It’s happening. School is starting back all over the state and teachers are jumping into Common Core with both feet. As I checked Facebook this morning (is it sad that's now part of my morning routine?), I saw a comment from a teacher friend asking how to make reenacting the feast scene in Beowulf comply with CCGPS. It’s what we’re all talking and worrying about.

PBS Learning Media is one of the many options out there for smoothing the transition into Common Core implementation. We love it because it comes from the folks we are familiar with and trust with quality classroom content, PBS. It was new this spring and if you didn’t use it then, now is definitely the time to get into it. Here’s what they have to say about it:

PBS LearningMedia™ provides educators with strategies, tools, and professional development resources needed to fully utilize digital learning. It offers schools, districts, and states a cost-effective solution for seamless media integration and customization, including:
•State standards alignment
•Student access and class accounts
•Robust user management
•Comprehensive analytics
•Content management system

It has an easy-to-use browsing feature by subject and a search bar. Type in “Dinosaurs” and you’ll get videos and resources for k-12 content areas from STEM careers to earth science and art. You can then refine the search by grade level and content area. My favorite resource is the Scientist Profile video “Paleontologist.”

paleontologist.jpg

When you select resources to view, to the right is a box connecting it to a framework. Clicking on an item in the framework will take you to a list of yet more related resources. Nice feature, right? You can also highlight your favorites by clicking on a little star. By clicking “My Favorites” (at the top of every page, so it’s easy to navigate), you can add notes about each resource AND create a class page so your students can access and work independently inside of PBS Learning Media.

Clearly, this is a user friendly, resource-rich tool. To learn more about it, join us for a LIVE webinar on August 23, 2012 at 4pm. We’ll discuss connecting GPB’s local content and PBS Learning Media digital resources to the Common Core in an hour-long webinar with a live Q&A. There are only 100 slots available, but we will archive the webinar and post it for you to view and share.