Use Of Interactive Television Research Articles

Dissertation Proposal Defense - "High-Tech Style:" A Student's Perspective on Another Use of Distance Learning Technology

Most discussions of the increased use of distance learning focus on using distance learning technology for providing academic courses, a natural response to the high number of students taking distance learning courses. In fact, by this year (2000) it is expected that 11.6 million students will have taken one or more distance learning courses (Goldberg, 1998 in Banas and Emory, 1998). However, there are other uses for this technology within the educational setting. One such use of distance learning technology in the graducate educational setting is for dissertation proposal defenses, particularly when dissertation committee members are located on university campuses that are geographically separated. This paper is a case study describing such an event: a dissertation proposal defense facilitated by the use of interactive television (I-TV) distance learning technology. Included in this case study is the presentation of a student's perspective on using distance learning technology, supplemented by faculty responses to a survey distributed by the student soliciting feedback on their experiences in participating in the I-TV facilitated proposal defense.

Brief report: use of interactive television in identifying autism in young children: methodology and preliminary data.

Children living in rural and underserved areas experience decreased access to health care services and are often diagnosed with autism at a later age compared to those living in urban or suburban areas. This study examines the utility and validity of an ASD assessment protocol conducted via video conferencing (VC). Participants (n = 17) included families with young children (2.5-6 years) requesting an evaluation for ASD in an interdisciplinary clinic. We randomly assigned families to complete an additional evaluation either in-person or via VC prior to their clinic appointment and compared diagnostic impressions to their interdisciplinary clinic evaluation. Results demonstrate excellent inter-rater agreement on diagnoses between clinicians in the VC setting and the interdisciplinary team, which suggests VC may be a viable method to increase access to autism diagnostic services, and ultimately early intervention, for families in rural and underserved areas.

Monitoring and detection platform to prevent anomalous situations in home care.

Monitoring and tracking people at home usually requires high cost hardware installations, which implies they are not affordable in many situations. This study/paper proposes a monitoring and tracking system for people with medical problems. A virtual organization of agents based on the PANGEA platform, which allows the easy integration of different devices, was created for this study. In this case, a virtual organization was implemented to track and monitor patients carrying a Holter monitor. The system includes the hardware and software required to perform: ECG measurements, monitoring through accelerometers and WiFi networks. Furthermore, the use of interactive television can moderate interactivity with the user. The system makes it possible to merge the information and facilitates patient tracking efficiently with low cost.

Teaching Counseling Skills Using Interactive Television: Observations from a Rehabilitation Counseling Classroom

A review of the rehabilitation counseling literature revealed a dearth of information clinical skill development using distance education mediums. A case study of a Rehabilitation Counseling Practicum I class that used Interactive Television (ITV), a synchronous distance education medium, was undertaken at a large southwestern university. The purpose of the study was to explore, using a qualitative approach, the use of ITV to deliver a counseling skill course to rehabilitation counseling education students. Many studies have examined students' perceptions of distance education, but no studies were found describing the use of ITV in teaching counseling skills via distance education. Using field observations, three major themes were identified: learning environment, skill building, and interactions.

Developing a Pedagogy of ITV Teaching Experience through a Teaching Circle

Objective: Distance learning through the use of interactive television (ITV) has been a part of Social Work education for more than two decades. Amidst abundant proof of the overall successes of ITV programs, there are limited accounts of the pedagogical experiences and challenges encountered by faculty who are called upon to teach distant learning courses. This paper describes a pedagogy of ITV teaching experience derived through a teaching circle in a rural undergraduate program. Method: A teaching circle comprised of four social work faculty enabled data gathering through focused discussion and critical thinking of the ITV teaching experience. Results: Extended preparation, augmenting instructional design and technology to enhance interactivity and instructor comfort with the technology emerge as key observations. Pragmatic barriers like the technology and restricted face-to-face contact are workable challenges. Conclusion: Social Work education would need a sincere examination of the interface of synchronous and asynchronous teaching with sensitivity to context and course curricula.

The Use of Interactive Television in a BSW Program: Comparing Experiences of Distance and Campus-Based Learners

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of interactive television (ITV) on the educational experiences of both distance and campus-based BSW students. Data were collected through questionnaires and semistructured focus groups with students on campus and at distant sites. The study found distinct differences between the experiences of distance and campus-based students in ITV courses. Distance students evaluated the ITV technology significantly more positively than did campus-based students. In particular, campus-based students believed that the technology interfered with the flow of class discussions, and both groups reported a lack of a cohesive community among students from different sites. The article suggests improvements in ITV distance education, including incorporating better classroom management techniques, creating community-building activities, and providing physical environments more conducive to learning.

THE PUBLIC SERVICE VALUE OF INTERACTIVE TELEVISION

‘Red button’ interactivity has become an important feature of the UK's digital television landscape, with the BBC launching over 150 such applications in 2004 alone. Simultaneously, interactive television has become an important site of fulfilling public service remits and providing public value by the BBC. This paper examines the place and purpose of the BBC's interactive television services in the newly developing public service landscape. The paper focuses on the dialectic between the rhetoric of choice that has accompanied digitalisation and the public service remits of universalism, civic value and education to interrogate two prominent cases of the BBC's use of interactive television: news programming and the coverage of the 2004 Athens Olympics. In so doing, I propose that such interactive applications promote choice as a public service value that is both problematic for how public service obligations are fulfilled and how television studies conceives and understands the television text. As a result I suggest that by paying attention to the specificities of television's form, we can usefully draw on new media scholarship to understand the interactive, non‐linear television text as ‘fragmented’. In turn, analysing these interactive applications as a form of textuality we can usefully term ‘fragment’, I argue that whilst choice is not an inherently problematic public service value, its privileging in news programming undermines existing notions of the genre's public service fulfilment.

Using Distance Education to Connect Diverse Communities, Colleges, and Students

This article describes the innovative use of interactive television (ITV) to team teach an introductory social work course between an accredited BSW program at a four-year university and a community college. The project's goals were to (1) enhance students' use of learning technologies, (2) strengthen the linkage between the institutions and the suburban and urban communities, (3) increase student interaction with diverse groups and communities, and (4) support community college students in their plans to matriculate to a four-year institution. Statistically significant findings were obtained with respect to students' use of technology, willingness to interact with other diverse groups, and intentions to progress into a BSW program. Other positive outcomes are also described, such the benefits of this project as a recruiting tool for the BSW program.

Longitudinal Analysis of Student Performance in a Dental Hygiene Distance Education Program

The purpose of the study was to determine if learners who receive face-to-face instruction in an educational program performed statistically better on established benchmark assessments (GPA, course averages, and NBDHE) than learners at a distance from the didactic course instructor. A comparative, quasi-experimental, ex-post facto study was conducted. The treatment variable was program type: face-to-face vs. distance. The performance of five consecutive classes was analyzed, from 1997 to 2001. These five classes consisted of 221 learners, 105 of them at the host site and 115 using distance learning. The experimental groups were divided based upon location--host or cooperating college (distance) site learners. Study results identified no significant difference between host and distance learner performance for the entire educational program. The use of interactive television (ITV) for delivery of an educational program using distance education technology provided acceptable results in learner didactic performance. Learners at both the host and cooperating college (distance) sites performed equally well. The results were used to document program outcomes.

Interactive Television in Schools: An Australian Study of the Tensions of Educational Technology and Change

This paper outlines some key issues that arose from several projects that investigated the use of interactive television in schooling. In this paper we draw on these projects, to illustrate and discuss how a (then) new form of distance education -- satellite-based, narrowcast ITV -- was designated for use in primary (elementary) and secondary (high school) classroom settings, how it was implemented, and how it collapsed as an endeavour. Issues raised by students, teachers and administrators are related to each to illustrate how ITV slowly declined over several years, despite its usefulness for some and strong support from those involved.

Clinical outcomes in telepsychiatry.

A retrospective review of patient records comparing clinical outcomes of patients seen by interactive television (IATV) and those seen in person was carried out to determine whether IATV reduced the quality of psychiatric care. A Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score was determined for each patient in both the study and control groups at the initial visit, and at subsequent visits. Forty-nine patients with either major depression or schizoaffective disorder were studied. No significant difference was found in the percentage change in GAF scores between the two groups, which suggests that clinical outcomes were not affected by the use of IATV. Patients seen by IATV had a greater attendance rate and follow-up visits took less than half the time compared with in-person visits, indicating that IATV was an acceptable and efficient method of providing psychiatric services.

The Use of Interactive Television in Graduate Education

Interactive television was successfully used in the fall semester, 1997, to teach a graduate course on nutrition of horticultural plants to resident students at TAMU—College Station and distance education students at TAMU—Commerce, TAMU—Texarkana, and Tarleton State Univ. These campuses are connected with fiber-optic telephone lines, which constitutes the Trans-Texas Video Conference Network. This medium was used by county extension agents, who are working toward graduate degrees, to progress toward graduation and a higher salary. The lab portion of the course was taught on the College Station campus, but distance sites received only the lecture portion with an option to come to College Station in the summer to take the lab as a separate 1-hour, week-long course.

Student empowerment through the use of interactive television

Videoconferencing, also known as interactive television (ITV), is gaining popularity in the delivery of post-secondary education. Recent experience with this new technology in delivering programs to undergraduate students in a sparsely populated region of British Columbia, Canada, has provided useful insights. It highlights the need to incorporate technological change on the basis of student feedback. More importantly, it demonstrates ITV’s potential to empower students within the classroom.

The Use of Interactive Television in Expanding the Teaching Mission of the Land-grant University

The Trans Texas Video Conference Network (TTVN) has been linked to all Texas A&M Univ. campuses and most of the Regional Research and Extension Centers. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has funded an aggressive project of establishing TTVN class rooms in many departments across the College Station campus, including The Horticultural Science Dept. in 1997. The first two Hort courses taught were HORT 422 Citrus and Subtropical Fruits in Fall 1996 and HORT 418 Nut Culture in Spring 1997. This extended the class room 400 miles south to Weslaco, 300 miles north to Texarkana and Dallas, and 700 miles west to El Paso. Students at each site had video and audio interaction with the professor and with each other. Advantages included the availability of college credit courses to areas where this subject matter did not previously exist, which helps fulfill the Land-grant University Mission. Quality was maintained through lecture and lab outlines on Aggie Horticulture, the department's Web home page, term papers written to ASHS serial publicationspecifications, and rigorous examinations monitored by site facilitators. Lecture presentations were presented via Power Point, which took about twice as long to prepare than traditional overhead transparencies. Administrative problems remain, but will be solved when the requested Distance Education Registration Category is initiated so that subvention credit can be shared. The lecture portion of the graduate course, HORT 601 Nutrition of Horticultural Plants, will be taught in the fall semester 1997 at eight sites throughout the state.

The Use of Interactive Television in Live Supervision

Recent changes in counselor supervision practices are described to include a discussion of the potential use of interactive television as an alternative model. At present, interactive television systems are not used in counseling training programs. Ethical concerns and research issues regarding the use of interactive supervision are also presented.

Health education via interactive television.

Providing health education in rural areas is a challenge because of the time and cost involved in travel to serve small groups of clients in their own towns. Baccalaureate nursing students provided health education to faculty and staff members in five rural high schools simultaneously through the use of interactive television.

The use of interactive television for education: a South African perspective

The use of interactive television for education: a South African perspective

An Evaluation of the Use of Interactive Television in an Acute Psychiatric Service

This study reports the results of the use of a low-cost videoconferencing system (LCVC) for communication in an acute psychiatric service. Qualitative research methodology was used to examine the use of the LCVC in interactions between psychiatrists, patients and nursing staff, including information on refusals. One hundred and five clinical interactions were studied over four months. The LCVC proved technically reliable and compatible with the performance of a wide range of clinical tasks. However, the results suggest the need for better understanding of the nature and origins of the attitudes that users bring to the use of such communications technology. A framework is presented for the classification of user responses in terms of preexisting attitudes of the users, technological limitations of the system and the mental state of the users. The study demonstrated the potential for interactive television to support many of the communication tasks necessary in a dispersed psychiatric service and for telepsychiatry to become a major method of service provision.

Interactive television in psychiatry

Population movements away from large cities and congestion in urban areas create problems for the delivery of psychiatric care which are compounded by the move towards greater care in the community. These developing service patterns require adequate methods of communication between service components. There is a proliferation of new technology offering opportunities for improved national and international communication in psychiatry as in other branches of medicine. It will be important to decide which technological innovations will improve the efficiency of service delivery rather than end up as expensive ‘gadgets’, or solutions looking for problems to solve. In this paper the use of interactive television in psychiatry is reviewed and the implications for the evaluation of new communications technology are discussed.

Use of interactive television for outreach nursing education

(1991). Use of interactive television for outreach nursing education. American Journal of Distance Education: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 57-66.