Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive

Making "Ripples" and the Emergence of National Instructional Television (N.I.T.) 1969-1973

Ripples was a thirty-six part educational television series for 5-7 year-olds and was initiated and coordinated by National Instructional Television (NIT) and produced by the Northern Virginia Educational Television Association. The creators of the series prided themselves on creating a televisual educational experience that was focused on helping children process their encounters with everyday people and places, with an emphasis on play and an understanding of human feelings. The concept for the program grew out of a consortium of child educators and television producers, who met in Bloomington in 1969. Their conversations about the future of educational TV broadcasting, with regards to content creation, distribution, and the use of moving image technology as an important teaching tool, marks an important period in the history of educational media, as well as Indiana University's role and continued presence in that history. The following pages highlight some of the materials related to the Ripples program, which are held at the Indiana Libraries Moving Image Archive and are part of a collection that was received from the Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT), which closed in 2015. Individual episodes of Ripples can be viewed at Indiana University Libraries Media Collections Online or by clicking on the "Ripples Episode Gallery" link further down below.   

Credits

Saul Kutnicki, Archivist Assistant