| The most interesting application, however, is to the much-neglected fourth communication setting of the student as destination dealing with myriad sources. The fourth generation of media simulates this fourth communication setting. I encourage the students to use my course stack as a "starter set" for their own stacks. They can throw out my cards and links and each add their own cards and links. Their revised stack can be integrated with stacks based on their other courses, on their conversations with friends and family, their readings, their other courses, their televiewing, and their other explorations in multimedia.
The delightful concept of the disk course (Ferraro 1993, p. 21) suggests how broadcast educators can play a prominent role in the use of multimedia in this many-to-one communication setting. The electronic delivery system - whether handing the disk to the student, zapping it to him over the air waves with a Newton personal digital assistant, modeming it to him through the telephone wires - frees the student from the traditional delivery system of attending a class at a particular time and place and making a messy, inaccurate transcription of the notes of the professor. It is time to end that silly academic ritual of using our precious few contact hours with students to pass information from the notebook of the professor to the notebook of the student without passing through the minds of either.
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