Partnership announces free instructional technology service to schools - Wired for Books

Ohio University Telecommunications Center http://www.tcom.ohiou.edu/

"Wired for Books" at http://wiredforbooks.org/

Ohio University, the WOUB Center for Public Media, and Educational Technology for Southeastern Ohio (eTSEO) have announced that the organizations have formed a partnership to provide an instructional technology service that will be free to K-12 schools in an 18-county region of southeastern Ohio.

For more information contact: Fred Charles Harner, eTSEO Executive Director - c or 740.591.3871.

Effective next school year, funding from eTech|Ohio, the State's educational technology agency, will be used to replace the K-12 ITV broadcast service from WOUB and eTSEO with a free Internet-based K-12 multimedia-on-demand service known as PowerMediaPlus.com. The partners will use an eTech|Ohio basic operating subsidy grant to provide free PowerMediaPlus.com subscriptions for the 120,500 pupils in their service region.

PowerMediaPlus.com will provide K-12 educators and students in southeastern Ohio with Internet access to 50,000 multimedia components, including videos, video concept clips, audio files, still images, and print resources. PowerMediaPlus.com curriculum integration features allow teachers to search and retrieve media content that is aligned to Ohio's Academic Content Standards, facilitates the creation of teacher lesson plans, student assignments and quizzes for all subjects, and "play lists" of multimedia content that can be stored and accessed anytime, anywhere. Parents and students will be able to utilize PowerMediaPlus.com at home via a broadband Internet connection as a "homework helper." Most importantly, the new service will be available to the schools in the region at no cost during a time when districts are struggling with budget problems.

According to a spokesman for one of the partners, eTSEO Executive Director Fred Charles Harner, "There can be no doubt that it is now an "on-demand" world in the education and entertainment sectors. We made this decision to enable us to become more relevant as a multimedia content provider for educators and their students. Implementation of the new free service will significantly increase the quality and quantity of multimedia content available to K-12 educators in our region without additional cost. The new multimedia curriculum resources will be aligned to the Ohio Academic Content Standards, and, most significantly, it will allow us to reach every classroom in our region via the Ohio K-12 and Third Frontier Networks."

"Elimination of the daily ITV broadcast schedule during the school year creates an opportunity for the WOUB Center for Public Media to serve new audience segments with digital programming services," said Mark Brewer, associate director for Telecommunications at the WOUB Center for Public Media.

According to Brewer, the new K-12 service will provide Internet streaming multimedia-on-demand content from a server located at Ohio University. This server will be dedicated exclusively to a universe of users in the18-county service region. The Ohio University server will also provide multimedia instructional and professional development content created by the partners specifically for schools in their region.

William Sams, associate provost for Information Technology at Ohio University, Athens, played a vital role in this partnership. He assisted in helping the new media-on-demand service become a reality by providing guidance and university support for the Internet streaming multimedia resources from the network hub in Athens. Carolyn Lewis, director and general manager of the WOUB Center for Public Media explained that without Mr. Sams' vision and enthusiasm for making Ohio University resources available to the schools of the region, the new service could not have been implemented. Lewis added, "It is a paradigm shift, but something we have been debating for the past couple of years. The technology and the timing now provide the impetus."

The WOUB Center for Public Media and eTSEO are in the process of implementing a series of regional seminars for school district representatives in May to introduce the features and benefits of the new service and begin the installation and access process. The partners will provide ongoing technical and educator professional development training designed to facilitate the broadest utilization of PowerMediaPlus.com as a means of helping school district improve student achievement.

For everyone else NOT in OHIO
Mike Kroening at 800-253-2788 or mkroening@clearvue.com.
PRICING: As a subscriber, you'll have access to ALL media types: more than 2,600 videos, 18,000+ core concept clips, 4,000 curriculum-oriented audio files, 5,000 print resources, and an unsurpassed collection of 25,000 photographs, illustrations, and clip art images, as well as a databank of 15,000 quiz questions and 1,000 pre-made quizzes! PowerMediaPlus.com features current content from top educational producers and uniquely smart, customized functions, making it the most superior digital delivery solution available.