In the twenty-first century, scheduled television programming, especially in the educational environment, has increasingly become an anachronism in the world of 'open learning' and 'flexible delivery'. 'Anywhere, anytime, anyhow' has become one of the key tenets for provision of educational resources. Hence the burgeoning availability of educational resources through the Internet, in particular on the World Wide Web. Similarly, there is more and more pressure to make 'modern educational resources' interactive if they're to be acceptable to the broader educational community. In this context, that interactivity is usually via a computer, more often than not through the Internet and live chat-rooms not withstanding, usually happens asynchronously - that is, at a time when it best suits the student or the provider/teacher. However, the best educational resource in the world (television program, video etc.) is really of little or no value if nobody knows about it, has easy access to it, or ultimately watches it.
The Department of Education, Employment and Training's digital television service - Schools' Television - has been providing Victorian schools with a broad and diverse range of video-based resources for the best part of the last ten years. As the demand for rich media educational content has increased and the need to provide it to end-users in the "anywhere, anytime, anyhow" framework has gained momentum, the experience, expertise and products of the Schools' Television team (part of the Digital Video Services Unit within DEET Victoria), have become myriad and should be of great interest to content providers and producers everywhere. This paper will highlight a range of the Unit's experiences, illustrate some of their products and discuss the varying approaches to creating and producing it. It will also look at some of the delivery and access options used over the last ten years and discuss some of those under consideration for the next ten.
