The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a nonprofit corporation that helps support the nation’s public broadcasting entities, announced that KET will be among the recipients of the Public Media Innovation Fund Program grants. The announcement was made Jan. 17 in Washington, D.C.
The Public Media Innovation Fund, established by CPB to support public broadcasters’ efforts to experiment with emerging platforms, provides up to $20,000 per grantee for new media initiatives which demonstrate technical or service innovations.
KET received the full $20,000 to test a wide variety of Web 2.0 strategies to increase student proficiency and engagement in the study of German. John Krueger, KET’s Distance Learning German teacher, will reconfigure the existing German courses to promote more connectivity, choice and participation for students. The new design of the German courses will include user-friendly navigational tools and comment areas for the course Web site, and will use existing Internet platforms such as Facebook, Second Life and Google Sketchup, where students can interact with classmates and native speakers and post presentations.
“Through Web 2.0 platforms we can provide our students –– many of them in rural and remote areas –– the opportunity to experience something that is a rare find even in the best schools: more personalized learning, collaboration and interaction with the outside world,” said Krueger. “This is an exciting time to be involved in distance learning!”
Lynda Thomas, KET professional development and distance learning manager, said, “We're thrilled to be one of only a handful of public broadcasters to receive this grant promoting innovation. It enables KET to add the technologies students are already widely using for social networking to increase participation in project-based learning and to provide them with more opportunities to practice writing and speaking German with their peers.”
Public television stations in Oregon, Boston, Pennsylvania and Washington also received grants from the Public Media Innovation Fund Program.
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