Since April 1997, SAIDE has conducted intensive educational media research commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Education Department and the national Department of Education. Part of this research focused on school-based broadcasting, which was reported on in the last edition of OLTDE. SAIDE also conducted research into possible broadcasting interventions for adult education and youth development for SABC Television Education.

In parallel to both these processes, SAIDE made recommendations to the SABC on the use of technologies other than radio and television. Whereas - on the face of it - this may seem to be an obscure research focus, given that the SABC’s primary business is broadcasting (and hence television and radio), SABC Education recognized the need to investigate the possibilities of using other technologies to support its broadcasting and wanted guidance on how this should be approached. In addition, SABC Education required direction on its strategic choices in using technologies in general.

The resulting research report, entitled ‘Educational Technologies: Strategic Choices for SABC Education’ presents some interesting lessons for use of technologies in education in general. Although these reports are not yet publicly available as they remain under discussion within the SABC, this article focuses on two following key generic concepts articulated in the report:

We thought it necessary to first establish an appropriate conceptual framework for making effective decisions, before providing strategic recommendations to SABC Education. Hence we identified two approaches that may be followed to make effective educational technology decisions. In doing so, we drew on two documents previously developed by SAIDE, which outline two broadly different scenarios and has application to any organization making decisions about educational technology use.

The first approach is relevant in environments where the educational intervention is centred on a specific technology. For SABC Education, its current educational interventions are focused on broadcast. Decision-making focuses on broadcast technologies, thus fulfilling the SABC’s mandate as a public broadcaster. In this scenario, SABC Education selects technologies with a primary intention of supporting a broadcast intervention. This approach was initially developed as part of, and provided the conceptual platform for, the report to the SABC entitled SABC’s School-Based Educational Broadcasting Service. We developed detailed plans for the way in which print, telephones, video and audiocassettes, and the Internet could support the broadcast component of School TV.

In the United Kingdom, part of the British Broadcasting Company’s budget is now allocated to online services, which draw on the broadcast activities but function independently to these. In the Netherlands, a similar two-track approach is being explored. Dutch exploration into use of online services for distribution of audio and video resources is being made possible by rollout of a broadband network, through which schools access the Internet. Full-screen video material is accessed directly via computers. Besides distributing its video resources online, the Dutch broadcaster aims to build on the educational benefits of the Internet and exploit its interactivity. While archive video material is a component of the online service, this is integrated into a holistic learning resource package on identified curriculum topics.

Whereas this approach opens significant new opportunities, it also threatens to lead to a new cycle of unbridled, and misplaced, optimism about the educational potential of new technologies. Thus, the thorough approach outlined for this changing scenario becomes increasingly important if SABC Education, in taking advantage of these changes, is to avoid many of the earlier mistakes made internationally by educational broadcasters with the advent of television.

While these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, their underlying logic presented different strategic pathways for SABC Education. Two questions became relevant from a strategic perspective:

1. Should the SABC use technologies other than radio and television primarily to support broadcasting interventions?; or

2. Should the SABC use technologies other than radio and television both to support broadcasts and use them independently of broadcast-based interventions?

It was felt that the first decision-making approach is likely to remain of more immediate importance to SABC Education, because opportunities for the public broadcaster to develop educational technology interventions separate from broadcasting remain limited in South Africa. In our report to SABC education, we stressed that both are, however, critical to ensuring that systematic and thorough planning processes precede educational technology decisions.

In the next section, we further explore a recommendation made to SABC Education – which relates to building a flexible, digital information base - as it has application to a range of educational organizations.

SAIDE recommended that SABC Education establishes and maintains a base of information. The rational for this is best explained by outlining opportunities and challenges apparent in changes in information and communication technologies (ICTs) and illustrating how these technologies can be used to improve functioning. These changes and suggestions have application to a range of educational organisations, and as such reference to broadcasting or SABC Education specifically can be viewed as illustrative.

Notwithstanding all of the uncritical hype around emergent ‘information societies’, it is becoming clearer that information now plays a crucial role in many aspects of society. Perhaps the most obvious of these is that the ability to harness information effectively is a crucial differentiator in the performance of organizations. Broadcasters play a crucial role in producing and disseminating information. Likewise, the process of education is – in many ways – the construction of a set of services around information, which focuses on helping learners to convert that information into meaningful knowledge upon which they can act to improve the quality of their lives, whether it be intellectually, economically, socially, or personally.

Thus, it is vitally important for educational broadcasters (and education providers) to focus attention urgently on consolidating the information resources that they have created since their inception and currently have at their disposal. In this regard, we refer not only to the obvious information resources that broadcasters or education providers have – audio and video or content resources – but also the vast quantities of management information that passes through such large organizations on a daily basis.

It is important to develop strategies for turning management information into an organizational asset. Many of the recommendations we outlined to SABC Education depend for successful implementation on having access to reliable, up-to-date information, compiled with the least possible effort in a wide range of potential combinations. This might include:

Of course, this type of information has always been crucial to the success of educational interventions and educational broadcasting projects. However, the rapid growth in functionality of information and communication technologies (ICTs) opens possibilities for building and exploiting information bases in ways that were simply not possible even two or three years ago. In particular, the following developments are worth noting:

Of course, the above sounds, in many ways, like the marketing jargon of information technology suppliers, elements of which have almost been repeated to the point of cliché. Indeed, such is the speed of communication and effectiveness of information technology marketing that, taken on their own, none of the above points necessarily even sounds particularly innovative, notwithstanding their relative novelty as developments.

The rapid digitization of information and consequent ease of its dissemination is creating an important shift in emphasis regarding its value. Historically, information has been regarded as a product, which people were happy to purchase, to the financial benefit of those social structures that controlled and profited from its production and dissemination.

While certain types of information will continue to retain value in this traditional way, the vast bulk of information, once it has been developed or collated, now rapidly loses value. Printed catalogues of information become redundant almost as soon as they are printed because this information changes so quickly. Cheaper and easier reproduction and communication of information very quickly erode the strategic and economic advantages emanating from having produced that information. Access to multiple sources of information via the Internet is making it harder to identify the source of new ideas, while the rapidity with which new information can be circulated reduces the time for which it can be regarded as ‘new’.

These changes make it essential to find ways to use information quickly in as many different ways as possible before it loses its value. These need to focus on re-using information in different ways without generating significant additional cost. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to establish effective information systems, which can allow for quick and easy manipulation of information once it has been developed or gathered. It is also advisable from this perspective to invest slightly more energy in gathering and compiling information (which would focus on making it as generically applicable as possible), with a view to increasing its versatility and the strategies that can be used to disseminate it. Although this creates some additional costs initially, these can easily be amortized across the range of options that then become possible for communicating this information or using it to support a diverse range of educational opportunities.

Possibly most importantly, it becomes essential to develop effective strategies for storing information in ways that allow it to be very easily manipulated for future purposes. Of course, in instances where security of information is important, it is easily possible to restrict access to it by adding a range of levels of security.

Another point emerging from the above discussions is that increasingly value lies not in possessing information, but rather in developing the skills and capacity to manipulate it effectively for new applications. Thus, the future of broadcasters will increasingly depend not on the information and resources that they have, but rather on the services that they are able to provide around that information.

This indicates clearly the importance of developing management information systems that allow for cheap, easy, and logical storage and retrieval of information. There is obvious added benefit to creating interfaces to information that enable users to engage with certain types of information themselves with little or no intervention by other staff members. This type of service can easily and cheaply add significant value to information bases.

This can also very cost-effective, because changes made to the database are reflected automatically via the web interface. The integration of levels of security into database structures allows for de-centralized entry of data by the people responsible for that data. A web interface simplifies hardware and software requirements for almost all users, and can be used to create user-friendly computer interfaces. All of the above supports cost-effective institutional shifts towards building flexible and relevant information services.

The primary purpose of this recommendation was to significantly enhance SABC Education’s operations in either scenario. We urge all educational providers to seek and maintain flexibility in the way they use technologies so that resources can be used in multiple ways. We are sure that sound decision-making approaches, trends in ICT development, and the importance of developing well-managed information bases are of general relevance to educational organizations.