Public Media stations have provided content to educate, enlighten, engage and inform our neighbors for more than 50 years. We are driven to connect our communities to opportunities for lifelong learning and to each other.
When schools across the nation closed due to COVID-19, and an average of 30% of students were left without internet access to remote learning, we jumped in to help.
Stations across the country connected with school districts and state education agencies to align their daytime programs to meet state instructional standards. Television programmers were replacing cooking shows with history and science documentaries so that students could still learn at home.
Schools were trying to buy laptops and hotspots for students that didn’t have them at home, so they could learn remotely. But internet access, even hotspots, still aren’t available everywhere. And they can be extremely expensive.
We engaged with state education agencies to partner and create a solution to help them bridge the digital divide: datacasting. Public television stations could work with teachers to send digital content through a television signal to students’ homes. With a small antenna and education device that works like a router, students were able to receive their digital work on any wi-fi enabled device at home.
South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV), Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, came together to share best practices, to innovate and to build the innovative, dynamic platform for datacasting. We are the force behind the Public Media Education Platform™.
Public Media Education Platform™ has partnered with Signal Infrastructure Group to build the PMEP's cloud and software infrastructure.
As we shared our initiative with others, opportunities to expand our services surfaced. We are developing connectivity programs to assist workers in the field, justice-involved youth and adults, and the public in need of timely, digital health information where broadband internet doesn’t exist.
Who would you like to connect to timely, informative, rich digital content?
Learn how the PMEP™ can help bridge your digital divide. Start the conversation by sending us a message.