Saturday, January 1, 2005

GPB Education's New Online Presence

Georgia Public Broadcasting Education is pleased to announce the launch of our new website. The new site, located at www.gpb.org/education, takes the guesswork out of finding the resources you need by incorporating clear and common-sense navigation and more refined search tools. As part of the larger Georgia Public Broadcasting family, Education now has a website that shares the look and feel of the main GPB site, so that as you move from Television to Radio to Education, you will easily be able to locate the information you seek.

The new site features navigation that remains consistent as you travel from page to page. The top menu is your main navigation, and features links to the three broadcast divisions of Georgia Public Broadcasting (Television, Radio, and Education) as well as links to About GPB, Support GPB, and Contact information. When you scroll over any of these links on the top menu, a drop down box will appear offering you choices for specific pages within each section. For example, when you move your mouse over the Education link, the drop down box will give you the following choices:
- Schedule
- Program Guide
- Highlights
- Local Productions
- Teacher Toolbox
- Pipeline

The toolbar on the left-hand side of the page is your sub-navigation. This toolbar is dynamic and will change to meet your needs depending on where you are in the site. For example, when you are on the main page, the shaded box at the top of the side toolbar will give you the main navigation - this mirrors the navigation in the Education drop down menu on the top toolbar and offers you a second way to find information in any of the broad categories listed above. Once you move to another page within the site, though, the side navigation will change to meet your needs. For example, if you go to the Program Guide, the shaded menu on the side toolbar will give you the options of: Search Wizard, Keyword Search, and Standards. If you were to click on a local production, though, the side toolbar would give you these choices: Program Overview, Lesson Plans, Activities, etc.

There has also been some reorganization of the content itself and where it is located on the website. Let's take a look at each of the major content areas and what you can find there.

Broadcast Schedule The new broadcast schedule encompasses Television, Radio, and Education, and allows you to toggle between these three media to find what is airing on any given day. A calendar on the right-hand side of the broadcast schedule page allows you to click on a date to see all of the programming for that day on TV, radio and satellite. Programs will be listed along with their individual episode titles AND links to program websites were available. In addition to viewing the broadcast schedule by date, you may also view it by program. All currently scheduled programs are listed alphabetically and you can click on any of them to see when they are scheduled to air; this view also gives you episode information like the view by date option. All programs listed in the broadcast schedule have active links from the program title to the program guide, where you can find all of the descriptive information you need.

Program Guide The program guide will have information about all GPB programs regardless of whether or not they are currently scheduled. You may search for programs by grade level and subject area or by keyword. Items returned for program guide searches will have active links to the broadcast schedule if they are currently slated to air.

Highlights The highlights section located on the Education main page will replace the News section on the old website. Here you will find rotating features about specific program specials, activities and opportunities available through GPB and our partner organizations, and timely news topics.

Local Productions This page features all of GPB Education's originally produced programming, including Georgia Stories, Irasshai, Salsa, and more. From this page you can link to the specific program websites for each of these programs for activities, program information, and other resources. You can reach any of the local productions program websites by using the navigation on the left-hand side toolbar or by choosing Local Productions from the drop-down menu under Education on your top toolbar.

Teacher Toolbox This section has tons of information to help you use GPB Education resources. Here you will find technical information about your satellite, lesson plans, tutorials, and additional resources for the classroom. You can find the Teacher Toolbox by either selecting it from the drop down menu on the top tool bar or by clicking on the Teacher Toolbox icon on the right-hand side of your screen.

Pipeline You can go to the Pipeline homepage either by using your top bar navigation from the drop down menu or by clicking on the Pipeline icon on the right-hand side of the main page. Here you will find Pipeline articles for the current month as well as archives for the last several years. Beginning in February, the Pipeline section will become a dynamic E-zine, featuring all of the pizzazz of the printed magazine online.

Video Streaming The new website has put all of the resources for video streaming in one place. By clicking on logo on the right-hand side of your screen, you will have access to the GPB Education Streaming Portal AND all of the technical information you need about video streaming. Resources here include a tutorial, the streaming license agreement and copyright guidelines, and information about Network Manager.

Partners In the bottom right hand corner of the main Education page is a box designated to highlighting our partner organizations. Click on the icon of any of our partners to link directly to their websites.