New PBS resource could help advance digital learning

The Public Broadcasting System and Boston-based PBS station WGBH are releasing a new digital media platform for pre-kindergarten through college, called PBS LearningMedia. The site will provide digital content tied to curriculum standards and will be available in both a free and premium format.

Rob Lippincott, senior vice president of education for PBS, said the system—expected to be announced June 27—has been in development since the emergence of WGBH’s Teachers’ Domain and PBS’ Digital Learning Library.

“LearningMedia is a merger of those two efforts to create a single national educational media platform for public media,” Lippincott said.

“What we’re looking at is not the Digital Learning Library and not Teachers’ Domain, but building on those collective resources for a new service that draws on the strength of both of those efforts and is meant to reach out to all stations throughout the system, and through those stations to a whole range of different kinds of partnerships in the system,” said Michelle Korf, senior executive for educational media with WGBH.

PBS LearningMedia will include content from more than 55 member stations, independent producers, and public institution partners. The site plans to launch with 12,000 digital learning objects, which include video clips, documents, games, images, and activities.

“Approximately 60 percent of the collection is made up of video clips,” said Lippincott. “All of these are purpose-built short pieces of video that have been produced or adapted for use in the classroom. These are not simply segments of television.”