Award-winning Educator Janet English
to Blog for PBS Teachers’ Media Infusion

MEDIA ALERT – Janet English, an award-winning educator and digital media expert, is the new blogger for Media Infusion (pbs.org/mediainfusion), PBS Teachers’ popular education blog that focuses on practical ways to integrate multimedia resources and technology into the classroom.

Media Infusion bridges the gap between theory and practice. English will discuss ways to use multimedia resources to address common instructional challenges, and invite readers to share their ideas. Through Media Infusion, English will help educators discover methods for infusing their instruction with media to create rich, engaging learning experiences that improve student learning across grade levels and curriculum topics.

After serving as the Senior Director of Education and New Media for KOCE-TV for several years, English returned to classroom in 2009 to teach science in Lake Forest, Calif. at El Toro High School in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. Prior to her position at KOCE-TV, she was a science and technology teacher in California for 13 years, and won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching in 2003. While teaching, she lead the Schoolhouse Video project for KOCE-TV from 2001-2005. Through the project, students, teachers and administrators created short, education-based videos for broadcast. English has also served on committees for the National Academies and the National Science Foundation, and was founding vice-chair of the California Teacher Advisory Council. She is an associate member of the National Teacher Advisory Council.

“We are very excited about sharing Janet’s enthusiasm and creativity with the Media Infusion audience,” said Donelle Blubaugh, director of education at PBS. “Janet honors the expectations of 21st century students by creating fresh, challenging, media-rich learning experiences. Her monthly challenges to Media Infusion readers will support their efforts to do the same for their students. At the same time, she will invite educators to share their successes and their struggles so that the blog becomes a place where educators can learn about and try new media tools together.”

This month on Media Infusion, English will focus on using Ken Burns’ much-anticipated documentary, “National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” in the classroom to inspire students and teach lessons in civics, social studies, history, science, and language arts. She challenges educators to use technology tools like Voice Thread (www.voicethread.com) and video clips from “National Parks” to help students learn to write and present personal narratives in a collaborative learning environment.

“Students love using 21st century technology, and teachers that are using this technology in the classroom find it’s an effective way to get their students excited about their education,” English explained. “As teachers, we need to develop and embrace methods that harness the students’ inherent interest in these tools, and use this engagement to help students reach their full potential as productive citizens and life-long learners.”

About PBS Teachers

PBS Teachers (www.pbs.org/teachers) is the Web portal designed for preK-12 educators to access PBS’ educational services and a searchable library of more than 9,000 free local and national standards-based teaching activities, lesson plans, on-demand video assets, and interactive games and simulations.

Contacts

PBS
Kevin Dando
703-739-5073
kdando at pbs dot org
www.pbs.org

C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Kristen Plemon
608-839-9805
kristen at cblohm dot com
www.cblohm.com