Thursday from 2:00 to 6:00 - Clifford - SuperWhy! - Word Girl - Buddy the Dinosaur, and The Cat in the Hat will host an afternoon of activities during the PBS Kids Celebration at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. Visiting West Michigan this week is PBS’s Vice President of Education who tells WGVU about PBS’s continuing commitment to developing educational programming.
“I believe PBS has really set the standard for what true educational television really is.”
Alicia Levi is PBS Vice President of Education.
“It’s not just about entertainment. I think you can entertain children and provide them with critical skills that take them into school and life.”
Levi says the core elements of learning happen early in life and it’s important to capture young learners.
“So we have experts. We have expert producer panels and groups that come together and are really experts in their fields that understand the dynamics of learning and we make sure that that makes its way into all the programming that we produce.”
Levi helped develop the Discovery Channel’s educational programming. The past seven years spent at PBS.
“My career has really been focused on making sure that media has instructional value and supports the needs of teachers and the needs of learners.
To that end, Levi designed PBS Learning Media. It’s an award-winning website that has allowed 1.5 million educators to draw from more than 90,000 digital resources.
“We formed quite a few partnerships with everyone from the National Archives to the White House and State Department to GOOGLE and Kahn Academy. Groups that are interested in providing free resources to learners in the education space.
Grand Valley State University offers courses aimed at educating teachers to leverage the power of PBS Learning Media.
Patrick Center, WGVU News.
