GB1287304A - Educational television systems - Google Patents

Abstract

1287304 Teaching machines E M KOOS 24 Nov 1969 57382/69 Heading G5G [Also in Division B8] For use in a television teaching system wherein a teaching programme is transmitted from a central station to one or more local stations, the apparatus of Fig. 1, is provided at each local station and includes means for dispensing tangible rewards to students who give correct answers to questions posed by the programme. The programme may be transmitted by wireless or closed circuit means, the same programme being sent simultaneously to all local stations. The transmitted signals include coded "correct answer" signals which may either be superimposed on the audio carrier signal as different frequency tones detected by filter circuits at the local stations or made part of the video signal and received at the local station as patterns of light and dark on the receiver screen and detected by photo-cells. Figs. 2 to 5 (not shown) depict circuitry whereby an answer given by a student operating the push buttons 115 to 118 of a console 140, Fig. 1, is compared with the correct answer. The comparison results in an output signal which is in a two-digit binary code wherein 00 represents no answer, 01 an incorrect answer, 10 a correct answer and 11 more than one answer (which is taken to indicate guessing and interpreted by the system as a wrong answer). The answer given by each student (each having an individual console 140) at any one local station is indicated by pairs of lamps 48, 49 in an instructor's console 18, the lamps displaying the above mentioned two-digit code. Each time any student gives a correct answer, a reward token is dispensed to him. The set of answers given by each student may be transmitted back to the central station and there recorded. Although all of the above described functions may be automatically controlled from central station, the system can be adapted for local control (i.e. control by a teacher at each local station of the means whereby the correct answer is conveyed to each student's console): in the latter case, push buttons 139, 142 are used by the teacher to selected correct answers and the transmitter 19, for sending the answers back to the central station, can be omitted. At each local station, there may be a single television screen 12 visible to all the students, each of whom will respond on an individual console 140 of type A. Alternatively, the students' consoles 140 may be of type B in which the student has his own screen which receives the transmitted pictures as well as or instead of the screen 12. Each student's console, Figs. 7 (not shown) and 8, includes a storage shoot 153 containing reward tokens, a distribution shoot 155 and a set of dispensing shoots 156 to 159, one for each of the push buttons 115 to 118 of Fig. 1. When any button is depressed, a corresponding one of four members 177 is pivoted away from a position blocking an outlet aperture in the distribution shoot 155 and the inlet end of the relevant dispensing shoot. If the answer given is correct, a device 165 is operated to release a token from the shoot 153 and deliver it to the shoot 155. Thus whenever a correct answer is given, but not otherwise, a token is released from the storage shoot and dispensed from one of shoots 156 to 159 into a receptacle 143 to 146 corresponding to the answer given.