Cochran, Lee W. (2004) Okoboji: A Twenty Year Review of Leadership 1955-1974. Reviewed by Susan M. Zvacek, University of Kansas

Cochran, Lee W. (2004) Okoboji: A Twenty Year Review of Leadership 1955-1974. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. Pp. 319 $25.95 (paper)     ISBN 1-59311-144-4 Reviewed by Susan M. Zvacek University of Kansas August 10, 2005 Many educators would probably be surprised to learn that fifty years ago a conference devoted to the effective use of technology in education was inaugurated. For the next twenty years, the Lakeside Lab in central Iowa was the home of the Lake Okoboji Educational Media Leadership Conference, a gathering of professors, school media specialists, audiovisual directors, and others who came together to “identify, define, analyze, and describe matters of professional mutual concern” related to the effective use of technology in teaching and learning (p. 278). Lee Cochran, one of the meeting’s original organizers, assembled a collection of writings about these get-togethers that was published in 1975 by Kendall/Hunt, and recently re-released by Information Age Publishing along with six other classics in the field of instructional technology. The historic value of these chapters is twofold. First, by providing a glimpse of the challenges facing our collegial “ancestors,” we may gain a greater understanding how the field has evolved. Perhaps more important, however, is the realization that the core concerns of our discipline have not changed, although the tangible elements of hardware and software that shaped those earlier discussions would scarcely be recognizable today. What exactly was the Okoboji conference and what made it unusual? One defining element was its focus on leadership development and intellectual growth through debate, discussion, presentations, and written reports on topics chosen by the participants during the first session each year. Location was another factor contributing to the Okoboji mystique; the participants (typically no more than 50 to 75, in any given year) met in a rural, lakeside environment more than 80 miles from the nearest airport, with one telephone available “some distance from the meeting areas.” Finally, the purposeful inclusion of up-and-coming graduate students as future leaders in the field encouraged their continued involvement in professional development, as well as providing fresh perspectives. This retrospective publication – already considered an historical document when it was initially published in 1975 – includes chapters devoted to conference summaries (compiled into five-year segments, such as 1955-59, 1960-64, etc.), overviews of keynote speaker presentations, descriptions of conferences considered spin-offs of the Okoboji meetings, and an entertaining summary of the various social activities. The conference summaries offer multiple reminders of just how long ago these meetings occurred, with mention of events significant to educators including the entrance of Hawaii to the United States, the launch of the first communications satellite, and the role of behaviorism in teaching and learning. (Even more astonishing is that the $1000 donated by Teaching Films Custodians, Inc. was sufficient to pay room and board for 50 delegates to the meeting.) “Visionary speculations” from the mid-1960s included the statement, “Rote learning will become less necessary with the availability and use of an electronic ‘memory cube’ carried on the person by which a wide variety of helpful data could be quickly retrieved” (p. 51). Hints of things to come were seen in the1968 conference theme “Technology and Dehumanization,” and specific attention to minority concerns and diversity appeared that year, as well. Chapter 7, The Okoboji Keynote Addresses, reads like a “Who’s Who” of the instructional technology field, with presentations by Charles Hoban, James Finn, Robert Heinich, Wes Meierhenry, and Fred Harcleroad, among others. Don Ely, recognized today as a leader in the field, attended his first Okoboji meeting as a graduate student and later returned as a keynote speaker, clearly reinforcing the leadership development goals of these meetings. Chapter 11 describes the results of a 1974 survey that gathered feedback from over 200 individuals who had attended one or more of the conferences, confirming the value of Okoboji as “an important event” in their professional lives, during which they made “a commitment to the profession.” An amazing 98% of those responding to the survey indicated that they “strongly encouraged” continuation of the Okoboji meetings. It is surprising, then, to learn that 1974 was the last year for this series of conferences. Unfortunately, this publication offers no explanation as to why the meetings were discontinued, and this is its main weakness. Surely a few paragraphs explaining what happened could have been appended to the original document. Other additional material that would have provided a welcome addendum for today’s readers might include a discussion of how the Okoboji meetings influenced other professional association activities (for example, AECT), a description of some of the “modern” conferences that play a similar role to Okoboji (such as PIDT), and comments from today’s leaders in the field (Don Ely, for example) who could offer a from-then-to-now perspective on this conference. For those of us in the instructional technology field, this publication offers a detailed look at the challenges and opportunities from fifty years ago, and reminds us that the most critical issues in our field – for example, tying the use of technology to meaningful outcomes and designing classrooms with learning in mind – aren’t new. Other observations of interest were the increasing number of women and minority participants over the twenty years of the conference, the endless debates over what to call the field (Educational or Instructional? Media or Technology?) that continue today with only slightly different terminology, and the photos that provide another reminder of the decades that have elapsed since these meetings began—grainy snapshots that exhibit not only “vintage” fashions and hair styles, but cultural norms that now seem bizarre (how many professors today would be photographed with a cigarette dangling from their lips?). Every instructional technology professional should have a copy of this book for its value as an historical record, as well as a reminder of our core tenets and intellectual values. Information Age is to be commended for re-releasing this and other classic readings in the field. 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