant a lot
at that time. You remember the base of it
is a direct purposeful experience, did the shot and
that made sense at the time and I use his
course. And then uh, Jim Finn was a
great influence when I went to southern cal Oly Larson
on another way. He was a great entrepreneur.
Some things he did to get his library started.
Nobody else would have thought of. For example,
and the only life I learned a lot of maneuvering
morley Larson, He had the idea that he could
get a couple$100,000 to start a film library and
rent them out that he would get this whole concept
of getting money and, and, and support graduate
students. And he likened the tour to a medical
profession which you go out and get internship. But
how do you get into the president that to explain
this to him? Herman Wells is in demand all
over in the at that time and he couldn't get
into his office. So he asked his secretary he
knew that the president flew to Washington, D.
C. Quite a bit. So he went into
his secretary says when is his next flight to Washington
? And she told him and lo and behold when
he got on the plane and sat down who was
sitting next to him. But only Larson, He
had two hours with President Wells. And in that
time he convinced him at the whole program and only
even had him sign a paper that he could take
to the treasurer and get 200,000 get going. Now
. Not many people would have would have done that
and all the way through all he was maneuvering.
When I came in. He had already had an
idea of taking the program all through the state and
he put me in charge of working up a program
where it visits school systems and the way he got
a superintendent to agree to a certain date when he
would call all of his teachers together while we put
on the program was something I think another thing I
learned from all the Larson, um, then my
colleagues, people like bob Hynek and the people who
wrote the book on message design. That was one
of the great things about indiana University and so many
colleagues who brought so much to you. And uh
, then a E C. T. Had a
lot of people. We have our annual meeting.
I would meet charlie schueler and walt week and later
, ken's guest system was a student at first time
but these were all people whose names may not appeared
at so quickly that had a great influence on when
did you actually become a member of Abc? We
were at the time I? Ve 1947 so it's
been exactly 60 years, 60 years. And by
the way, I almost unveiled a picture when I
was president, a cT had meeting all over on
the a act I was 19 and they were meeting
with different schools. So they took a picture of
me at the time I was president we signed,
witnessed the signature of President johnson and they and so
different groups that had, who had association with the
act, we're going to work benefits from it came
into the White House and I have a picture of
President johnson signing and an higher who was the the
executive director and I were standing at his shoulder and
they have that picture and then I got the pen
see he when he signed you know how they signed
their name? Just make a little of a dot
and another one. And by the time he gets
through he's finally finished his name. So I have
a pen and uh, they made a big five
I tremendous picture and they took that around to him
at every place, showed a picture of President johnson
signing it. And then in high or and me
and when I got through they they put it on
top of a jeep and drove all the way back
to bloomington. He gave me the picture and I
covered up and tied it up and carried it with
me wherever we went. But it's still covered up
behind the door. Yeah. During the year I
was president. we were concerned with standards. That
is what should I do with the school have,
what's the school system but especially at school what you
do, you have any way of equipment, materials
personnel and so on. And so we were concerned
with standards. We're also concerned with getting the voice
of DVD out there two other non media organizations and
we talked about how we could have people from our
organization go and meet with them and tell them what
the Eva was about, what we're trying to do
and helping them with their curriculum people and so on
. Those are two of the main ones. Of
course, there was the issue of what kind of
training programs should we have for our personnel. We're
still developing courses and we were branching out into such
courses as diffusion of ideas and we're getting into psychology
more and so on. Were actually pulling in people
from psychology so that the whole field of what we're
trying to do with visual aids for evaluation. Talking
about the evaluation, paying our people for evaluation.
I think those are among the major ones. What
about the organization at the time? What was the
size of the membership? What was the budget like
? Where was the headquarters? I'm assuming it was
in Washington? Yes, it was in Washington,
D. C. And you know, at first
we were part of any A but then we branched
off Any A was paying for our director and assistant
director. But then they stopped doing that. We
branched off but we were in Washington, D.
C. And the time I was president, we
had 9000 members, but I think a lot of
them were part of a membership drive where everybody was
out there. We got people who weren't going to
really stay. Teachers, there are some teachers,
there were principles and so on. I think you'll
be fine if a CT had a track for those
people right now, I think, are how many
members do we have now? 2500, pretty well
people at the university level. And, and uh
, school district level, we don't have a lot
going for people outside of this. I read our
professional magazine and so on. It's really directed,
we talked about K-12, but we're talking about what
we would do with K-12, not what the teacher
does. I wish there was some way that a
cT would branch into getting to the teachers. Now
, I believe in the making of these films will
be one way he's either teachers want to tell the
best story the principles do. And if it's a
CT people and love, the people are at the
university are working with them, helping train, they're
setting up workshops for the teachers and the students and
focus on what has learned. I think we could
get a separate track for people in there who are
looking at this as curriculum materials, the standards we
were concerned and I think they participate in this,
but the same as we were concerned with at the
time, we didn't go in the library materials at
all. It was the A. V materials,
the films and the film strips and the flat pictures
and the audio and so on. And what the
standards are aimed a good bit at the what equipment
do you have to have? What personnel do you
have to have? What kind of trading? But
it was a good bit quantitative thing. Was there
a publication that arose out of that effort to identify
those equipment standards? Oh yes. A matter of
fact, Gene Farris and I who eventually and husband
president's office it in the university and I got a
grant and we went around to different schools and we
came up with standards and I think it was under
jeans name that the audiovisual instruction had their first set
of standards. People don't realize that they sort of
forgotten that because later on the librarians came along.
But the results of our study, the field had
their first set of standards and it was published,
If you look back in multi vehicle instruction, you'll
find it. But again, it was pretty much
quantitative. You know, back in the 1960s,
remember at Indiana University group of us, we're looking
at the videotape and he got him down to the
size where it can now be. And I looked
at that, that struck me and I said,
you know, this is the end of our film
library. You're crazy. What do you mean?
I said, I don't know how long it will
take, but our library is based on the fact
that the films are expensive. That is something you
don't always really expensive when they get down cheap enough
and people don't have to random, they're going to
get them this way. I thought that it would
take about five years. It took many, many
years. That was back in the 60s when I
left in 75, the film, like we were
still going fairly strong, but eventually it was a
cheaper materials. I killed it. I'm afraid that
they killed a number of things with it that were
desirable. And that was, we worked with Suri
how you would use the materials. There was the
introduction of the follow up and uh in 1940,
I remember I wrote another article for for educational screen
. It was using a film to correlate your different
subjects. And they had a second grade teacher take
the film Grey squirrel. There was a 10 minute
film, Grey Squirrel. Kids loved it. And
she did everything. There exercises everything. And showed
how you would correlate with the film became as stimulus
for a lot of other activities. Where is that
now? I don't know. What are the tools
that they have in school now? I could go
to school not too many years ago and they're still
using films. They also had filmstrips, the little
stations in case will be studying film ships or set
of slides. Now the computer. And I thank
the Lord. He let me live to see the
computer. That Wonderful computer. But what has it
chased out of the simpler things that we were doing
? I don't know. But the future of the
field, what did the can become in the future
? I'm a little uncertain. As you pointed out
, we don't have the field anymore like we had
when it was tied to the equipment and we could
use that as a means to get the other things
. Now, our field is sort of part of
it has disappeared And that the materials, the computer
, which is a big thing, that's everybody's that's
not ours, but we use the computers and how
we apply it is what makes our field, it's
how we take any of these ideas and apply it
to learning. But again, other organizations are moving
on the curriculum. People especially because we were very
largely curriculum and as a result of my work in
the film war of the film world. When I
was in indiana one year Cincinnati contacted me and asked
me if I would come back, not as audiovisual
director, but as a su Assistant Superintendent charge of
curriculum because our people will recognize for for uh the
curriculum work. So what do I see in the
next five years? I'm hoping this inside of our
schools can give us a thrust. Now we've got
a chance to get something is peculiar to our field
that others don't have. And that's this whole filmmaking
as it relates to the curriculum. And I think
all of our people would do well to learn the
language of the film, the well When I retired
, we came up here, we retired in 75
, but we didn't come up here until 86.
In 1986 I brought my video equipment I had done
some work on when I retired down on, on
the island, I was video graphics and tennis Martha
Tennis court. Tennis agreed. Uh, and I
devised a little contraption tennis shirt shaper, which I
got a patent on, but I, I never
usability how a young professional down and made fantastic use
of it. I made a film of the Stennis
shirt shaper and showing how we had all classes of
film of students come in and it was a swing
suspended uh, with velcro held the ball until they
hit it. And we headed into away, we
thought arcadia stroke, so that, um, and
I made that video When I came up here in
86, I started to photograph some of our people
called know your neighbor with some very interesting people there
. And I ran into one, they told me
about one man by name of Douglas Lawrence, who
was a World War One veteran. He was 92
years old and I got further created with him.
I felt he was one of the great heroes of
World War One. He got the Medal of honor
, he got the Kordic air, He wrote the
book The Fighting Soldier, which is a definitive role
of the fighting soldier, which is at West Point
and the hair raising book of what he did and
cleaning out machine gun that's selling a single handedly.
So I went down, they interviewed Lawrence and got
the pictures agreed to gear and so on. and
10 years later a group taught me in the photographic
video interviewing at World War Two veterans as I interviewed
a dozen of them and we found people at all
ranges including a three star admiral who was on the
submarine tracking the red october. And I had quite
an interview with him and he took me into his
Room where he's got all of his displays and pictures
with Nimitz and amazing stories. So I did 12
of those when he showed those but two hours old
and then I added them down. I did what
your man is doing. I took 35 minutes.
They were in his target as I am. And
in 35 minutes I got a pretty good story.
I added them down each to 10 minutes and we
show those on memorial day to packed audiences who come
in here. Those interviews. In that interview,
I have it on just in them and on the
artifacts they showed the three of them wrote books.
And so we're able to take pictures out of the
books. So I've been doing that. But the
most important thing that may ever do in my life
, if it works out is this inside our schools
, this will have far more reaching things. And
I think if it works and it depends on a
series of things beginning with ACDC, if we don't
get those films out of that classroom to show the
whole project that all my money is wasted. So
we've got to get pictures that show what the kids
do and a learner focused environment. I used to
say learner centered, but I found that people get
confused with the center and in the center you can
have activities are not learner centered. So I've changes
learner focus. I'm focusing on what the learner does
, what he learned, how he construct his own
, his own field. As when you read stories
, you have to construct what you read individuals out
of what you've got in your mind, whole business
of constructivism. So, so, um, I
feel that if this works and we get there are
so many benefits I can see from this. And
the first basic one is the school's interpretation to the
community sitting in support. That is the most basic
one. And then to help other schools see what
could be done. And that's where the films come
in. How do you like the new technology that
you've acquired here recently? Computer software for doing video
editing and multimedia? Well, that, as I
say, I thank the Lord for letting me live
to see it because the simplest program that software program
the Eye Movie and I have the other one.
But my movie, I found so many things I
can do with it, but I really don't need
anything else. When I get into my story,
pardon me? When I get my story is straight
at its, I don't need to dissolve the government
. It's cutting from one shot to another. If
you really want to tell you a story and the
Eye movie enables me to get to the exact frame
the exact anything. So I think it's wonderful,
but I also think that we are doing things with
the computer that we can do simpler, that we
were doing more simpler than a simpler way otherwise.
And I think that the future is going to be
a mix, have the computer doing some wonderful things
, but the individual kid down here, he's not
going to, he may eventually end up with a
laptop. I think the time is going to come
in, practically every kid is going to have and
it's and the and the computer is going to have
to get simpler and cheaper. You ought to be
able to get$150 notebook, I suppose. But
long before that time comes, it's a simpler things
in life that are going to be recognized again,
I think that you're doing with the computer, you
can do much simpler little games, little games that
kids should be playing with each other. And and
I think what about this? And I haven't been
in school lately and I keep wondering what's happened to
the individual having an interface with the movie moving image
. See, we thought we were doing research on
the film. We're really doing research on the moving
enemies and the film carried it and it came separated
when I was rejected on the screen. But the
interfaces with the, with the moving image with a
single image of the color. What are we doing
to have the individual kids get individually in touch?
Well, they're moving image. You can't do it
with a computer and you don't need to do is
give, we should have a little eight millimeter movie
. But now it can be a what the little
and then a little uh, they could have stations
of uh, with the DVD that's with this little
screen. Are we doing that? I don't know
. I think if he had, I think a
city has a lot to do yet with getting the
message to the individual kid. Yeah.