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SILS team creates digital library
of NASA programs
Aug. 24, 2004 — A SILS faculty and student team, working in collaboration with NASA Langley's Center for Distance Learning and the Instructional Technology Division of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, has created a digital library of NASA Langley's award-winning distance learning programs.
Through this collaboration, teachers, students and parents can now access and download the complete set of programs via the Internet. The programs are: NASA Kids Science News NetworkT, the NASA Sci FilesT, NASA CONNECTT and NASA's Destination TomorrowT. All air on PBS, cable and interactive television and are used nationally by about 500,000 educators, representing about 10.6 million students.
The content will also be showcased on NC WiseOwl (http://www.ncwiseowl.org), a free resource for teachers, students and parents in North Carolina that links to an InfoTraC database, other educational Web sites and on-line encyclopedias.
The videos are available at UNC at Chapel Hill servers located at http://nasa.ibiblio.org/ and http://www.open-video.org under the "NASA K-16 Science Education Programs" link.
According to Thom Pinelli, who leads the NASA Langley Center for Distance Learning team, these educational programs are designed to enhance and enrich science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related teaching and learning; advance the theory and practice of teaching mathematics, science and technology; inspire and encourage students (especially women and minorities) to pursue STEM-related courses and careers; and increase adult scientific and technological literacy.
Gary Marchionini, the project principal investigator and Cary C. Boshamer professor, notes that the digital video is available in multiple formats to allow users with different connectivity to use the materials. Each segment and program is available in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, QuickTime and Real formats. SILS will continue to add new programs as they are produced as well as metadata and descriptive information to make the videos more accessible and usable in the years ahead.
Paul Jones, co-principal investigator and director of ibiblio, notes that this work "adds a new dimension to the long-standing efforts of UNC and ibiblio to provide high-quality digital resources to the state and the nation." At present, there are 12 segments of NASA Kids Science News NetworkT, 75 segments from seven NASA SCI FilesT, 120 segments from 24 NASA CONNECTT, and 60 segments from 12 NASA's Destination TomorrowT programs.
Clyde Lewis, a project principal investigator at the NASA Langley Center for Distance Learning, states that "the real strength of this initiative is the navigability, searchability and usability of the digital library. We designed the library to enhance the user's ability to find, retrieve and quickly load relevant videos or video segments, by taking advantage of the video indexing and descriptive information."