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The Mateel Video College Proposal

(1984)

As someone who has had a fairly long on and off again involvement in various alternative projects, many of which were focused on or around some sort of alternative college of New Age ecological education and lifestyles*, I believe this new VideoCollege approach may be just the thing needed to bring these alternative community college plans into reality without going into enormous expenses and complex organization. This "Mateel VideoCollege" proposes a new type of educational service that could provide a source of inexpensive yet highly professional and accredited learning and skills training for as many students (of all ages) as our educational organization could handle. In other words, thus far this new service has NO serious competition anywhere in America. Yes, there are some organizations that produce and market videocassette instruction tapes in their own particular areas of expertise (mostly in the personal growth and self-help therapy fields), but at present there is no single college of videocassette instruction offering a wide range of education and skills training that could eventually match the broad curriculums of major colleges and universities. We could be the first to do so and only our development funding would limit how extensive and successful this Mateel VideoCollege could become.

This Mateel VideoCollege doesn't require a campus. It only needs a large cassette library, a computerized indexing, record-keeping, mailing, and bookkeeping system and office space, video and sound recording equipment and trained crews to run them, videocassette duplicating equipment, a minimum staff of workers and business/educational managers, and a large national advertising budget offering our courses in all major magazines, newspapers, and other ad display outlets. Videocassettes are "in" these days and all the necessary electronic hardware exists throughout the nation. Instant local video "classrooms" could be set up wherever a VCR unit can be used. The student viewer doesn't need to live near any college or university to receive top instruction. Homes, libraries, schools, and private video-rooms anywhere in America would be the "campus" of the Mateel VideoCollege.

Our Mateel VideoCollege would send out trained video-recording crews to tape the nation's top teachers and artisans at work doing what they expertly do and are known for. Video-recording means the student not only receives verbal instruction but also visual demonstrations to reinforce each part of a particular learning series. Editing the final tape programs insures the student gets only concise instruction, free of unrelated discourse or distraction. The video instructor doesn't have to worry about "off days" and can put her or his very best teaching style forward which will not only help keep students from becoming bored but will also compress lecture times down to fewer, but more quality-filled hours of instruction. VideoCollege cassette courses would offer teachers and professionals an added, if not primary, source of income by receiving royalties from the sales and rentals of their taped programs.

Courses offered would be geared to meet student interests and professional degree requirements in addition to the Mateel's emphasis on ecological alternative social, political, economic, technological, cultural, and personal instruction specialization. With the whole sense dimensional advantage of audio-visual presentation over verbal instruction alone, the Mateel VideoCollege could provide perhaps a superior overall learning experience for most students. Videocassette learning will allow each student to learn at their own individual pace. There would be no "class" to keep up with or held back by. And, of course, the main advantage to the Mateel VideoCollege system would be its low, low cost to students compared with the staggering costs of attending college, universities, and even trade schools these days.

Well, this is the proposal. We have the credentialed staff to make it "official" and trained video-recording technicians living right here to begin operation if we can fund it. Our community also has more than its share of experts in many different skill areas that this organization could provide a channel to make a living off their professional talents.

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