ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the educational advantages and disadvantages of the new medium for distance education with those of its parent broadcast television. It examines the availability of video cassette technology and discusses likely further developments in its educational use. Video cassettes are a comparatively recent and still evolving educational medium. Cognitive abilities can be enhanced by appropriate design of video-cassette material itself. In 1982 the Open University launched its first course to employ television programmes designed for use primarily as video-cassettes. Their main aim is to provide primary source material which the course team later draws upon and uses to analyse and exemplify pedagogical theory and principles. The educational potential of video-cassettes is very great and not just for distance teaching organisations. Video-cassettes which are designed to take full advantage of their potential seem likely to play an increasingly important role in the Open University in particular and education in general over the next ten years.
