PBS Education Monthly Station Conference Call & Webinar

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Minutes

Best Wishes to Sandie Pedlow and Donovan Goode!

Melinda George, Sr. Director, Strategic Relations, announced on the afternoon of March 30th that Sandie Pedlow and Donovan Goode would be departing PBS in the coming weeks. Below is the announcement sent to the TeacherLine station listserv.

Please be assured that while we are saying goodbye to two strong and valued people, we have a strong team in place. While change is hard, new opportunities come. We are in the process planning for their departure and a smooth transition.

From: Stations only – no LEA [mailto: On Behalf Of Rachel A. Morrison
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 3:53 PM
To: tlstations-l
Subject: Sandie Pedlow & Donovan Goode

Sent on behalf of Melinda George

Dear PBS TeacherLine Station Colleagues,

Today I write with a mix of pride and sadness to let you know that two of our much valued staff members, Sandie Pedlow and Donovan Goode, are going to be leaving PBS in the coming weeks. Both have had great opportunities come along and while it is difficult to let them go, we are excited for their new adventures. As with all changes, one organization’s gain is another organization’s loss.

Sandie Pedlow has been named as the new Executive Director of Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB). I can’t think of a better fit for Sandie’s leadership skills in working with stations and producers, managing programming, celebrating diversity and growing an organization to be all that it can be. This is a wise choice by LPB, very good news for all in the public media community and a great tribute to the incredible work that Sandie does every day and I know that you all join me in being very proud of her!

Sandie has been with PBS TeacherLine and PBS Education for almost 7 years. She has been invaluable in establishing TeacherLine as a revenue-generating service and in being a champion of our local stations as they worked to instill a new business model. But Sandie is leaving us in great shape. Relationships with the stations are strong and our work will carry forward seamlessly because we will channel Sandie’s good advice and systems. We also are very lucky to have Rachel Morrison whom you all know so well and who can help to carry on the great work in which we are all engaged.

Donovan has been an outstanding member of the PBS Education team for more than 2 years. He is someone that I (and lots of people) rely heavily on not only for sound marketing direction, but also smart, strategic thinking, great presentation and a friendly, funny voice at the table. He is also leaving us in good stead as he has instituted a strong data and statistics perspective on how we run our marketing campaigns, helped to devise straight forward sales pitches and he has helped all of you to better position your education services as a suite of offerings. He also has a very strong team in Susan, Lisa and Chris and I know that while they will miss him too, they will also help us to carry on and grow the strides that we have made in marketing.

Donovan pushed back his start date with Discovery (his new home away from home) so that he could be here for and help us plan the station meeting on April 13-14. I know that you will all join me in wishing him the best. We will miss him here and we thank him for all the great work he has done for PBS Education.

But don’t worry about goodbyes yet. Both Sandie and Donovan will be here for the station meeting on April 13-14 and we will be sure to celebrate all of their great accomplishments and new adventures at that time. Then you can all help us to wish them best of luck!

Sincerely,

Melinda George

Senior Director, Strategic Relations

PBS Education

Product Development

Updated Course Demo - TECH195: Graphic Organizers for 21st Century Learning

TECH195 is an oldie but goodie! This is one of most popular courses that focused on a specific brand of software, Inspiration, so we struggled to keep it up to date with the many software updates from Inspiration. We’ve just completed a rewrite of TECH195 and are very excited to have a new course that addresses graphic organizers, but is not focused on one piece of software. During the call we explored the course, which stations can do as well using the course preview login.

Course Description:

Graphic organizers are a tool for 21st century learning that can support critical thinking and problem solving; communication; collaboration; and creativity and innovation. Learn how to help students organize ideas, convey complex concepts, progress through the writing process, and develop mathematical and scientific thinking skills with graphic organizers. Learn to create and use electronic graphic organizers across the curriculum for all grade levels to develop students’ 21st century skills.

Price: $295

Classroom Link (Y or N): Y

Grades: K-12

Duration: 6 weeks

Hours: 30

Producer: Ruta Puskorius

Enrollment Open: January 29, 2011 (for Spring 2011)

PBS Teachers

Show & Tell: PBS EcoInvestigators

PBS Teachers has partnered with International Paper to provide online resources and lesson plans for grades 3-5 that will engage, excite, and prepare students to take on and solve environmental problems in their community and beyond. EcoInvestigators is in beta and provides lesson plans and embedded resources on studying air, land, freshwater, and saltwater. It is also a great complement and links to the new Global Climate Change modules, which are focused on middle and high school. These modules were shared on the February station call and can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/7684/preview/

On April 11 we will be sharing an e-postcard that stations can co-branded and send to educators to grow awareness and engagement in EcoInvestigators. On April 12 and 13 we’ll be hosting webinars for a more detailed view of EcoInvestigators. The project involves 7 international paper plants and we’d like to find station’s that have one of these plants in their community so additional outreach to the community can be done in partnership.

Explore EcoInvestigators here: www.pbs.org/teachers/ecoinvestigators

2011 Innovations Awards Deadline Extended!

The deadline for the PBS Teachers Innovation Awards has been extended to April 14. To enter, teachers should submit a video showcasing their use of PBS resources to engage students and innovate in the classroom. Twelve first place winners will participate in a week long "Innovation Immersion Experience" at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan and receive a FREE PBS TeacherLine professional development course and a SMART Slate™ wireless slate. The twelve first-place winners plus 36 second-place winners will be invited to partner with PBS and local stations as leaders in classroom innovation. Winning entries will be announced in May. For complete guidelines, visit http://www.pbs.org/teachers/innovators/.

Marketing

Late Spring Term.

We shared on the January station call that we are experimenting with two “mini” terms: late spring and late summer. Late spring opened for enrollment along with our regular spring term courses and are still open for enrollment until May 13. Late spring term courses start on May 11. Our regular and late summer term courses will open for enrollment on Saturday, April 2. This means there will be three course terms open for enrollment from April 2 to May 13 – late spring, summer, and late summer. Course dates and planned offering are posted on TL Admin > Courses > Annual Course Schedule. Details for the late spring term are also provided below.

Late Spring Term Dates:

Enrollment Opens: January 29, 2011

Cancel Low-Enrollment Courses: May 4, 2011

Orientation Begins: May 9, 2011

Courses Start: May 11, 2011

Enrollment Closes: May 13, 2011

Drop Period Ends: May 17, 2011

Courses End: June 21, 2011

Late Spring Term Courses:

·  INST300 Curriculum Mapping I by Heidi Hayes Jacobs

·  MATH165 Enabling Students with Special Needs to Succeed in Math Class

·  RDLA125 Children's Authors on the Web: Online Sites that Motivate Students to Write

·  STEM420 Inspiring Elementary Students with Engineering

·  TECH315 Cooperation and Collaboration in the 21st Century

PBS TeacherLine Agreements

Reporting Due March 31

The first reports for station’s 2011 PBS TeacherLine agreements are due today. For those station’s that received a marketing and promotion award, financial reports are also due. As a reminder, we will need final financial reports on June 1 that detail expenditures and projected expenses through July 31. The final payment will be based on the June 1 financial report so please be sure to have this turned in on time as our account for these Ready to Teach no-cost extension funds closes on July 31.

Thank you to those that have already turned in your reports – we look forward to reading about your outreach efforts!

PBS Education Station Meeting

We are very excited about having 58 station representatives join us for the PBS Education station meeting on April 13 and 14. This will be a very interactive meeting, so please bring a laptop. We will also have one laptop per table. The meeting will start at 8:30 am on April 13 and end by 4:00 pm on April 14. We will be hosting a dinner on April 13 at 6:30 at Portofino’s, so look for an invite soon. We’ll be sending the travel reimbursement forms this afternoon. We can reimburse up to $1500 for each station. We’ll need itemized receipts for each expense, boarding passes for flights.

Looking forward to seeing you all in April!