Technological Development Project

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The Technological Development Project (TDP) was conducted under the aegis of the National Education Association (NEA), although it was staffed with DAVI people, and its reports were ultimately published and distributed by DAVI. The contract¹ began in 1961. James D. Finn of the University of Southern California (USC) served as principal investigator; he remained in Los Angeles while the office and staff were in the NEA building in Washington. 

Finn drew in talented younger members, such as Lee Campion, Donald Perrin, and Donald Ely to work on a wide range of studies of the status of the traditional and emerging technologies in the schools. Campion headed the Washington office for a time before departing for a position with the state education department in New York, at which time Ely took over management of the Washington operations. Ely also worked on a sub-contract to the Commission on Definition and Terminology. The Commission’s work done for the TDP project was coordinated with the definition project that culminated in the major definitional work issued by DAVI in 1963, The Changing Role of the Audiovisual Process in Education: A Definition and Glossary of Related Terms. 

The contract called for a very ambitious program of study and reporting on issues ranging from the uses of AV in the schools from 1930-1960 to the future of the computer in education. The staff was hard pressed to deliver within the original one-year contract period, which was extended to February 1963. 

The publication of the TDP reports was subsidized by the NEA, but DAVI served as the printing and distribution source, as determined after lengthy negotiations with the U.S. Office of Education. Eventually, DAVI produced four monographs as special supplements of AVCR plus four other documents published as TDP reports. 

AVCR Supplements:
TDP Publications:
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1. The project was under contract No. SAE-9073 with the United States Office of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, as authorized under Title VII, Part B, of the National Defense Education Act of 1958.

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