WHYY Digital Datacasting
in Early Childhood Education
WHYY is probably best known in the Delaware Valley for its lineup
of quality children's programming. Several production companies,
such as Sesame Workshop
and Family Communications,
produce workshop materials that assist child care providers
in using public TV in the classroom. The WHYY education department
frequently delivers these workshops in-person to providers around
the region. Currently there is such demand for this training
that WHYY does not have the resources to do them all in-person.
Datacasting is currently being tested as a method to distribute
these programs directly to child care providers. The workshop
materials, which usually include a text, VHS videos, and handouts,
are digitized so that everything can be viewed at a computer
workstation equiped with a Digital TV adapter. WHYY sends the
content over the air, it is stored on the PC, and it can then
be viewed at the instructor's convenience. Below are two examples
of what the digitized content looks like.
WHYY recently completed two pilot projects for this technology,
one with several day care centers in Wilmington, DE and the
other with the Free
Library of Philadelphia at the Haddington
Branch.
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