WEDU Celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week

Welcome to the beginning of May, when traditionalists celebrate May Day and neo-traditionalists celebrate “May the 4th be with you.”  Even more importantly, it’s teacher appreciation week, when students (and parents!) everywhere acknowledge the educators who led the charge through the school year. In the time of COVID-19, when teaching has become more challenging, that’s an accomplishment!

As a parent, I was a fairly pedestrian in acknowledging my children’s teachers, contributing to potlucks and sending small thank-you gifts.  But as an education professional, I’ve always been forthcoming with my appreciation. For decades, as a curriculum, program, and technology creator, my work has been behind the scenes, helping teachers succeed. With a master’s in learning technologies, I considered myself to be expert at supporting them with tech integration. But when COVID forced all teachers to adopt online approaches overnight, it flipped the script. Today every teacher is a tech integration expert and the rest of us are doing what we can to catch up!

At PBS, we package online materials in PBS LearningMedia, a free, web-based collection of learning resources for pre-K through grade 12. This work is searchable, aligned to learning standards, and embeddable in most learning management systems.  From Nature and NOVA to Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Wild Kratts, there’s fabulous content available on PBS LearningMedia.  And most importantly, it’s all meant to have value added by teachers, when you bring it into your classroom and make it your own. 

I also invite you to sign up for our monthly EdConnect newsletters, where we bring relevant content for educators and parents right to your inbox. You can sign up for those engaging emails here. We hope the resources shared in our newsletter and throughout PBS LearningMedia support your efforts as you teach and inspire the younger generation. If you are new to the resources provided through WEDU and PBS, we hope these resources come just in time to lighten the load during the final weeks of school.