KET and Your School:
An Overview for School Coordinators
Thank you for serving your school and helping us as a KET School Resources Coordinator. As KET Coordinator, your role is to connect your teachers and students with KET television programs and services and to help them make the most effective use of those resources. This page outlines the functions performed by most KET School Coordinators. See Communicating with KET for information about KET print and e-mail communication tools and Resource Overview for some ideas on services and opportunities you may want to promote within your school.
As KET School Resources Coordinator, you might ...
- Record KET instructional television programs for later use in the classroom.
- Manage your school’s media library.
- Obtain videotapes, DVDs, teacher’s guides, and other multimedia resources.
- Make previews of possible new offerings available to your teachers and students.
- Track the usage of KET instructional programming in your school.
- Oversee your school’s video receiving and distribution system.
- Arrange in-school workshops with KET consultants.
Record KET instructional television programs for later use in the classroom.
Each year, KET broadcasts hundreds of hours of instructional programs for all grade levels, which schools may record either for individual classroom video playback from tape or for school-wide playback over an in-school television distribution system. Many of these programs are aired in “block feeds”—back-to-back airings of multiple programs from the same series or on related themes—so that schools may quickly record a collection of related programs.
- To help you plan for recording these programs, KET mails a copy of the KET School Coordinator’s Planbook/Calendar to each school in late summer. Formatted as a spiral-bound calendar, the planbook has plenty of space to write notes and reminders. We recommend that you take instructional television recording requests at the beginning of the school year, then note them in the planbook on the days the programs are to be aired.
- We also send each school a copy of the annual KET School Resources book, a catalog of the year’s offerings that you and your teachers can use to locate programs that meet your needs. Additional copies of this book may be ordered from KET; call (800) 432-0951, ext. 7261 or print out and mail or fax the downloadable order form (PDF format). To browse ITV offerings online, visit our School Video Resources pages. To help teachers plan lessons and units, this searchable online database includes information about how KET instructional programs align with Kentucky Academic Expectations.
- You may request a broadcast (or rebroadcast) of a specific program by calling our Education Office at (800) 432-0951 or e-mailing .
- For help in planning or managing your video recording process, please contact your regional KET Education Consultant.
Manage your school’s media library.
Instructional programs are assigned “taping rights” that determine how long a school may keep and use copies. In addition to recording programs, the KET School Coordinator is responsible for deleting programs once their rights have expired.
- The KET School Resources book, Coordinator’s Planbook/Calendar, and School Video Resources online database all list the taping rights for each instructional offering. See our About Taping Rights page for specifics about what various rights designations mean.
- The KET School Coordinator’s Planbook/Calendar contains a list of recently deleted instructional television programs that should be erased from your school media library. The online list also includes a complete list of programs deleted since 1987 for double-checking against your library catalog.
- Some instructional programs, including many Kentucky-related programs produced by KET, are designated as unlimited-use programs. Schools may keep and use these videos for the life of the recording medium.
Obtain videotapes, DVDs, teacher’s guides, and other multimedia resources.
- Many of KET’s instructional series are accompanied by teacher’s guides that can be downloaded in PDF or Word .doc format.
- Videotape or DVD copies of many instructional programs—along with a wide variety of KET productions—are available for purchase from KET at a special discounted rate for Kentucky schools. (The KET School Resources book includes an order form listing the ITV offerings available on tape or DVD.) Our catalog of educational resources also includes the award-winning Arts Toolkits, the More Reading Strategies in Action CD-ROM set, and a library of professional development seminars. For more information or to order any of these products, call KET Duplication Services at (800) 945-9167, or e-mail .
Make previews of possible new offerings available to your teachers and students.
To ensure that the instructional television series we air meet curricular needs and are current, engaging, and effective, KET asks for your help in evaluating new programming each November.
- A sampler of new programs is aired on KET ED during Preview Days in the week before Thanksgiving break, and we ask teachers, administrators, and students to watch the programs and then fill out an online survey rating their quality and usefulness. Specific information, including descriptions of the new programs and broadcast schedules, is mailed to KET School Coordinators in the fall. That information is also posted on a web page.
- KET Education Consultants also host regional preview meetings around the state to gather additional data.
Track the usage of KET instructional programming in your school.
Toward the end of each school year, KET asks School Coordinators to complete a simple online survey about instructional resource use. Data from this survey help us make informed decisions about acquiring new programs, scheduling broadcasts, and keeping our library of resources current and engaging.
Oversee your school’s video receiving and distribution system.
- KET Technical Services offers help with KET reception and the configuration of in-school video distribution systems. Consulting services are free of charge to Kentucky public schools. Any equipment or software needed to fix problems will be quoted before it is used or installed.
- KET maintains a Kentucky state price contract for television reception and mounting equipment.
- Information about KET’s transition to digital broadcast and what it means for schools can be found on our school DTV information page.
Arrange in-school workshops with KET consultants.
KET’s regional Education Consultants are ready and eager to assist your staff and students with free on-site workshops in video production, telemedia literacy, effective use of instructional television, and more. See the workshops page for details. Please give us as much advance notice as possible when requesting a workshop—two months is ideal—because the schedule fills up fast.