During the 13th Annual K-12 School Networking Conference of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) held in Washington, DC in March 2008, Cable in the Classroom helped moderate a panel discussion on Developing 21st Century Skills in School and District Leaders. CoSN is the country’s premier voice for K-12 education leaders who use technology strategically to improve teaching and learning.Members of the panel discussed the 2007 revised framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which offers a vision for educational technology leaders. The panel, comprised of experts from cutting-edge districts and thought leaders from higher education and the nonprofit sector, examined common assumptions and goals for technology integration in the context of the 21st century skills movement. More importantly, panelists and attendees discussed what skills, knowledge and expertise school leaders must have for our nation’s evolving learning expectations.For this podcast (MP3, 23.5MB), we spoke with one of the panelists, Terry Clark, a 2005 Cable's Leaders in Learning Award winner and the assistant superintendent for Instruction and Technology at Bethpage Union Free School District in New York. Mr. Clark discussed how teachers in his school district are currently implementing the revised framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which offers a vision for educational technology leaders.Web site resources:Consortium for School NetworkingPartnership for 21st Century SkillsBethpage Union Free School DistrictBethpage RadioCable's Leaders in Learning Awards 

Kids. Cable. Learning. The Official Podcast Channel of Cable in the Classroom!

Developing 21st Century Skills in School and District Leaders

Moises Velez is a Peabody-award winning producer and currently the head of development for mun2, the NBCU cable network that celebrates the lifestyle of U.S. Latino youth. He spoke with Cable in the Classroom about the network’s documentary news series revolving around some of the most important issues relevant to Latino youth - including immigration, the environment and military recruitment in schools. This series includes “Toxic City,” the topic of our recent podcast with student Ryan Perez from Los Angeles, and the “Latinos in the Military” news special.In this podcast (mp3, 10.6MB), Moises shared how mun2 picked the topics for the documentary series and explained the process that goes into putting together the films. He also shared his thoughts on how teachers and students can – and should – use the series in classrooms.Web site resources:mun2News SpecialInspiring Youth in Their Communities Podcast 

Documenting Youth in Action

This podcast (MP3, 33.1 MB) is a recording of a panel discussion held during the 2008 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC). Based on the content of the Summer 2008 edition of Cable in the Classroom’s Threshold, Helen Soulé of Soulé Consulting Services moderated this discussion on innovative approaches to build interest and demand in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields among young women and minorities. Panelists included Erin Reilly from the Project New Media Literacies, MIT Comparative Media Studies and Karen Peterson, from the National Girls Collaborative Project and the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. Douglas Levin, from Cable in the Classroom, and Marina Leight, from the Center for Digital Education, also offered insights as part of the panel. 

Got STEM? Building Interest in STEM among Girls and Minorities

Donna Krache, executive producer for CNN Student News, talked with us (MP3, 8.0MB) about this free resource from CNN, their contribution to CIC’s eLECTIONS game and what teachers and students have to look forward to from the organization in the fall.Website Resources:CNN Student NewsElections 101CNN Student News: Talking Democracy 

More eLECTIONS resources

Hear about C-SPAN’s plans (MP3, 3.3MB) for educator resources during this presidential election… from the exhibition floor at NECC 2008.Website resources:C-SPAN.orgC-SPAN Classroom 

From the C-SPAN bus

Cable in the Classroom recently spoke with “Kim W.” who is one of the featured students in WE tv’s HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, a documentary series airing Mondays at 10 pm ET through April 28. The series follows 12 girls through four years of high school capturing their daily lives, motivations, challenges, and peer and parental pressures they experienced.In this interview (MP3, 15MB), we take a look at recent Harris Poll findings on teenagers’ lives related to stress, lack of sleep, body image and interpersonal relationships. Kim W., now a student at Boston University majoring in Philosophy and Political Science, elaborates on her experiences in high school, particularly the stress she faced balancing parent expectations, academics, sports and other activities. We also hear how she is striving to achieve work-life-study balance now that she is in college. She describes what it was like to have cameras follow her throughout her high school years to major events, and what the reaction has been to the series. Check your local listings for WE tv to watch the series.Website resources: http://www.ciconline.org/we (including link to survey of girls and their parents commissioned by WE tv )http://highschool.wetv.com/http://highschool.wetv.com/girls/index.htmlhttp://highschool.wetv.com/episodes/index.htmlhttp://www.wetv.com/ 

WE tv – HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

The 2007 Media Smart Award winner, Kelly Mendoza, presented her findings (MP3, 45MB) to an audience of education and cable leaders in March. Her paper Mapping Parental Mediation and Making Connections with Media Literacy, provides insight on how media literacy can strengthen and improve effective parental mediation. Mediation is defined as any strategy parents use to control, supervise or interpret media for children. Parental mediation, described as one of the most effective ways of managing television’s influence on children, helps children to think about the use of media and the messages they receive in order to highlight positive aspects of media, but also to intervene in media’s potential negative effects.“Effective intervention of parents with their children’s media consumption in the home may strengthen children’s skills in thinking more deeply about media messages they receive,” said the study’s author Kelly Mendoza. “Parental mediation informs children about television’s importance or lack of importance, how it should be used, and how much attention or disregard they should give to the material.”Dr. Renee Hobbs, professor at Temple University, and Anna Weselak, immediate past national president of the PTA also commented during the presentation. 

Helping Parents Protect, Educate Kids about Media

Educators looking for programming that brings civics, environmental clean-up, economic development and social justice topics to life for their students, now have a new tool. The Mun2 News Special, “Toxic City: This Is Where I Live,” is the latest installment of the TV network’s Peabody-Award winning news special series and focuses on young Latinos across the nation who are improving their environments and communities.“Toxic City” profiles Latino youth in highly polluted communities who are taking the lead for their families in causes of environmental justice. Shot in cities across the country including Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New York and El Paso as well as Juarez, Mexico, the special report explores how a disproportionate number of U.S. Latinos live and work among industrial waste, noxious pollution, and contaminated communities, and how youth are mobilizing to address these environmental issues.One of the stars of the program is Ryan Perez from Huntington Park, California – we spoke with him for this podcast (MP3, 25MB). Ryan is able to connect with young viewers who can identify with his environmental work as well as his outside interests and passions.Toxic City will air, commercial-free, on mun2 on January 14th at 1am and January 17th at 3:30am (check local cable listings). Cable in the Classroom educators can record the English-language program for classroom use.For more information, visit: Mun2Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)Youth for Environment Justice (Youth-EJ) My Space page 

Inspiring Youth in Their Communities

GSN, (Game Show Network), is now conducting its second annual National Vocabulary Championship (NVC). NVC is a nationwide academic competition that offers high school students between the ages of 13-19 the opportunity to win prize money toward college tuition through online qualifying exams and citywide championship events throughout the U.S. Students in grades 9 through 12 who are interested in qualifying for GSN's NVC Finals, that will take place in March 10, 2008 in Los Angeles, can visit winwithwords.com to take the test now. The deadline to enter is November 30, 2007.For more insights into this year's competition, listen to a podcast (MP3, 13 MB) featuring the host of the National Vocabulary Championship, Dylan Lane. Dylan is also the host of the new version of the game show Chain Reaction which also airs on GSN. He shared details about GSN's free support materials for vocabulary study available online and also spoke about this year's competition and GSN's plans for the finale next spring.Also, listen to the Kids.Cable.Learning. podcast with the first-ever National Vocabulary Champion, Robert Marsland from Madison, Wisconsin, for more information about the competition.Related links:GSN: www.gsn.comNational Vocabulary Contest: www.winwithwords.comPrinceton Review: www.princetonreview.comTechnorati tags: GSN, NVC, National Vocabulary Contest, college tuition, college cost, paying for college, cable, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, tv, school, education, NCTA 

Win With Words!

Listen to an interview with C-SPAN (22MB, MP3) about their 2008 StudentCam competition.StudentCam is a video documentary competition that invites students to identify a current political topic of national interest and produce a ten minute or less video documentary which creatively explores the issue, while also integrating C-SPAN programming. The annual documentary competition for middle and high school students is a great way to get students engaged in exploring key issues during a presidential election year!Entries are due by December 31, 2007 and a grand prize of $5,000 will be awarded in February 2008 to the best overall entry. Winning student videos may also air on the C-SPAN networks.Related links:Video links to previous C-SPAN StudentCam winners: http://www.ciconline.org/C-SPANC-SPAN Classroom (free resources for teaching Civics and US Government) : www.c-spanclassroom.orgTechnorati tags: Civics, government, C-SPAN, politics, student video, contest, cable, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, tv, school, education, NCTA 

C-SPAN StudentCam

This week, Cable in the Classroom and Common Sense Media released the findings from a nationally representative poll of parents about their internet-related actions and attitudes.Today, we are pleased to make available a podcast [19MB, MP3] of the press briefing conducted to release the poll (conducted via web- and tele-conference).Conducted by Harris Interactive, the poll, Parenting Moves Online, provides a comprehensive and timely snapshot of parents and legal guardians of 6-18 year olds (whose children go online from any setting) across the U.S. Among other contributions, the poll sheds light on the different behaviors, attitudes, and experiences of parents of children of different ages (6-10, 11-14, and 15-18); on differences between Moms and Dads; and on differences by parental views and practices (including between more and less engaged parents, and between parents who view the internet as more helpful to their children than other parents).More on the poll and its findings can be found at www.ciconline.org/poll2007.Based on the poll findings, we have made a number of recommendations for parents related to their children's internet use:Talk regularly with your children about their Internet use and seek out high-tech parenting advice from trusted sources (like from our very own Point Smart Click Safe!);Speak with your children about Internet safety and appropriate online behavior and about more frequently experienced issues;Engage even very young children to set behavioral expectations; andLook to teachers and schools as partners in instilling media literacy skills."This poll underscores what we at the PTA have advocated for a long time—the vital importance of parents getting involved and engaged in their children’s lives, online and offline,” said Jan Harp Domene, national president of the PTA. She further suggests that parents need simple, specific, and age-appropriate tools and information to help them engage in their kids’ online lives.Other resources of note include:Cable in the Classroom Magazine's July/August 2007 issue is devoted to keeping kids safe and secure online. It contains a Q&A for parents about technology and kids, an article on using interactive web tools at home, and two articles on social networking The May 2007 issue looks at ethical behavior in a digital world, with articles on cyberbullying, plagiarism and copyrightsCable in the Classroom Magazine's July/August 2006 edition covered internet safety, parental controls and advice for parenting a digital generation of kids.Threshold magazine's Summer 2007 issue focuses on "Responsibilities and Ethics in a Web 2.0 World" with articles discussing the legal, social and ethical implications of new, interactive technologies and how children learn.Parenting the MySpace Generation, a 2006 poll of parents on internet issues commissioned by Cable in the Classroom and conducted by Harris Interactive.Technorati tags: media literacy, online safety, internet safety, social networking, parents, parenting advice, cable, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, tv, school, education, NCTA 

Parenting Moves Online

In this podcast interview [17MB, MP3], the History Channel’s Dr. Libby O'Connell discusses the network’s Take a Veteran to School Day program that provides engaging curriculum for teachers, diverse learning opportunities for students and recognition for America’s veterans. Take a Vet to School Day is kicking off its first year this fall, linking veterans of all ages with young people across the country. The program offers free age-appropriate curriculum available online for Kindergarten to 12th-grade teachers.Dr. O’Connell, senior vice president of corporate outreach and chief historian at The History Channel, describes how students who participate in Take a Veteran to School Day will learn a variety of things—history, vocabulary, and geography— while also recognizing these men and women for their service.More information for schools, teachers and students about Take a Vet to School Day can be found at: www.veterans.com.Cable systems interested in getting involved, should visit www.aetnjustclick.com.Technorati tags: History Channel, AETN, Veteran's Day, cable, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, tv, school, education, NCTA 

Take a Veteran to School Day: How to Get Involved!

The cable industry was out in force during the 2007 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in June.Represented by Cable in the Classroom, Discovery Education, The History Channel, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), CNN Student News, C-SPAN (which brought the Campaign Bus!), Court TV, and cable operators (including Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and others) the industry participated in in-depth presentations, held a networking reception honoring educators, and took the opportunity to share the wealth of educational resources offered by the industry to educators and educational technology leaders from across the country.In this podcast (MP3, 19MB), we share just some examples of the cable resources that were on display for the more than 13,000 educators who attended this year's conference. We spoke with CNN Student News, C-SPAN, Discovery Education, the History Channel, Cox Communications and CTAM.If we've piqued your interest, be sure to visit the Cable in the Classroom website at www.ciconline.org for even more!Technorati tags: CNN, C-SPAN, History Channel, e-rate, erate, Cox, CTAM, NECC, NECC 2007, NECC07, cable, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, tv, school, education, NCTA 

Cable Celebrates Educators at NECC 2007

At the 2007 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), Cable in the Classroom's Senior Director of Education Policy, Douglas Levin, had the opportunity to join Susan Patrick, President and CEO of the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL), in presenting on the intersection of two emerging educational policy innovations: virtual schooling and 21st century skills.Cable in the Classroom, as the national education foundation of the U.S. cable industry, is a founding board member of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The Partnership is the leading advocacy organization infusing 21st Century skills into education.NACOL and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills collaborated on a joint position paper released late last year and this presentation [MP3, 38MB] generally follow the outline of that collaboration.The punchline: If we are serious about ensuring that all students master the skills they will need for life, work, and citizenship in the 21st century, the continued expansion of virtual schooling (blended and wholly online) will be required. At the same time, while virtual schools by their very nature foster some of the skills outlined by the Partnership, many will have to become more intentional in their approaches to teaching and assessing the full range of 21st century skills.Those interested in the work of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills might also be interested in perusing the Spring 2006 edition of Cable in the Classroom's Threshold, focused on high school reform and 21st century skills.Technorati tags: n07s689, necc, necc 2007, necc07, virtual schools, online learning, distance education, 21st century skills, P21, cable, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, tv, school, education, NCTA 

Virtual Schools and 21st Century Skills

On the evening of June 6, 2007, national education leaders, policymakers, and cable industry executives all gathered at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC to honor the third class of Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards recipients.Elena Russo of Comcast on the Red Carpet was there to share the excitement of the evening with you in this five minute video segment [M4V, 58MB] airing nationally on cable systems like yours!The 2007 class of Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards recipients included classroom teachers, administrators, community leaders/nonprofit executives, university faculty, and policymakers. Many of their inspirational stories can be heard on our companion Leaders in Learning podcast channel. While you are there, be sure to download and listen to interviews with the 2006 class, too!The Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards is the U.S. cable industry's annual awards program to recognize those who demonstrate vision, innovation, action and transformation in education. The objective of the awards is to promote and encourage innovative learning practices by honoring individuals who have transformed an aspect of education on a large or small scale.Managing the awards program is a year-long activity for those of us at Cable in the Classroom and it is without question one of the most rewarding things that we do. Being able to shine a bright light on just a few of those many educators making a difference in the lives of the nation's students is truly an honor and responsibility we take very seriously.Who knows? Maybe you can join us on stage at the 2008 gala! The application window for the fourth class of Cable's Leaders in Learning opens in mid-September 2007. Detailed instructions on how to apply will be available at www.leadersinlearningawards.org.Technorati Tags: Leaders in Learning, leadersinlearning, awards, leadership, Comcast, NCTA, CIC, Cable in the Classroom, cableintheclassroom, cable 

2007 Cable's Leaders In Learning Awards Gala: Comcast on the Red Carpet

Welcome to the official podcast channel of Cable in the Classroom, the cable industry's national education foundation. Working at the intersection of the cable industry and education, our aim is to expand and enhance learning for kids in and out of the classroom.

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Kids. Cable. Learning. The Official Podcast Channel of Cable...

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