Back to school is always an exciting time of year; this year, though, coming back to school will be even more exciting than ever. The staff of the Education Services Division of Georgia Public Broadcasting has spent the summer working hard with dedicated Georgia educators to expand on the resources we have to offer students and teachers in Georgia public schools.
Such efforts as the Programming Acquisition Project, which utilized Georgia teachers' expertise to select the programming to be purchased for the upcoming school year, and the Teacher-In-Residence Program, which brought teachers from across the state to Atlanta to work with our staff on developing multi-media support materials to accompany our video programming, have given me the opportunity to interact on a personal level with a large number of Georgia's educators. One of the big motivators behind the summer's work was our desire to demonstrate to Georgia teachers our willingness to listen to what they, the end users of our products and services, have to say and to incorporate their real-life experiences into our efforts to improve. I very much enjoyed the moments I was able to spend one-on-one with teachers and found the insights they offered regarding their needs as educators and the services we at GPB provide to Georgia's public schools to be invaluable. It was exciting to see so many teachers willing to spend their precious vacation time hard at work, assisting our staff with the great task of improving teaching and learning in Georgia classrooms through the use of educational technology.
Over the course of the coming school year, we will continue to work with Georgia teachers and to draw on their wisdom as we persevere in our goal to raise the bar of excellence in educational offerings extended to Georgia classrooms. Be sure to look for exciting new developments such as the posting of lesson plans on-line and PeachStar's partnership with United Learning to offer video streaming directly into Georgia classrooms.
I wish you a very successful school year for 2001-2002 and hope that our ongoing efforts to provide Georgia students and teachers with the highest level of educational resources will help you to make this school year one to remember.
Warm regards,
James M. Lyle,
Executive Director
