Reflections on our first 40 years

Volume 40(1) marks the 40th anniversary of this journal. This is no mean feat for an academic journal – especially in the fast-changing and short-termist world of educational media. Of course, as befits the nature of the topic, the journal has seen many changes of focus (and indeed changes of title). As way of briefly marking the occasion, we have invited five previous editors to reflect on their time leading the journal. As these reminiscences suggest, this is a journal that has been consistently ahead of its time in terms of foregrounding and critiquing new developments in educational media. This is also a journal that has been at the forefront of pushing back against some of the more hyperbolic elements of the field. These are both traits that we hope will continue for the next 40 years and beyond. Here is to 2055!

Jon Baggaley – 40 years on

Learning Media and Technology began its life at a pivotal moment in British educational technology. The Brynmor Jones Report (1965) had highlighted the value of audio-visual aids in education; and the Plowden Report (1967) had drawn attention to the use of educational media in primary schools. By the early 1970s, universities and colleges throughout Britain had developed their own TV studios, with a professional body, the National Educational Closed-Circuit TV Association, and an in-house magazine, the NECCTA Bulletin. When the Open University delivered its first courses on BBC-TV in 1971, the future of television in the classroom seemed assured.

By 1975, however, NECCTA's (National Educational Closed Circuit Television Association) emphasis on close-circuit rather than broadcast television had rapidly become obsolete, and its membership was dwindling. In a move wittily described by an eminent American professor as ‘a revolt of the young princes at court', the NECCTA Bulletin was renamed the Journal of Educational Television (and other Media), on the understanding that the young princes would take over the editing from the Bulletin editor, Shand Hutchison. I did the job until 1977, and Robin Moss took over until 1980. NECCTA itself was renamed the Educational TV Association. The broader focus had an immediate impact on journal readership and association membership, as broadcasters and teachers gained a common forum for their mutual interests.

The journal's initial volumes contained articles by writers who have led the field ever since. Len Masterman designed a TV news simulation game that I used with communication studies students for many years (1976). Masterman's successful book Teaching about Television was seminal in establishing media studies in the school curriculum. Tony Bates analysed the failure of evaluation and research to improve educational media standards and made policy recommendations (1976). Bates has continued to the present day to influence educational technology and distance education worldwide. Lady Plowden wrote about text-messaging and open learning systems in terms remarkably similar to today's educational media writers (1977).

Like ripples on a pond, the journal's focus continued to widen with the constant introduction of new media until 2005, when it became Learning Media and Technology. But its themes were broad from the outset, and often identical to those of today. Reading the Plowden Report's recommendation that teachers should facilitate as students connect with each other in learning, one could overlook that it was written 50 years ago. Is this because our recommendations go unheeded over the years, and constantly need to be reiterated? A recent critique of massive open online courses by Bates suggests this may be the case:

It was as if 45 years of work was for nothing. All the research and study I and many others had done on what makes for successful learning online were totally ignored, with truly disastrous consequences …  (Bates 2014)

So as we pay tribute to the journal's distinguished longevity, here is an idea to help remind new readers of the old lessons. Why not reprint a 30- or 40-year-old paper in each edition? I would wager many readers would not notice it came from a bygone time!

Forty years on, when afar and asunderParted are those who are singing todayWhen you look back and forgetfully wonderWhat you were like in your work and your play …

(Alan Bennett, Forty Years On, 1968)

Máire Messenger Davies – editing JETV in the 1990s

I have a soft spot for the Journal of Educational Television because it published my very first academic paper in 1985: ‘Unkindest cuts? Some effects of picture editing on recall of televised news information in three age groups’, in Volume 11, issue 2. A proud moment for a part-time Ph.D. student, mother of four, and former journalist. When asked by the current editors for memories of my editorship, these initially came in a series of personal snapshots: Roy Colquhoun, then chair of the editorial board, visiting me in my parents’ sunny garden in Walthamstow in 1991, while I was on vacation from my job at Boston University in the USA, and inviting me to be editor; Roy resplendent in kilt at various convivial Educational Television Association conferences in Bournemouth; me walking on the Bournemouth sea front – a chilly spot in January – with Valeria Lovelace from the Sesame Street research team in New York; (her article about evaluating children's perceptions of race, along with other Sesame Street researchers, appeared in Volume 20, issue 2 in 1994); and frequent trips to the Open University at Milton Keynes to visit the our ‘new technology’ experts there.

These memories seem rather domestic – but when I actually reviewed the issues I had edited, I was struck by the international range of the contributors: from the USA, Canada, Italy, Holland, Israel, New Zealand – and of course many contributors from the UK. During my time as editor, the journal changed its title from Journal of Educational Television to Journal of Educational Media (JEM) in Volume 22, issue 1, in 1996. This reflected technological changes that have exponentially accelerated since then. Audio-visual educational material could no longer just be confined to television. We needed to consider computers, the internet, and the increasing range of portable devices. Nobody anticipated Twitter, Facebook, and Google – but even in the 1990s, we were ahead of the curve in the number of articles we published dealing with ‘new’ technology: for instance, Volume 19 issue 2 was devoted to ‘Multimedia’. It was a privilege to be involved with such an important field of research at such a key moment in its development.

Adrian Kirkwood – editing JEM

I edited or co-edited the JEM immediately after the journal became independent of the Educational Media Association and at a time of important transitions. Firstly, digitisation was making it easier than ever before to integrate various types of media assets. The number of ‘single-medium’ articles declined as interest in multi-media and integrated systems increased. Secondly, use of digital technology was becoming mainstreamed in Western educational contexts, often linked to the potential for connectivity through the internet and WWW.

This time also saw contributors to the journal moving beyond the confines of ‘media specialists’. Manuscripts often came from educators applying new technologies and tools to their classes. Distinctions between on-campus and distance education became less marked as teachers who were primarily involved in classroom-based education were suddenly discovering internet-enabled distance education (often unaware of any other forms of distance education) and Blended Learning. Thirdly, various articles focused on accessibility issues associated with digital media use and with reaching a wider or more widely dispersed audience.

Increased use of digital technologies for teaching and learning was surrounded by considerable hype and predictions of radical changes in educational processes. During this period, JEM published articles critical of technology ‘solutions’. A few contrasted the technical possibilities of digital media and the social realities of technology use, while others argued that for effective implementation pedagogical considerations were at least as important as technical potential.

Cathy Lewin and Martin Oliver – editing Learning, Media and Technology (2005–2011)

The five years from 2005 to 2011 saw important developments in the journal's scope and focus, including the adoption of its current title. In 2005, the journal was re-launched as Learning, Media and Technology, and then in 2006 merged with the journal Education, Communication and Information. This expanded the range of interests we covered and also brought new perspectives onto the editorial board, establishing it within the humanities and social sciences. This was a period in which researchers focused on establishing what was educationally possible with new technologies. Blogs and wikis began to feature, and in 2009, a special issue focusing on ‘social software’ use included the first articles featuring Facebook.

This period is also notable for the beginnings of some less auspicious trends. For example, this was also the era in which articles first began to mention ‘digital natives’, an over-simplification that has proved remarkably hard to shake off. Predictably, many technology-focused articles now feel dated; for example, Interactive Whiteboards arrived in this period on the back of a wave of optimistic policy, but are now primarily taken for granted as part of schools’ infrastructure. Work focused on educational processes (such as e-assessment and feedback) continues to feature today, and research on social media use has become increasingly popular. There are also topics that doggedly remain, such as work on digital games, which are still seen as ‘the future’ in NMC Horizon reports.

• Jon Baggaley is Emeritus Professor, Athabasca University, Canada

• Máire Messenger Davies is Professor of Media Studies, Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster

• Adrian Kirkwood is Senior Lecturer, Open University

• Martin Oliver is Professor of Education and Technology, Institute of Education, University College London

• Cathy Lewin is Professorial Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University