My school, Marietta Center for Advanced Academics (MCAA), uses closed circuit video distribution to broadcast our daily morning news show into the classrooms. This news show is produced in the media center by a crew of 8 fifth-grade students, directed by the media specialist. Before the news show, a titlemaker scroll runs across the screen with the day and date, lunch menu, and character traits of the month and week. When the news show is not on, the display shows a digital clock screen saver on the news room computer. This way each classroom in the school runs by the same time. Occasionally, the broadcast system is used to show recorded programs, such as President Obama’s address to U.S. students, and videos, such as end-of-the-year videos shown at awards programs, book fair promotions, or the principal’s skydiving video from last year! Teachers do not typically have input into what is broadcast. This is generally determined by the principal and the media specialist.
I am not aware of much use by our school or district of the Georgia Public Broadcasting resources. I have been learning more about these resources, however. We have used Discovery/United Streaming some in the past, but our school primarily uses the SAFARI Montage video collection from Library Video Company. This is available through a site-based server, with a subscription purchased with media funds. Through exploring the GPB website, I discovered their Digital Library and the “Georgia Stories” feature. I viewed a video about the civil rights movement in Georgia. It was interesting and I learned some new information about this subject. I was intrigued by this since I am currently reading the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, on my Kindle. The setting for this story is Mississippi in 1962, when the ideas of desegregation were beginning to grow. Viewing the episode of “Georgia Stories” also gave me some ideas for the Digital Storytelling project we will be doing for this course and for the Pathfinders we learned about in the References course.
In addition, I was reminded about the “Teachers’ Domain” educational video resources available for teachers. I have explored this some in the past but forgot that it was provided by public broadcasting.
I looked around but was unable to find access to Discovery/United Streaming through the GPB website, but I went to the Discovery Education website, http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/, and accessed the resource.
This is an area that is underutilized at my school. We have a new video production class, which is preparing to begin presenting daily announcements, but for now, we do not use video for any kind of presentation, school-wide. Like you, I was unable to find the United Streaming resources through the GPS site, and had to go to the Discovery site to access. Not having used this resource before, I was impressed with the amount of audio-visual material available. I see using this as a source for the digital storytelling assignment. I also think this would be a good resource to highlight each year, being clip rich and standards friendly. It seems this would be a more teacher-friendly resource than using clips from DVDs.
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