PBS Teams With 34 PBS Member Stations To Launch PBSLearningMedia.org With Over 14,000 preK-16 Instructional Resources

URL: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org
To foster classroom innovation and engagement, PBS and WGBH, and their producing partners WNET and KET, along with 31 other PBS member stations, today launched PBS LearningMedia (pbslearningmedia.org), a free service for all teachers, students and families nationwide. 

In addition to a rich public media library, PBS LearningMedia has content contributed from other publicly funded organizations, including the National Archives, the Library of Congress and NPR, as well as content funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Education, to deliver thousands of resources for use in the classroom and with home-schoolers.

“As America’s largest classroom, PBS and our local stations are helping to re-imagine classroom learning and are partnering with our producers and teachers to engage students to accelerate academic achievement,” said Paula Kerger, PBS President and CEO. “PBS LearningMedia is a key part of the solution to one of the nation’s biggest challenges – improving student progress to build our future workforce.”

Delivering unprecedented access to a robust digital library aligned to Common Core State Standards and available to all preK-16 classrooms, PBS LearningMedia is the next generation in digital media platforms with high-quality content drawn from more than 1,500 public media producers, 350 local stations, such as WGBH’s NOVA science series among many others, and a growing list of other contributors.

Beginning today, teachers and students have immediate access for their lessons and homework to more than 14,000 research-based instructional resources – including videos, interactives, images, audio files, mobile apps, lesson plans, and worksheets...read more 
 
Read the full announcement via the PBS website

SoarwithReading.com Launched By JetBlue Airways and PBS KIDS To Keep Children Reading

URL: http://www.SoarwithReading.com
As schools across the country let out this month, a joint project launched today by New York's hometown value carrier JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU) and PBS KIDS aims to keep children reading wherever they go this summer - with a combination of in-flight and online literacy resources, community reading events and a partnership with First Book, a nonprofit organization that provides new books to children in need. 
 
At the center of the program is the newly launched SoarwithReading.com, where parents can download a free reading activity kit, create a summer reading list with recommendations from Random House Children's Books and log their children's reading minutes, among other activities. For every reader who registers on SoarwithReading.com, JetBlue will make a book donation to a child through First Book, up to 10,000 books. 

"Soar with Reading is an important initiative that we hope will have a true impact on the summer reading slide, helping to shape the new school year in a meaningful way for thousands of children," said Icema Gibbs, director of corporate social responsibility for JetBlue. "We're excited about the potential of this program to engage our crewmembers and children alike in reading and its promotion. We're taking the JetBlue experience to new level, creating new ways for families to take advantage of the free Soar with Reading resources - online, in-flight and on the ground in local communities."

The Soar with Reading program is a joint project of JetBlue and PBS KIDS. Children traveling on JetBlue flights this summer will receive a free activity kit with reading games based on PBS KIDS educational programming. With help from PBS KIDS animated host Hooper, the campaign will also encourage kids to learn about the world around them through imaginative travel: reading books and playing learning games on SoarwithReading.com at home or at their local library...read more  

Read the full announcement via the JetBlue website

PBSKidsGo.org Launches Scientific Journey With Lifeboat to Mars

New Site Invites Kids to Progressively Master Different Levels of the Game and Then Create Their Own Version

Science education just got even more exciting with the launch of LIFEBOAT TO MARS, a fun, new, interactive educational game on PBSKIDSGO.org.

Designed by Red Hill Studios and PBS KIDS GO! in close collaboration with leading educational researchers and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the game follows a unique “staircase” design that merges an educational sequence with more than 40 challenging game levels, eventually leading to the opportunity for kids to “mod,” or create, their own version of the game to share with others. As players work to rebuild a virtual ecosystem in outer space, they learn standards-based biology concepts. LIFEBOAT TO MARS is at PBSKIDSGO.org/lifeboat.

“LIFEBOAT TO MARS is the latest in a series of innovative Web sites and services we’ve launched in the past year that have been smash hits with kids, including the PBS KIDS GO! and PBS KIDS video players,” said Jason Seiken, PBS SVP, Interactive. “LIFEBOAT TO MARS is unique in that it will help guide children through biology concepts, but it will also help further develop their own scientific thought processes by encouraging them to master levels of the game and then create their own version to challenge others.”

“Videogames are enticing because they’re always challenging,” says Bob Hone, Creative Director of Red Hill Studios. “We’ve designed these educational games so they hit the same sweet spot — challenging enough to be engaging, but not so hard that they are frustrating. This encourages kids to keep playing harder and harder levels — learning new biology concepts as they go.”

LIFEBOAT TO MARS is set in the future — September 15, 2041. Mars Lifeboat #43 — a supply ship carrying experimental DNA to colonies on Mars — suffers a devastating explosion on its way to the red planet. The microbe population is wiped out, plants are wilting and the few animals left are starving...

Read more here or see the site now

PBS's FRONTLINE Offers Presidential Election Special The Choice 2008 Via YouTube

URL: http://www.pbs.org/frontline/choice2008/
This election season, PBS's flagship documentary series FRONTLINE offers voters more options than ever to view its quadrennial award-winning election special The Choice 2008, which premiered Tuesday, Oct. 14, and broadcasts again Monday, Nov. 3, 2008. For the first time, FRONTLINE viewers will also be able to watch the complete two-hour dual biography of John McCain and Barack Obama on YouTube ( youtube.com/pbs ) and download it free from iTunes beginning Oct. 15 through the month of November. The Choice 2008 will also stream in the high-quality News & Public Affairs Player at pbs.org/frontline and on many local PBS station Web sites, where visitors can select from a rich archive of more than 45 full-length FRONTLINE reports, as always with no commercials. For 20 years, through five presidential elections, FRONTLINE's The Choice has presented rich personal and political biographies of the candidates through in-depth interviews with the advisers, friends and those closest to them. Hailed by critics as "the best single TV opportunity that voters have to examine the two men who would be president," The Choice has become a much-anticipated election favorite. "Now more than ever, new media plays an important role in how Americans learn and share information about the election," says FRONTLINE executive producer David Fanning. "It's important that we continue to fulfill the mission of public broadcasting by extending free viewership of The Choice 2008 to as wide an audience as possible and by reaching...Click to read more

Tags: PBS, FRONTLINE, presidential election, The Choice 2008, John McCain, Barack Obama, YouTube

Presidential Video Biographies Lend Insight To 2008 Election at PBS American Experience Site

URL: http://www.pbs.org/presidents/2008
PBS’ American Experience has launched The Presidents Online at http://www.pbs.org/presidents/2008, as the online component of an unprecedented public television initiative that, for the first time, will make available more than 25 hours of presidential programming online, on TV, and on the go. The project comes at a critical moment in American politics: this year, American voters will take part in a landmark election, where for the first time in over a half-century, neither the sitting President nor vice president is a contender for the Oval Office. In the coming months, voters will wrestle with tough questions and campaign issues: Who should we trust? How do we end a war? Who is best suited to lead the nation in a volatile world? With The Presidents, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE provides an invaluable historical roadmap — helping viewers to understand where we have been, so that they may better decide where we are going. Visitors to the Campaign ’08 Web site will select provocative questions that connect today’s domestic and international issues and candidate platforms with yesterday’s leaders. For example, by selecting “How do you end a war?” users will be able to scan video segments about the resolutions of World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. The site currently features five such questions, which will be updated to reflect hot button election issues leading up to November 2008. Seven films – more than twenty-five hours in all- will be streamed for online viewing, and available for download, beginning with FDR, Truman, and Reagan in February. In the coming months, programs examining Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter will follow. Finally, after a premiere television broadcast on PBS, a new profile of the 41st President, George H.W. Bush, will launch on May 6...click to read more.

Tags: PBS, American Experience, History, Presidential Election, Video Biographies

New Curious George Web Site from PBSKids Has Interactive Learning Tools

URL: http://www.pbskids.org/curiousgeorge
The Curious George PBS KIDS web site offers interactive learning tools and activities for children ages 3 and up. Since its September 2006 launch, the Curious George site at http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge ranks as one of the most visited pbskids.org sites. The site debuted with an average two million visits per month. Statistics also show that kids who visited the site stayed on average for an impressive one hour. The Curious George web site-like the TV series-introduces young kids to key concepts in science, math and engineering in a way that is fun for them and accessible to parents, caregivers and educators. more...

Technorati Tags: PBS,PBS kids,curious george,education,science,math,engineering

New Site Enhances PBS Special Novel Reflections

URL: http://www.pbs.org/americannovel
How well do you know your American lit? Can you name the muckraking author who campaigned against the meat-packing industry and later ran for California governor on the Socialist ticket? Or the postmodernist author who discovered a love of literature while working a boring summer job as a parking attendant? Do you know the title of the quintessential American novel that ends, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”? You’ll find all the answers, and more, at a new companion Web site to an upcoming AMERICAN MASTERS special presentation, Novel Reflections On The American Dream. The site offers a comprehensive exploration of 200 years of the American novel, including in-depth information on more than 50 novels and authors, along with the literary movements they inspired.

Technorati Tags:
PBS,WNET,American Masters,Novel Reflections
Main Page (clickable):

WGBH Teachers' Domain Launches Chemistry and Civil Rights Special Collections

URL: http://www.teachersdomain.org/exhibits/pj07-ex/index.html
In partnership with the PBS/NOVA program “Forgotten Genius”, a Percy Julian Resource Collection is live now on the Teachers' Domain web site. In 1950, Percy Julian was one of the few African Americans with a Ph.D. He was Chicago's man of the year and a groundbreaking scientist. But it wasn't an easy road. Denied teaching positions and the target of death threats, Julian struggled to get ahead in a racially hostile world. New media-rich resources, adapted from NOVA: “Forgotten Genius”, explore how Julian revolutionized chemistry with the first synthesis of a chemical compound, as well as the challenges he overcame as an African American despite legalized segregation.

Tags:percy julian,education,science,engineering,PBS,WGBH,NOVA,teachers domain

Journey Into the Mind of Chef Todd English on Food Trip Web Site

URL: http://www.toddenglish.com/foodtrip/
Whet your appetite with regionally influenced recipes, descriptions of Todd English’s latest food trips, and thoughts from the world-renowned chef at the Food Trip with Todd English Web site. Join master chef Todd English on his latest adventure — Food Trip with Todd English — to experience the Tsujiki Fish Market at the crack of dawn to learn how to buy and eat the freshest fish in Tokyo. Follow Todd into Nantucket Bay to sample oysters fresh from the ocean. After these and many other journeys, come along as Todd returns to his home kitchen at Olives to create a meal based on the ingredients he’s sampled, the cooking techniques he’s observed, and the cultures he’s experienced.

Tags:food trip,food,chef,cuisine,todd english,PBS

PBS Launches Heart Disease Awareness Site - Take One Step

URL: http://www.pbs.org/takeonestep
Available now, pbs.org/takeonestep serves as a resource to help Americans take their first step toward better health. The web site includes hands-on materials for individuals and families, including downloadable pdfs with heart disease symptoms, surprising facts, risk factors, and advice on what visitors can do to prevent and treat heart disease. more...

Tags: PBS, heart disease

WGBH Stock Sales Launches Streaming Video Site

URL: http://www.wgbhstocksales.org
WGBH Stock Sales has launched a redesigned, easy-to-use Web site which allows viewers to search and browse the WGBH video collection and download clips for review purposes. WGBH Stock Sales offers footage from award-winning prime time public television series including NOVA, NOVA scienceNOW, FRONTLINE, FRONTLINE/World, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, ZOOM, The French Chef, and limited series such as Rx for Survival, Evolution, Africans in America, and much more. The extensive archive of footage dates back to the beginning of public television in the 1950s. Additional video clips are being added weekly as new materials become available for licensing. More »|Socialize

Tags: WGBH, PBS, NOVA, Frontline, NOVAscienceNOW, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, ZOOM, The French Chef, Rx for Survival, Evolution, Africans in America, URLwire