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The first
Lake Okoboji Audio-Visual Leadership Conference was held in 1955 at
the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory at Lake Okoboji in Milford, Iowa. It was
a five-day invitational conference for leaders and potential leaders
in the field. Each conference was devoted to a specific theme, which
provided the basis for concentrated small-group and large-group discussions
and reports.
The idea for the conference came from the staff of the Extension Division
of the State University of Iowa (later, University of Iowa), and was
championed by Lee Cochran as a DAVI board member and president (1953-1955).
Cochran became the chairman of the steering committee that guided the
conference year-round, and he continued in that role for twenty years.
Funding of the conference was provided by the university with the assistance
of a grant from Teaching Films Custodians, Inc., from funds earned through
the distribution of films made available by the member companies of
the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
The Lakeside Laboratory provided an isolated setting, away from normal
work distractions, and this enclosed, camp-like setting contributed
to a special sense of camaraderie, which evolved into “the Okoboji
process,” an almost mythic organizational culture that was handed
down from one conference to the next. Each conference ended with a vote
on whether to hold another one and a selection of a core number of delegates
for the following year. The remaining delegates were chosen by the DAVI
executive committee, drawn from lists of nominees sent in by the presidents
of each of the state affiliates.
The meetings, renamed the Okoboji Educational Media Leadership Conference
in the 1960s, continued annually until the end of the 1970s. After 1975,
management of the conference was taken over by William B. Oglesby, Cochran’s
successor as director of the audiovisual center at University of Iowa.
Lee Cochran, the “father” of the conference, died June 15,
1979. The last conference, the 25th, was held in August 1979.
Intellectual
Forum
Okoboji conferences often featured a keynote speaker, who provided grist
for the following discussions. One of the most influential keynote addresses
was the first, “A Systems Approach to Audio-Visual Communication,”
given by Charles F. Hoban at the 1956 conference. The keynote address
and the conference discussion coincided with a series of articles by
James D. Finn of University of Southern California published around
the same time. Together, they helped create momentum behind the idea
of the systems approach, which eventually became the trademark of the
field.
Programmed instruction was introduced at the 1962 meeting by the co-author
of the first renowned programmed textbook, James G. Holland, Harvard
University, with his presentation, “Programed Learning and Self-Learning
Procedures.” By the middle of the 1960s programmed instruction
had become the fastest growing segment of the instructional technology
enterprise.
The 1963 meeting, similarly, was devoted to learning theory. Two of
the three keynote speakers—Wesley C. Meierhenry, University of
Nebraska, and Israel Goldiamond, Institute of Behavioral Research—focused
on the application of behaviorism to instructional development. The
third, Donald Snygg, New York State College, Oswego, on the other hand,
issued a prophetic warning:
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S-R
theory is particularly unsuited to the needs of audiovisual education
because it assumes that all learning requires the learner to make
a response. The reasoning is that if he doesn’t make a response
it cannot be reinforced and if it isn’t reinforced, it will
not be learned. If this were literally true most of our films, tapes,
TV, radio, charts, graphs and display materials would go out the
window; nothing would be left but the language lab and the learning
machines. |
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Outcomes-Based
At each conference the delegates worked toward the completion of a Summary
Report. The summary reports were distributed to the participants and
to the association’s headquarters office. The ideas explored in
these reports frequently surfaced as themes in larger publications and
as action programs of the association.
The summary reports for the first ten conferences were edited and published
in monograph form:
| Allen,
William H. (ed.) 1960. Audio-Visual Leadership. A Summary of
the Lake Okoboji Audio-Visual |
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Leadership Conferences 1955-1959. Iowa City, IA: Extension
Division, State University of Iowa |
| Noel,
Francis W. and Noel, Elizabeth S. (ed’s). 1965. Audiovisual
Leadership. A |
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Summary of the Lake Okoboji Audiovisual Leadership Conferences
1960-1964. Iowa City, IA: Division of Extension and University
Services, University of Iowa |
And a twenty
year review was published:
Okoboji - A Twenty Year Review of Leadership, 1955-1974. 1977. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt
Leadership
Development Success
Not only did the conferences promote wider discussion and dissemination
of emerging issues in the field, but also accomplished the “process”
goal of fostering the leadership capabilities of up-and-coming participants.
Okoboji conferences provided national “networking” opportunities
for members who had become active at the state level. The working-groups
process immersed participants in a forum for lively discussion and in
a problem-solving process that they could adapt to their future work.
A common sentiment was expressed by a 1971 participant: “I have
never worked harder in such a short time, nor have I ever come away
from an experience with such feelings of satisfaction and achievement.”¹
A 1971 study of the political life of AECT showed that participation
in Okoboji was one of the prominent gateways for upward movement in
the political ranks of the association. Of all members who had run for
national office, 78% had attended the Okoboji conference².
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¹ “Lake Okoboji Educational
Media Leadership Conference,” Audiovisual Instruction,
December 1971, p. 81.
² Molenda,
M.H. (1971). The relationship of sociodemographic characteristics and
opinions to political participation in a professional association. Unpublished
doctoral
dissertation. Syracuse NY: Syracuse University, p. 91.
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