Thursday, February 14, 2013

Treasure Chest Thursday - 1948-49-50 Radio Distance Ed


Treasure Chest Thursday
1948-49-50 Radio Distance Ed


The two booklets shared here in scanned format are remarkable, to me, on several levels.

These booklets were prepared by Iowa State Teachers College (later Northern Iowa University) for the 1948-49 and 1949-1950 elementary school years for the purpose of assisting teachers in teaching their students the twenty-four songs during the year.

My wife and I were students in one-room country schools in western Iowa in these years. These were among my wife, Nancy's, music materials. A stamp on the first inside indicates we would have gotten the radio broadcast over Station WOI, in Ames, 640 on the Dial, the station was part of Iowa State University.

This was an early form of "Distance Education." You will see that the music is the melody line. The radio broadcast would, apparently, play the music, and the teacher and students would learn to sing along. The letter reminds teachers to practice the songs between weekly broadcast, and a review session of the prior week was part of each following week. Lots of good feedback was received.

Truly Amazing!  ;-)
























Families are Forever!  ;-)

2 comments:

  1. I love the distance learning example. What a cool idea!

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  2. I thought you might like that twist. And, it certainly was distance learning. The students in a one-room classroom, with a radio, could have a full orchestra available to sing along with, for example, to learn the song.
    P.S. There is also a note to the teachers to not violate copyright on the song by distributing "copies" of the song... interesting legal sidenote, as well! ;-)

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