I’ve been teaching at the same school for 13 years. Years
ago we had a closed circuit system through classroom TV’s. There was a switch
in the media center. Switched one way and you could only view what was playing
on the media center TV; the other way and you could view the cable stations. I
know this because when my own children were little, I would entertain them with
the TV while I worked late. As my children aged, new technology emerged such as
Promethean boards making the television and VCR in my classroom obsolete. Our
video distribution system is a now “server-based video on demand and IPTV
system called MediaCAST.” Basically, everything is connected via the Internet.
The media specialist is able to broadcast live content such as the student news
broadcast or fundraiser videos. Each teacher can also access video from the
Internet to show in the classroom. Too bad my kids are grown and moved on from my
elementary school.
Obviously, I
am excited to have so much content available. I’ve been using GPB for several
years now. Rarely, do I go looking and not find something. You can search by
keywords, grade level, and medium. You can show just a few segments or an
entire selection. My students just finished a biography presentation on
important individuals from the Civil War. Many used video clips, music, and
photographs from GPB for their presentations. The site offers television
programs, radio programs, news, live radio streaming, blogs, and mobile apps. Every
time I visit, I find something new. Definitely spend some time exploring the
site if you haven’t.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI remember sitting in my mom's classroom as a kid watching Arthur streaming from the library through the Video Distribution System while she was in a faculty meeting. Our media specialist would play several videos during the faculty meeting for all of the teachers who had kids! Now, in our schools we have cable that streams live to all of the classrooms. The cable companies in our town had a bidding war and they ended up splitting the county into sections, if you live in one place you have to use this cable provider and if you live in different area you get a different cable provider. The same system works with the schools. However, all teachers have access to change the channels in their own classroom, and all classrooms have SMART boards which are directly connected to a DVD/VHS player. The video distribution system in our school is only used when the media specialist plays a certain video for the whole school to view, or daily for the morning news.
ReplyDeleteI am the media specialist at our school, and I am over the morning news team. Every morning a bell rings at 8:00, and shortly after the tardy bell we come over live on channel 2 to do the morning news. The morning news and the occasional holiday video for school wide viewing are the only times the video distribution system are used.
I am ashamed to say that I had never visited the GPB education website until now. I use Discovery Education daily, but I did not know that the GPB website even existed. I am very excited to start using this tool in my library.