EKU Partners with NBC Learn to Provide Video Resources to Faculty, Students, Madison Co. Schools

A new partnership between Eastern Kentucky University and NBC Learn will provide students and faculty access to premium education videos, which will also be available to classrooms throughout the Madison County School District.

EKU is the first institution in the Commonwealth to gift the educational resource to a local school district. The University’s Model Laboratory School – a department of the College of Education that teaches students from pre-K through 12^th grade while providing field experiences for EKU students – already has access to the NBC Learn collection.

Eric D. Zack, associate director for higher education from NBC Learn, joined EKU President Michael Benson, along with other University, Model Laboratory School and Madison County Schools administrators today for a launch event in the Model library and a celebratory luncheon.
For more than 80 years, NBC News has documented the people, places, and events that shape the world. NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBCUniversal News Group, is dedicated to making those historic stories, images and primary source documents available on-demand to teachers, students and parents. It has already digitized more than 12,000 stories from the NBC News archives — one of the largest news archives in the world, dating back to the 1920s. In addition, collections are updated with current events daily, featuring stories from such programs as “NBC Nightly News,” “TODAY,” “Meet the Press” and “Dateline NBC.”

“NBC Learn is proud to partner with Eastern Kentucky University to bring video resources to the University and to Madison County Schools,” said Soraya Gage, VP, Education, and GM, NBC Learn. “We believe that exposure to current events and the NBC News archive provides teachers and students with a real-life connection to learning.”

NBC Learn is staffed by veteran NBC News producers, who have created scores of original stories and Town Hall events around the country, some in partnership with the National Science Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and others. These include such award-winning collections as Chemistry Now, Changing Planet, Science of NFL Football, Science of the Winter Olympic Games, and Finishing the Dream.

Its original videos and archival news stories are correlated to state standards and aligned with more than 25 K-12 and 30 higher education collections. Videos are generally short — less than six minutes in length — enabling instructors to engage students in a short time-frame. Videos are full stories, with a beginning, middle and end, reported by some of the most famous journalists in broadcast history, including John Chancellor, Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, Brian Williams, and many others.

“NBC Learn is a well-respected and highly recognized national leader in education as it brings to school libraries and classrooms a treasure trove of stories, all documented by way of video, photographs and documents,” Benson said. “Eastern Kentucky University’s students and faculty, as well as those at EKU’s Model Laboratory School and the Madison County Schools will all benefit from this rich academic resource.”

Madison County Schools Superintendent Elmer Thomas said NBC Learn “will impact both teaching and learning in Madison County Schools. Today’s education requires teachers to be able to access quick, factual clips to help students master learning. Students require engaging activities that can allow them to think critically while understanding real-world implications. This partnership between NBC Learn, EKU and Madison County Schools will realize that impact.”

The collections of NBC Learn, provided through EKU Libraries, are available through Internet streaming or via download. They are also accessible as a stand-alone resource or as a Blackboard building block, which allows users to embed videos directly into Blackboard learning management systems.

Eastern Kentucky University is a comprehensive university serving approximately 16,000 students on its Richmond campus, at its educational centers in Corbin, Danville, Manchester, Somerset and Lancaster, and throughout Kentucky.

About NBC Learn

NBC Learn is the educational arm of NBCUniversal News Group, dedicated to providing resources for students, teachers, and lifelong learners. The online resources NBC Learn has created for the education community leverage nearly 80 years of historic news coverage, documentary materials, and current news broadcasts. NBC Learn K-12 and NBC Learn Higher Education gives students and teachers access to thousands of video clips from the NBC News archives, including great historic moments – from the Great Depression to the Space Race to the latest current events. NBC Learn also offers primary source materials, lesson plans and classroom planning resources, and additional text and image resources from our content partners. For more information, please visit www.nbclearn.com.




SOURCE: EKU News