Patent GB-968601-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to instruction devices
Inventor: NEWMAN EDWARD ARTHUR
IPC: G09B7/08
Filed: 1961-05-04
Abstract: 968,601. Educational appliances. NATIONAL RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. May 3,1962 [May 4, 1961], No. 16239/61. Heading G5G. In an instructional apparatus for presenting information to a learner as a series of discrete units the information is recorded on a suitable medium e.g. film, gramophone record, magnetic  tape, as a series of major steps or units of information and also as a series of sub-units which may in turn be broken down into sub-sub-units. After each major unit has been presented to the learner he carries out an operation to indicate whether or not he has understood the information contained therein. If his response indicates that he has, then a first code associated with the unit of information on the record material causes movement of the medium until the next unit is reached; but if his response indicates that he has not understood, then a second code on the medium causes one or more sub-units to be presented which give the information in more detail or more simply. Any of the sub-units may be further explained by one or more sub-sub-units. As shown the record medium is a 35 mm. film strip 11 which passes through a gate 12 between storage spools 13, 14 and is propelled by sprocket wheels 15 and a motor 16. A projection system for the strip comprises a lamp 17, condenser 18, lens 19, mirror 20 and screen 21. The film has sprocket holes 22, Fig. 2, and frames of which the middle portions 23 are occupied by verbal or diagrammatic instructional matter. On one side of each frame in an opaque portion of the film is a set 24 and on the other side is a set 25 of transparent portions each of which forms a code which may be of a binary digital nature. When a frame is in position for projection the transparent code portions underline two banks of photo-cells 27 either of which is connectable to a short-period store, consisting of bi-stable transistor circuits, in dependence on the learner's response to the information presented by the frame, such response being indicated by the pressing of one of two push-buttons. The code 24 or 25 is then read by the corresponding photo-cells and is fed to the store, the output of which passes to a control unit which operates the motor 16, the code determining the direction and extent of movement of the film. The movement of the film through the gate 12 is sensed by photo-cells aligned with transparent portions 26 of the film and the information is passed to the store so that the motor is stopped when the required number of frames has passed. An auxiliary store is used when a sub-unit is required more than once in an instructional programme, a special code digit being added to the appropriate frame for this purpose. If a gramophone record or magnetic tape is used instead of film two extra channels are used on which pulses representing the codes are recorded;three pickup heads are used, of which one relays the information to headphones or a loud-speaker and the other two are connectable to a store the output of which controls the drive to the gramophone or tape machine. The instructions may be presented visually and audibly simultaneously, or in tactile form e.g. in Braille, for the use of blind persons.