By Lynnette Stevens, Coordinator III, Vegas PBS
The Educational Media Services Department at Vegas PBS in Las Vegas, Nevada is utilizing Signing Time in many interesting and innovative ways which includes broadcast, video streaming, curriculum integration and community outreach events. As a licensee of the Clark County School District, Vegas PBS provides Educational Media Services to the fifth largest school district in the nation. Signing Time is broadcast to over 350 schools on a 6 channel closed-circuit broadcast system throughout the year. The program is aired during and after school hours to accommodate classroom teachers as well as after school programs.
A CCSD speech therapist writes, “One hard-of-hearing student with autism really enjoys the program. His only means of communication is ASL. Signing Time helped to enable the staff to learn to communicate with him.” A first grade teacher shares, “Signing Time provides another means by which my students learn new vocabulary words, teaching them how to communicate with others in the community. The broadcast of the program provides an activity that the students engage in with enthusiasm.”
Vegas PBS also provides all teachers and students access to a computer-based Video Streaming Service which houses over 60,000 educational media clips. With over 1.7 million downloads in the past 6 years, video streaming has fast become their most popular service. Signing Time will soon be made available via this medium, offering teachers more convenient access to the program.
The Ready to Learn Department of Vegas PBS incorporates Signing Time into its literacy-based workshops designed to foster parent/child interaction. Over 400 workshops are conducted annually in Title I Tot and Pre-K classrooms. Additionally, the Ready to Learn Department has hosted local Signing Time events over the past three years in partnership with the Las Vegas Clark County Library District. The event represents a perfect collaboration of children’s programming that promotes interactive tv-viewing , outreach and innovative ways to reach a greater viewing/doing audience.
This is a wonderful example of incorporating Signing Time into the school curriculum. I am so proud and excited to hear about this! Let’s hear it for Signing Time and all of the wonderful people and departments and PBS using it in Las Vegas!