Education & Distance Learning Enthusiasts- Westcott going slow on ACTV distance learning

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Westcott going slow on ACTV distance learning

Newsbytes News Network - June 17, 1994

Westcott Going Slow on ACTV Distance Learning 06/17/94 DALLAS, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1994 JUN 17 (NB) -- Westcott Communications told Newsbytes it will move slowly on putting ACTV's interactive technology into its distance learning programs.

ACTV offers a PC-based program called REACT which it says can make any programming interactive, whether delivered by tape, satellite, or cable television. In the last 18 months the company has introduced 130 interactive television titles in reading, math, and vocational education. Westcott owns 21 specialized education networks, eight of which provide specialized training via satellite to about 12,000 downlink sights in the US.

Newsbytes discussed the ACTV contract with Mike Mooney, Westcott's vice president-broadcast services, who called it a "market test." There's no exclusivity on either side in the contract, he noted, and no relation between his deal with ACTV and another deal ACTV recently signed with Turner Broadcasting.

"Westcott is a distance learning provider. We provide programming to individuals in the workplace, as well as in public schools. We train with continuing education everyday, and educate about 6,500 kids in rural schools. It's all delivered via satellite, and we would still deliver the programming in that way. But ACTV will provide us with an interactive response mechanism for the learners to be able to get immediate feedback to choices they might make in the course of instruction, like a multiple-choice test."

So Westcott will set-up a total of 8 sites, in two different networks, with the ACTV technology. One is a tie-in network aimed at kids in grades K-12, which currently has about 1,700 subscribing schools. It's used to bring advanced lessons to rural school children. The other test is with Westcott's Long Term Care Network, which has about 800 sites and helps train nurses and others to work in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

"The question is how well will potential markets adapt to use of the technology," he continued. "That's what we're hoping to prove with the test mentioned in the release. This is a really slick new technology, but what we've learned over the years is that customers don't always adopt new technologies as fast as providers want them to. So we want to do a test with a few sites and see how they respond, so we understand that if we deploy the technology it will be productive."

A year from now, Mooney concluded, his company will look at the results of its tests and decide whether, and how, to expand its work with ACTV. The cost to Westcott of the tests was estimated at $50,000, and the tests will be done this fall.

ACTV drew extensive publicity recently when it unveiled its interactive distance learning technology at the dedication of TCI's new J.C. Sparkman Center for Educational Technology, in a ceremony in which vice president Al Gore participated.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19940617/Press Contact: Annemarie Marek, Westcott Communications, 214-716-5234)

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