Educational Television In The 1930's

Apparently, the initial hope for every new form of mass media is the enlightenment of society.  As this post on Paleofuture explains, it was that way with early radio, followed by early television. 

In 1933, the University of Iowa became the first American university to broadcast TV. The first public demonstration of television in the state had occurred just two years earlier at the 1931 Iowa State Fair, and there was tremendous excitement by scientists at the University of Iowa to see what it could accomplish. Unreliable and unclear at the time, the rudimentary television technology of the early 1930s meant that the few experimenters who owned a TV (most likely constructed by themselves, rather than purchased in a store) had to turn on their radio in order to hear the broadcast, as the audio and visual couldn’t be broadcast together.

The eventual result of this idea is the online courses now available at colleges and universities.