WITF offers free instructional resources that are available this school year as part of its Learning at Home initiative. WITF, the PBS and NPR member station for central Pennsylvania, has partnered with the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units (PAIU) to provide programming and activities that are aligned to state educational standards.
Resources will include weekday broadcast television programming for prekindergarten through 12th grade students, weekly coordinated extension activities and lesson plans, professional development webinars for teachers, and a new pilot program called datacasting.
This past spring, WITF partnered with seven local school districts to create curriculum connection schedules that align to state standards. WITF has expanded its broadcast television programming every weekday to include more opportunities for students in all grade levels. WITF TV will broadcast educational programming for prekindergarten through elementary school students from 6 a.m. to noon, for middle school students from noon to 1 p.m., and for high school students from 1 to 5 p.m. Programming will range from the new PBS KIDS program "Elinor Wonders Why" for young science enthusiasts to "The Story of China" for high school social studies learners.
WITF encourages caregivers to view the programs along with young learners, so they can talk about the programs to help their child understand the educational concepts. Weekly extension activities are available at http://www.witf.org/learningathome in English and Spanish. After a child and caregiver watch a selected episode, the guide offers caregivers a conversation or project to try with their child.
However, resources are not just for caregivers at home, but for educators to incorporate as well. As teachers seek additional online materials to connect with their curriculum, WITF offers thousands of videos and activities ready for their lesson plans. WITF has a series of recorded webinars to share best practices on how to integrate PBS resources into the classroom and remote learning experience.
In partnership with its fellow Pennsylvania PBS stations, WITF's newest and largest project to reach students without access to the internet is the partnership with PDE to establish a statewide datacasting initiative. While broadcasting refers to sending programming "over the air" across a geographic region that can be picked up by an antenna and played on a television, datacasting refers to using those same signals to transmit data to be used on a computer.
WITF will coordinate with educators to create data instructional units that are transmitted over television air waves and received by a student's home computer, without the need to connect to the internet. By supplying an inexpensive receiver, families will be able to download lesson plans, videos, slideshows, worksheets, webpages, and more. These instructional materials would then be available on-demand for the student, on the learning schedule that is right for them.
To find more information about WITF's Learning at Home project, readers may visit the aforementioned website.
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