AETN and PBS:  America’s largest classroom

AETN enhances and empowers the lives of all Arkansans by offering lifelong learning opportunities through our high-quality educational television programs and services.  AETN is both a leader and an essential education partner committed to providing teachers, parents, students and all Arkansans the support needed to make an impact on student achievement.

AETN works every day to offer Arkansans high-quality services and resources:

Online professional development for teachers

In 2005, the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 2318 that created a partnership between the Arkansas Department of Education and AETN to provide high quality, free online professional development for educators licensed in Arkansas and currently serves more than 32,600 registered educators.  ArkansasIDEAS is the nation’s largest free online professional development resource.  Nearly a half million credit hours have been earned by Arkansas educators since its inception.

Innovative classroom-ready digital media

AETN/PBS LearningMedia provides more than 20,000 free, innovative classroom-ready media to every teacher, parent and student across Arkansas. This next-generation digital media platform provides instant access to thousands of classroom-ready, curriculum-targeted interactives, videos, images and audio clips from PBS and public media partners and empowers PreK-16 educators to re-imagine classroom learning, transform teaching, and creatively engage students. 

Live teacher training/workshops

AETN offers educational training and workshops through live streaming, face-to-face in-studio and on-demand online to help educators impact student achievement in the classroom. 

Arkansas Common Core support

AETN supports the Arkansas Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative by serving as the leading provider of professional development related to the CCSS Initiative and by providing content online and by creating and hosting a website dedicated to helping others understand the Arkansas CCSS Initiative.  Since December 2011, more than 50,000 people from all 50 states have visited this one-of-a-kind site. 

PBS educator resources

Educational resources provided by PBS offer parents and teachers supplementary materials at home and in the classroom. Extensive resources are available via PBS apps, pbskids.org, teacher guides from broadcasts, parent resources, and extensive online teacher resources including PBS TeacherLine.

AETN partners with the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) in the Professional Development Plan for STEM Foundations and will produce video courses and maintain a website that hosts high-quality online professional development courses. These courses will be designed to help increase teacher efficacy across Arkansas, prepare students for STEM courses and promote mastery of the Common Core State Standards.

PBS KIDS was named the most educational TV/media brand, the safest destination for children to watch television or visit online, and the top provider of content that helps children build reading and math skills. (2012 Harris Poll)

The Ready To Learn initiative leverages the reach of public broadcasting to successfully move the needle in children's learning and provide unique educational safe havens for kids on TV, online, and on mobile devices. Ready To Learn targets America's most at-risk kids, but made available to all families and children across the country. Ready To Learn's high-quality trans-media content is unparalleled in its impact, value and necessity. The math- and literacy-based educational programming created by Ready To Learn provides families with effective, non-commercial content that helps prepare kids for success in school.

PBS KIDS Raising Readers is a national literacy campaign, and part of the Ready To Learn initiative, focused on building reading skills at home, at school, in childcare, and in the community.  Raising Readers uses the power of public media to help children ages 2 to 8 improve their literacy skills and help close the literacy achievement gap.  

Support for Arkansas education Legislative Acts

AETN is dedicated to responding to and meeting the state’s needs when education-related Legislative Acts are passed. AETN has created educational courses for professional development, produced informative web videos for face-to-face training, hosted associated educational series, and gathered and made mass amounts of related PBS programs available to Arkansas educators in support of the following acts:  

• Teacher Excellence and Support System (Act 1209 of 2011)
• The Child Maltreatment Act (Act 1236 of 2011) 
• Heat Illness, Communicable Diseases, Concussion (Act 1214 of 2011) 
• Professional Development Related to Students with Special Needs/Disabilities (Act 1146 of 2011)
• “Jason Flatt Act” – Suicide Awareness and Prevention (Act 770 of 2011)
• Enhancing Early Childhood Programs (Act 636 of 2011)
• Enhancing Parental Involvement Plans (Act 1002 of 2011)
• Provide high quality online professional development for teachers statewide (Act 2318 of 2005)