Thank you for joining us today. Today we're interviewing
Dr. Bob Heinicke in Colorado Springs, Colorado at the district
11 school media services building and today is December the
11th, 2012 and Bob, thank you
for joining us for the interview. A pleasure.
I know we'll be delighted with the outcome. Will
be. We really appreciate your participation in the history makers
project for AECT. Glad to participate you and
so we'll get started by having you tell us a
little bit about yourself. Well, um you know
, I got into this field through my hobbies really
. Um this is before World War Two when I
was in high school, I lived in Flushing but
I went to high school in lower Manhattan, at
Stuyvasant High School and during the elevator train
rides, I met a fellow student who had the
same kind of passion for poetry that I did.
And so we got would often get together and do
recitations. Then we decided that the recitations really should
be recorded for posterity. And we hunted around and
we found a music teacher had a music shop and
in the back of the shop he had a little
recording studio and he had a disc recorder. Now
in those days, the only recordings that were made
were made on disk directly and the records were actually
cut was a very painstaking process. But any of
that, we would do the rent the place from
him and do these recitations of you know, and
the poems that we've read in the short stories and
so on were the ones kind of ones that high
school students would go for. Um mostly a ground
po. I remember doing a complete recording of the
casket, multi Otto and so on. And then
we got interested in film and film at that time
. That is films of unusual interests and so on
. We're not shown in a regular theaters. You
have these small movie houses. And we used to
go to the 5th and you play house just below
14th Street on Fifth Avenue. I would say films
like Boone well in dali's she and Angelou jean,
Cocteau's Blood of a poet and the Beauty and the
Beast, euros, Ivan's film spanish earth and so
on. And then the war intervened. And so
we're off to the army. After I got discharged
in 1946, I went up to Greeley to colorado
state College and to enroll and I found out that
there was a department that used films and so on
. I'm recordings and did all of this audio visual
stuff that I had gotten a kick out of when
I was in high school. And so I asked
if they had a a job there where I could
be a student assistant and so on, and that's
when I met uh Jim Finn, who's one of
the more famous names in this field, and a
number of other people who eventually like Lafours Dale who
became very well known. Um And that sort of
segued me from my hobbies into what I was going
to do professionally now when I signed up for the
G. I. Bill, you have to specify
what your ultimate goal was going to be. Well
, I said mathematics teacher in college, well I
assume abandoned that I decided that what I really wanted
to do was work in this field, that or
you could have films, recordings, radio, no
television yet. Um And so really uh my hobbies
sort of let me directly into my vocation. Mhm
. And well that segues really nicely into having you
talk about your career path, Okay, Yes,
um and I wanted a major in this field,
as I said up there, but there wasn't any
such thing. Um but I major in secondary education
and the only reason why I did that is that
it allowed me more flexibility in choosing electives and all
the electives I chose were courses that we're taught,
bye Finn and Gilbert in a the audio visual department
. And they were not just courses in how to
do things and so forth. But I remember one
of the most memorable courses that film used Phil Flynn
Finn, I'll get it straight Affinities to teach was
of course in general communications Educations and propaganda, it
was called and it was a very informative and mind
opening. So of course, Well, anyhow Then
, when I graduated with a master's degree in 1949
, I got a call from Colorado Springs asking me
in for an interview for a job there recommended by
Finn. And so I came down to Colorado Springs
, that was Superintendent Lawson. And by the end
of the interview I was an employee of school district
number 11 and I founded this department that we are
, whose facilities we are now using except of course
it was a lot smaller. Um Now of course
with the equipment that they have, it's really an
impressive facility. And so I was in Colorado Springs
for 13 years In 1962. Uh we moved to
California and I started a PhD program under Finn,
who is now at USC. And we were there
for 4.5 years. And when I graduated, I
found out all of a sudden that I was awarded
the dissertation of the year from the School of Education
, which later became the basis of the monograph that
I did for a C. T. Um And
so in 1966 in August of 1966 I was nearing
the end of my doctoral studies. And I got
a call from an executive search agency wanting to know
if I would be interested in creating a media division
within a large publishing house. I asked which publishing
house. And I said well you'll find that out
later. We want an expression of intent if you
are interested, write us a letter and then we'll
go from there. So I said yes I was
interested. And about four weeks later I got another
call and it was from an executive in double day
. And it turned out that double day was the
large book publisher that wanted to start immediate program.
And so I was interviewed by them um In January
of 60 seven and then hired on the basis of
that interview. So during the next two years I
spent my time commissioning and developing films, filmstrips,
reading materials, supplementary readers and number of other items
of educational instructional use. And uh I really had
not intended to make that my career, but I
did want the experience, which I did. Then
I published the monograph and Oli Larson at indiana University
of Red. The monograph was very much impressed with
it and called and asked if I would be interested
in joining the faculty and after some delay occasioned by
events that were going on within, I said yes
and I joined the Indiana Faculty in 1967 as full
professor. Um I'd like to mention that the full
professor was the only tenure rank uh that I ever
held. I was never an assistant professor, I
was never an associate professor, I was hired directly
as a full professor. Um And so indiana.
Um God courses did other things for the Audiovisual center
Until 1990, when I decided to retire, I
retired on my 67th birthday, 1990. Um And
after four years, four years after I retired,
we decided to move back to Colorado Springs and here
we are. Well, thank you. During the
time that I was uh Eranio uh was when I
was elected president of Act. At that time it
was making the transition between D. V. And
Act. Um And the at the same time we
decided to found the educated E Foundation and I became
the first president of the Of that and was president
of the CT Foundation for 10 years. Um During
that time of the Foundation group rather slowly. Most
of the time we're preoccupied with straightening out the relationships
between the association and the Foundation. Um It was
very difficult to get over to certain people and necessity
for separating the Foundation's activities entirely from the Association's activities
and eliminating any possibility of undue influence, which would
have been contrary to the charter that the Foundation had
uh with I. R. S. And so
on. Um So those were pretty interesting years,
so that uh pretty much, you know, cover
see the main trail that I went through in this
field. Okay, We'll get you to elaborate a
little bit on some of your activities at indiana.
Um but first, I'd like you to talk a
little bit about your monograph. Uh tell us a
little bit about the content and the focus of well
, the Mhm. I should preface this by saying
that the main line of inquiry that I've had,
and I will call it research or call it inquiry
really started when I was the audio visual director in
Colorado Springs. And when it started dawning on me
that the way in which we were making large scale
collections of films, like an entire course on film
courses by television and so forth, that media could
take a much better position in the context of instruction
than had been in the past. And the ability
to do complete courses and to create an effect the
whole university or school of through media became a distinct
possibility. And that idea really stuck with me all
through my career. And the monograph, which is
based on the dissertation, as I said, um
supports that and elaborate on it, and posits the
notion that by the introduction of technology at certain levels
of design, that you're really making a paradigm shift
in the way in which education can be structured,
instruction can be designed and so on. Um And
so the monograph really has to do with how changes
in technology and changes in schools of thought can shift
the entire spectrum of how we look at things.
Um I know that 11 chapter, for example is
devoted to the place of Learning theory and that learning
theory must evolve from being stuck in behaviorism or crystal
. And really the chapter is about income, The
Oncoming um information theory of learning of something more elaborate
and more contextual than, say, Gestalt or behaviorism
. And the second chapter had to do with how
paradigms change and why they change and that they often
are a disconnect with what has gone before so that
you don't get a continuous movement from A to B
. It's an interrupted one and it's a shift going
from A to C. So um and the conclusion
of the monograph really is an illustration of why our
field is faced with that type of situation at that
time. Of course. Now we're Talking about 1967
68 69 uh period of time when the monograph was
uh in the dissertation stage. All right. And
that how did that work lead into your area of
inquiry at indiana? Did you elaborate on it?
Oh, I continued there, in fact. And
one of the grants that I had, um which
was the proposition was that educational technology required a different
management model for education than what we're used to with
the classroom unit is the basis of the school.
Um And that led me into a legal analysis or
I should say, an analysis of the legal aspects
of school regulation and law that inhibit the use of
technology. And the report that I wrote was based
on that, that their work impediments put in place
that made it more difficult to use technology on a
wide scale basis. For example, is the class
size. The fact that everything had to be based
on the classroom unit, the way in which finances
were distributed for schools. I remember using the illustration
that uh, one of the projects during the 60s
was a complete course on film by Harvey White from
Berkeley and Physics. And I use the illustration that
if, if I were to buy that series of
films to use in classrooms as a course in physics
, that money would have to come out of supplies
if I hired Harvey White to teach that course live
in the classroom. His salary would come out of
the instructional part of the budget, which is much
, much larger. And so just the way in
which you paid for things, the way it was
there classified makes a difference in whether you discourage or
encourage it. So that was an important part of
the work. The other was looking at how technology
impacts institutions and how technology can change institutions. I
think at the present time we're going through some of
that with long distance education with a computer based courses
that are internet based in that they have the potential
of dissolving those artificial boundaries that separate uh the possibilities
from what is actually going on in the classroom.
So that uh, those initial notions of technology entering
into the instructional process at a higher level followed through
in all of the things that I talked about it
indiana and continue to write about. In fact,
one of the articles that I did on the proper
study of instructional technology um has been used many times
as an example of how that could be applied.
And there was another article follow up article on that
had more to do with the impact on the profession
. The article actually was originally in the proper study
of instructional technology, but Bill Win, who was
editing the journal um after I left, said that
he thought it was too long and could I shorten
the the article? And I said, well,
I don't want to shorten it, but what I
can do is take out that one section. Um
that is, I didn't want to shorten it by
by here and they're crossing out a word in a
sentence. So I said, well let's excise that
one article and I'll rework it, re title it
and we'll run it in a future issue, which
is what he did. And that article I think
is really as important as the other one. It
has to do with how technology can change professions and
how professions react to technology. Um, and using
, I used illustrations from, uh, well,
for example, from military history, um, where
, yeah, during the Civil War, when steamships
were introduced into combat and so forth and they were
very successful after the war, the navy went back
to sailing ships because the admiral's felt more comfortable with
that than they did with those belching steam stacks any
out. And that the notion of what the professor
is or what the teacher is could be altered by
the way in which instruction is delivered. Because,
you know, university for example, uh, professors
tend to identify themselves with the classroom with the lecture
hall, you know, and so on chalk on
the back of their coach as they rubbed against the
blackboard. Um, and they don't see themselves as
being associated with technology. Well, your work um
was pivotal in that regard. And I think shifting
our focus as a field away from focusing on technology
in and of itself to technology is part of a
system and with regard to your work in that area
and instructional management and informing instructional design and it also
teacher education. Can you talk about your also seminal
work in the textbook that's still used broadly today,
Melinda Russell now small dino. Um and I know
it's changed some since that's how it was when I
used 10 years ago, but talk a little bit
about your role in that. Well. Uh you
know, there, as you mentioned, there were
three of us involved myself mike mullen and Jim Russell
and each of us will give you a different story
as to how this book came about, but I'll
have to set the record straight uh mm in the
first place when I was working with double day,
The two years in New York publishing is a very
close knit universe. And I got to be very
good friends with a guy at john Wiley and and
he knew my previous work before taking over the job
in publishing and he wanted me to do a book
that well. In effect it was like the book
that Jonathan put together on research history and research articles
, practices trends et cetera. And I wasn't really
at that time particularly interested in that. But later
he said would you like to do a basic textbook
in the field? We feel that the it's ripe
for it. The dale is is out with it
and shoulder isn't going anywhere. There are some other
paperbacks but you really need a new text. And
so I signed a contract with them uh to do
the text. Well, I happen to be in
California at the time on sabbatical when I got a
call from Melinda and during the conversation, Melinda mentioned
that Russell had gotten a call from a paperback publisher
who wanted to put out a quick and dirty educational
technology media book. And Russell, last mike,
if you are interested in. Well, I made
a decision at the spot on the spot. I
knew I was not going to do this thing all
by myself. And so I said to mike,
how would you guys like to go first class?
That rather than this paperback thing, we've got a
good publisher, hardback stuff, good editorial support,
Why not? And so he called Jim and then
they agreed. So I called Wiley had the contract
altered To include the other two guys. And then
we went ahead to putting this thing together and one
of our goals was to make the book intellectually respectable
. I mean, we didn't, the only book
that really was, to some extent, was dale's
book, audio visual methods in teaching in the chapter
that I had on concept learning. Uh and that
was was really worthwhile anyhow. So we decided that
we would do this book, but we would,
as I said, do it in a intellectually honest
way we did. And I think the reception the
book has had panned out uh and, you know
, supported the way in which we thought about it
right from the beginning. It's now, I think
it's in its 10th edition or something like that.
Amazing. That's incredible for a book in the education
area. And what year did you publish it?
Well, my Was it 80 81 and I think
it was on a three year revision cycle. Um
I think it was either 80 or 81, you
know, when you, when you get this far
along date, sort of get mangled up. Well
I use the third edition I believe and uh it
was served my pre service teachers very well and I
know it's still being used very broadly good. The
other the other and notice is the different opinions where
the assure model came, who thought of that when
and of course I always swore that I did yeah
. On one of the trips from bloomington to Indianapolis
uh I suddenly sort of came to me. I
mean it just started falling into place. Um And
so I since I'm the one who's being interviewed here
, I'm the one who thought of the idea of
the assure model. Well, check this against Mike
Melinda interview. Well his has already been finished,
He's finished. You're going to have to put in
the addendum on it. Well, let him have
another side. Yeah, why not? I don't
know about Jim. You'd have to slow him down
to talk to him about it. I'll try.
Jim. Jim was always the pusher. I mean
he's really, yeah, I remember one time talking
to Jim Brown uh in California and Jim was part
of the brown louis harclerode. That was the other
edition that went into more than one edition of the
, you know, had about four or five and
I'll tell you the gym. And I, and
he asked, well who is going to be doing
this text with you? And I said, well
, Jim Russell and he said, well if Jim's
in it'll finish, you'll get it done. And
I believe in, you know, uh it was
an interesting team, my really never wanted to get
the thing off the drawing board, he liked working
on it and and he just couldn't get to part
with it to give it to the publisher and say
now it's ready, you know, jim on the
other hand, like to get it done and he
wanted it done, he was more like James thurber's
uh comment that don't get it right, get it
published. Mhm And so I was sort of in
the middle of the three of us with bike being
recalcitrant jim wanting to push ahead and I had to
balance a bunch, Here's a mediator now in writing
that book. What were your primary contributions, which
parts of the content? Well, the first chapter
uh definitely the last chapter. Um and I think
boy, it's hard enough, I think I did
the motion picture chapter and maybe a couple of others
audio chapter Uh part of the 2nd chapter, which
was where the assure model came in. Um,
and then the instructor's manual. I wanted that to
be intellectually worthwhile reading. And so I put a
lot of material in there. For example, the
discussion of Marshall McLuhan and the importance of the,
the ideas and the concepts that he was noted for
. Um, and then the future of the last
chapter on the future of the field and so forth
that I had a good deal to do with.
But we all pitched in on, on the chapters
, although certain chapters were given to certain people.
Okay, well it's had a tremendous impact on our
, our field as well as pre service teacher education
. I know teacher. So thanks for all the
good work. Let's see what were some of the
major ideas or approaches that stimulated your professional growth mm
ideas or approaches, I would say, knowing people
like charlie Hogan and Jim Finn um Finn was very
important in the field and that uh he broadened our
concept of what we're about in this business, you
know, he was the push behind getting the research
journal started in the first place, the Audiovisual Communication
Review, a VCR um which later became an education
community, what's it called now? Okay, very
good, good title. Um and charlie Hoban was
one of the most knowledgeable guys in the field,
um not very well known amongst the number of people
, but uh huh uh he was a major contributor
to the analysis and codification of research in this field
nearly days did a very, very good job.
He also had written a book called Visualizing the curriculum
which contained the basic diagram that day or later expanded
into the cone of experience. And charlie was one
of those guys who was a very bright intellectual,
but with a lousy sense of direction sometimes. Yeah
, I mean, in other words, he could
have capitalized on that, visually visualizing the instruction,
um but never did, you know, let it
slide to do some other things and they'll picked it
up and made a going thing out of it uh
with his audio visual methods and methods in teaching.
Incidentally in the last edition of his book, he
footnotes me in a chapter and referring to something that
I had written and by name footnote to me in
the book, I was pleased with that. Yeah
, Dale's book. So, okay, uh getting
back to the Foundation. Um one thing I really
regret about the years with the foundation is that we
didn't have enough as many fundraisers as we should um
was, and we spent too much time on internal
matters and not enough time on promoting the thing.
I remember when uh uh Dick Lewis and jerry kemp
got together and put together a filmstrip on promoting the
Foundation that they designed and properly. So to be
given to the president. For example, whenever he
goes around making speeches to the various state associations,
he should always use that promotional film strip, but
I doubt if it ever really got used that much
. Um And later on now when the keeper took
over after I left, the keeper was more of
a promoter and he and Woody Miller from colorado um
did a lot of promotional work and very good promotional
work to build the build up the funds and the
coffers. Mhm. But I remember sitting with the
guy from U. C. L. A.
Dean Mccloskey arrived from Denver to Boulder, talking him
into parting with$10,000 for that scholarship that is in
his name now that we still give today. Yeah
, well thank you for that. So you're still
making an impact. Great now you've talked a little
bit about this already but here's an opportunity to elaborate
maybe and mentioned some other people. But one of
the questions is who are some of the people who
have had the most impact on your professional growth?
Yeah I mentioned Finn and Hoban, I got to
know charlie very well. Uh He was a very
human guy um and he was at the University of
Pennsylvania. In fact Dick Clark studied under him for
a while at Penn. Um And then Finn of
course uh Finn was a very imposing character. First
place he was about six ft three um and used
his height to his advantage all the time. He
loved getting close and looking down in an intimidating manner
. Uh huh um, But we were very close
as I said, Our Association started in 19 The
end of 1946, beginning in 1947. Um and
we're friends for a long time and he was most
of most inspiration. It's hard for me to think
of others. I've known other people whose work I've
admired like Len Silver and uh very smart program instruction
and so forth. Um Louise benton or rather Louise
Wagner who contributed so much to the organization. She
was, I was friends with her for some time
old Bill Allen for his work and in research.
So they were only Larson. I I can't forget
only Larson all. He was head of the indiana
program for in fact, he started it build it
up and had a very large supporting apparatus there.
I mean, he supported so many graduate students in
the audio visual department and the film library that they
had in the production facilities that they had. He
had the whole thing on a revolving funding basis.
Um And the way that started was right after World
War Two, oh, Probably about 1947 or eight
. Um The president of Indiana University, uh Wells
was going to be going to Washington on a trip
and only learned about it. And so he arranged
to get passage on the same train and road to
Washington with Wells and convince him that he should give
him a sufficient grant that he could start this library
and make itself supporting. And he did. I
mean, he got the money, build it up
, native, self supporting and as a result,
was able to expand and hire all those graduate students
and therefore build up the program. and you know
, indiana at that time was the largest programme in
the field. Uh and it was all due to
holy only I have to telling kind of an anecdote
about Oli on myself. Only when only hired me
and got me on board as full professor, half
of my duties were supposed to be with the audio
visual center. Well only and I have different opinions
on how this should work. Mhm. Um He
wanted me to have a lot of responsibility, but
no authority. He wanted to keep the authority and
so we didn't get along very well in that regard
. And so when it came time for me to
come up for tenure, okay. Only called me
in, we sat down and after Ginny chatting about
the situation in the world and all that, Oli
said bob, you know, I'm not going to
recommend you for tenure. And I said, Oh
, that's OK, ali. And that was the
end of that conversation. And sure enough, I
mean he did not recommend me for tenure, But
obviously I got 10ured and I really attribute that to
mental Sherman that I found out later that Mental went
to bat for me in the school of that.
Um, and that they did award me tenure.
The other factor that was involved was that all he
was about to retire in about another year. And
I'm sure that it went through the Dean's mind and
anyone else who was involved in the higher echelons that
if only was going to stay on for any period
of time, the rancor that would have been caused
between us would not be a good thing. But
if he's only going to be there for a year
, if this guy is worth it, then keep
them and let only retired, unhappy for, Well
, I don't know if only retired, unhappy very
how, but it went through and so I was
Awarded 10ure, but it was interesting moment, wow
, What were some of the most important trends in
the field during your career? Well, of course
, I remember, you know, I'm I my
career started in 49, so it started pre television
um and radio and film and so forth, photography
and graphics or with the main part of the field
. Well, then that meant that I witnessed the
introduction of television, television came in, made a
big splash, videotape, etcetera. Um and then
of course then programmed instruction came in. Um Then
the computer started making itself felt both in computer managed
instruction. In fact, it was at first mainly
in computer managed instruction, using it in that sense
, not in the delivery of instruction. Later of
course became delivery of instruction. Um and that came
in and made a vast change. Then of course
the result of both television and computers, we had
um the distance learning efforts or whatever you call it
now. Um And so and then the introduction of
enough internet work that, as I said before,
we're starting to erode those boundaries between the units and
education. Doing away with artificial concepts of classroom school
etcetera. We'll always have them of course and they
will always be important. But there will also be
this other framework allowing much more flexibility and how these
things are. The only thing that I worry about
is if it gets scattered too much, will it
maintain quality? I mean, I think quality control
is one of the main issues and distance education and
internet type education, you're not alone in that concern
. And the other is maintenance that, well,
that's part of quality control. But maintenance, you
know, it's easy enough to design the course,
putting it in his format. But then two years
later it needs to be revised. Well, who's
going to take the responsibility for doing the revision or
something needs to be corrected. Something needs to be
added. Uh Is there continuing supervision of that or
do we treat it as a one shot deal?
I think that's going to be a crucial, crucial
issue. It is okay. What do you think
has been the greatest accomplishment of your career? And
why? Easy question. My 13 years is editor
of the journal. Well, I suppose from an
outside point of view, um I mean in other
words, someone not knowing anything about this and looking
at what is there would probably say, being named
a distinguished alumnus by the University of Northern colorado.
As a Trailblazer in the field. And you have
been I I was very pleased with that. So
I have one last question for you. How would
you like to be remembered within our professor? Someone
, someone who opened the door um who showed a
different way. Mm You know, I saw the
field for more than these individual little pieces and that
made it can make a whole. Um and I
think my insight into the nature of the uses of
all I could say power within the field. That's
something that is underrated. I don't have to mention
the the other aspect of that interested me in technology
and its impact on institutions, its impact on on
the roles people play. Yeah. Um and the
the way in which we look at teaching as a
sociological function, the sociology of teaching in relation to
technology I think is fascinating. Um and we could
learn a lot from sociology, uh certain aspects of
sociology and apply it to our situations for example.
Um in a little book called the presentation of self
and everyday life by erving Goffman, he mentions that
a category of people we call non people. Um
there are things like waitresses, bartenders, uh policeman
, bus drivers, people who are important functioning roles
, but you don't pay attention to them, They're
kind of non existent. And when you use of
films extensively in a classroom, for example, very
often we treat the teacher as a projectionist. Mhm
. Um It becomes a non person in the scheme
of things and that's resented and rightfully so. Um
it's very silly to do it that way for for
example, and then it results and sometimes a teacher
striking back um during that heyday of making film courses
, the course in physics was used throughout Wisconsin.
This was and this was Wicks bailiwick, I mean
, he was in charge of this project of showing
the harvey white physics films and the whole state of
Wisconsin. And the usual question, can the films
teach the course as well as, you know,
bump, bump, bump, uh, lousy question
, but anyhow. Um but they, the interesting
part about that experiment was the sort of uh on
the side discussion of teachers reactions to the use of
the films in the classroom. For example, some
teachers show the films deliberately out of focus. Some
teachers show the film without the sound being on all
the time. You know, in other words,
there were these odd cases of sabotage. Uh I'm
not saying this universe, I'm just saying these things
happen. And uh, we had this case of
sabotage because teachers resented the intrusion of these things into
their classrooms and I don't play them. You know
, I'd react the same way. Um, so
it's that type of thing where, for example,
let's take the overhead projector. The overhead projector was
accepted very readily by teachers. I mean, there's
one piece of technology that look why it's an extension
of the blackboard. It's their power station. Now
, if you introduce closed circuit television or some other
comprehensive means of technology, the resentment is there many
times because they feel they are not a part of
that process. Um, so that that whole area
of of the relationship between technology and the individuals.
So that whole area of of the relationship between technology
and the individuals teaching process, I think it is
understudied and so on. I think you've just given
some of our grad students some fodder for future research
. Oh, I would. I would urge someone
young, mm. Would you like to make any
parting remarks? Oh, I don't know. Outside
of the fact that I enjoyed this very much and
I hope it's have used to somebody. I know
it will be. Well, thank you bob for
joining us here today. We really appreciate your contribution
to a ct into this project. Well, thank
you. I enjoyed it.