Lori Walsh: At South Dakota Public Broadcasting, education is central to who we are. With so many South Dakota students' education disrupted due to the closure of school buildings and the abrupt shift to at-home learning, we wanted to let you know about a variety of SDPB's learning resources today. Joining us now on the phone, South Dakota Public Broadcasting's Larry Rohrer. Larry, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Larry Rohrer: Hey. Thanks Lori. Good to talk to you.
Lori Walsh: Also with us, Kevin Nelson, SDPB's education consultant. Welcome back, Kevin.
Kevin Nelson: Hello, and good to visit with you.
Lori Walsh: All right, let's start with you Larry and give us a big picture of South Dakota Public Broadcasting education services. Certainly not starting from scratch here.
Larry Rohrer: Well, as a matter of fact, Lori, it's nearly 100 years old. Going back to the very beginning of KUSD AM radio with E. O. Lawrence at USD. The actual license for the KUSD was in March of 1922, and for the next 50 years on that radio channel there was what was called the classroom of the air. There'd be music and reading and other things that would actually be available live to classrooms in the central and southeastern part of the state.
Television came in the '60s. Full curriculum courses were broadcast during the day and overnight to be recorded. Since the '70s, SDPB is the supplier of the curriculum for fourth grade history, South Dakota history. It was first South Dakota Adventure and was revamped to Pathways.
And then following the lead of PBS and the digital revolution, basically the curriculum content that's been part of the public broadcast team DNA switched over to what's called the digital learning library, and instead of having full course programs, there are learning modules, video clips with lesson plans and so forth that are associated with grade level and curriculum to South Dakota curriculum standards and a cooperative effort between other public stations, PBS and South Dakota program producers. There's over 100,000 what they call learning module assets that are available.
That's where we have been up to this past year, and we've been building with Kevin's help an initiative to extend that K-12 into pre-K, the Early Learning Initiative, all set to go and then we've got to put the whole thing on steroids.
Lori Walsh: Because the need is great and the need is immediate. Kevin Nelson tell us a little bit about that Early Learning Initiative project.
Kevin Nelson: Sure. Well, I'll tell you what, as Larry pointed out, our whole mission, our whole goal was to help early learners in our state and those that are providing for those, so that'd be parents and caregivers and preschool teachers, some resources.
South Dakota is one of the few states that doesn't recognize and doesn't fund preschool on a state level through any of those areas, so everything is on the local level, either through school districts or privately done, and so we were in the process of aligning all of the really, really good 100,000 learning modules, if you will, to what South Dakota does have in place, which is the South Dakota Early Learning Guidelines.
Those are basically the standards put together by South Dakota educators and early childhood specialists, and they're in areas like social and emotional learning and in areas ... communication, writing, speaking, language, cognitive things like math and science and physical and health.
And so we were in the process of putting those together, ready to roll it out. Actually about today was the day we were going to do that at a state conference and say, "Here they are." Well obviously the world changed, and so now what we're doing is we're making those available to parents so that they have something to do or something to work with their children at home and make this transition time or this trouble time a little less daunting.
Lori Walsh: One of the things I noticed, Kevin, when I went through the website at SDPB.org/ELI for Early Learning Initiative, as a parent whose daughter is now in college, it could be overwhelming back then, 18 years ago or 16 to 18 years ago to figure out how to vet resources and how to find different things in different categories. For parents now it's even more overwhelming.
This is all in one place, and it was really organized in a way that you could think about your child as a whole child. These aren't print out a worksheet kind of things. Give us an example of some of the things that people can find through the Early Learning Initiative.
Kevin Nelson: You bet. Well, one of the things that we're going to do and we are doing right now is we're pushing out on a daily basis a newsletter that will have specifically a couple activities that are geared towards a specific area.
For example in the area of math, one of the first ones we did, and we went into shapes, triangles and so on and so forth, and there's really neat things from Sesame Street and other places that are very quick and easy learning opportunities for kids. Some of it's video, some of it's interactives, some of it is an onscreen ... I'm not going to use the word worksheet, but it's an interactive that allows you to identify triangles and so on.
And again, what we want to do is this: we want parents to understand teaching is really, really hard stuff. It takes years oftentimes for teachers to get really good at what they're doing, and we don't expect parents to suddenly overnight become master teachers.
I think trying to do too much is going to be a bad thing. I think you need to keep it simple. I think you need to keep it active. I think that those are the things that are there, and that's what we're going to try to do. We're trying to help parents with that. Keep it simple, keep it something clear, and allow us to be the ones that are going to sort through this so that makes sure that if you stay with us on a daily basis or on a weekly basis, we're going to touch all of those areas of language and cognitive things like math and science and physical and health, and you just sit back and let us help you with that.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, I think that's wise advice too about how complicated really education can be, and take a breath; you can't do it all in one day. You've got some time and move forward at a pace that makes sense for your family. Larry, tell us a little bit about programming changes on television and SDPB.org/learn.
Larry Rohrer: Well, with the disruption of the school year here over the past few weeks and then going on towards the end of the school calendar, things really changed. A lot of the research that we're talking about have been there, and quite honestly they've been directed through our capacity primarily at the teacher community. Well, over the past few weeks all of that has changed.
There are two places to connect. One is at SDPB.org/learn. That's the main learning page. The Early Learning Initiative and a special section that helps guide some additional resources for those who are now learning at home connected to their teachers or to their parents is in an area that we call Learners Connection. Now you can get to all of those through SDPB.org/learn and you'll find the links.
But what has also happened with the help of PBS, we've revamped six hours of the broadcast day on SDPB Channel 2, and basically from 11:00 AM until 5:00 PM there is a special programming segment each Monday through Friday with some of the shows you're familiar with, some of the local shows that we've produced, that have connections to some of the various curriculum categories, K-12 and pre-K.
SDPB Channel 4 is all early learners, pre-K and some of the early grades, and what we've done with those channels along with the resources that Kevin can talk about is make sure that we can clearly show you where these programs, if you have screen time with them that are being broadcast on two or four, which curriculum category and which grade level they are most connected to or most useful for.
So the assets on the SDPB.org/learn include those schedules, but Kevin, you may want to talk a little bit more about the Learners Connection and how that directly can be tied in as a resource for people completing their school year at home.
Kevin Nelson: Absolutely. I think if you go to that site, and again the parents can do one of two things. They can sign up for the daily newsletter and let us show you some things or you can go to that site, get into the learning media component of what SDPB and PBS provides, and you can go as deep as you want to. You can go as far as you want to with any of those things, that you want to do that.
The learning goals, the programming, the really wonderful thing that I found out about PBS, 50 years of doing some really wonderful things in the area of education, is that all the programming really falls down to areas like social and emotional and literacy and social studies and arts and STEM, which is science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and kids are going to have the opportunity to learn a lot even if they spend some time on one of the channels or if their parents dive into Learner Connections on the website there too. Both of them are wonderful places to go.
Lori Walsh: And for people who don't have the internet, these things on the SDPB channels clearly go out across the state, and my voice here on the radio goes across the state, and Larry, all these services are free of charge for South Dakotans. One of the things we've talked about so frequently as this transition was made was inequity and leveling the playing field because so many kids have access to resources that others don't. These are open for everyone.
Larry Rohrer: Yeah, they are. That's always been the attempt. That includes the digital learning library and the other things if you do have access and can plug into the website, but of course the broadcast channels are too. They're over the air. In fact, six channels over the air, including you on five on the television band, but two and four in particular have activities that may be able to supplement or add a little additional value to either a preschool day or in particular to some other things that might support the K-12 learning that is being done at home or from a distance now through the end of the calendar year.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit before we let you go about screen time because Kevin, we've had some parents on who've made some epic jokes about our old quaint notions about screen time in the past, and a lot of parents are saying, "Well, those restrictions have just changed," but to the bigger picture of being concerned about screen time longterm as we look at this isolation and at home learning going the distance, talk a little bit about managing screen time for parents and students.
Kevin Nelson: Sure. Well, I'll tell you what. I have two decades as a school administrator, been in education for a long time, seen a lot of things come and go, and I will tell you that I think one of the most profound things I heard about this is that we have an over abundance of time children are spending in front of screens and an under abundance of time in front of quality screens. And I think at times what we're advocating here, and I think that in the K-12 world we're doing the same thing, is that we're saying budget the amount of time that you spend in front of the screen but when you're there, use it for quality purposes. And obviously right now, in a sense, we're doing triage in education with where we're at, and screen time is going to need to be a part of that.
But I would say on a much bigger sense and on a bigger scale is this. I think that if you're working with your children regardless of age at home, again, as I said before, don't try to do too much, but first and foremost, let them know that they're safe and let them know that you love them. That has to be number one. And then if you're a parent, realize that you're not going to sit down and do eight hours of academic work during the day. It probably isn't going to happen.
If you're an early learner, preschool and elementary, one to two hours at the most during the day, and here's what I'm also going to say. Pick up a book and read. Read with your child, to your child. Reading still should be the centerpiece of everything. It is the centerpiece of all learning, and it can still be there and that can have very little if nothing to do with screen time. Do that as a part of that.
Make sure you get up and move with your children. Have them move a lot. If you think about the fact that the average student probably has about five breaks during the day for movement, keep that in mind when you're doing that. Have quiet time with your children. I think those are all important things that go with that, and I think when you do all of that, the amount of screen time in there is going to correct itself.
Larry Rohrer: And so Lori, I'll just add briefly that the activities and the content that is at SDPB.learn and the other resources, so many of these are designed not to sit there and look at. You can look at them and there is a participatory aspect, there is something to set aside and then go do, and that goes hand in hand. There is some information on the screen, but then there's an activity to get away from it and share.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. Love it. Thank you. Well said, Kevin Nelson. Just hold onto them and make them feel loved. It's a stressful time and that consistency of story time and sitting down with a caring adult to read a book is priceless. They'll remember that forever. Larry Rohrer and Kevin Nelson, thank you so much. We appreciate your time.
Larry Rohrer: Thank you. Take care.
Kevin Nelson: Thank you.