Preschoolers Are Clicking Away

USA Today reviewed two PBS Kids interactive websites yesterday. These sites (PBS Play! and PBS Kids Island) are both designed to help todays preschoolers learn alongside some of their best friends: Curious George, SuperWhy and of course Elmo (just to name a few). Read the article.

You can access PBS Play! and PBS Kids Island through the new KLRN Kids Website--just click on the "games" tab at the top.

Below is a preview of PBS Play! for you. Enjoy.

Happy Friday!

DTV Power Increase

As of June 13, KLRN-DT will be moving from DT-8 to DT-9 and as a part of that process, the station has been granted a transmitter power increase. We will be also using the antenna that is mounted at the top of our tower instead of the current DTV antenna that is side-mounted and lower on the tower. Both the additional height and the additional power will improve signal coverage and stability. We believe that the change from Channel 8 to 9 will also eliminate the DTV interference we currently experience from the DT-8 channel in Corpus Christi. All good news for our viewers!

Making the transformation....

The photo above is what the KLRN studios look like this morning. Drills are going strong, paint buckets are appearing, and the schematics are being reviewed. All to make it look like...

THIS! Three weeks from today the studios will be buzzing with busy volunteers, ringing phones, and the words "Board Closed!" Yep, it is auction time and we are gearing up for the best 10 days of live television. Mark your calendars for June 3-12 starting at 6 p.m. nightly.

If you have yet to experience Blazing Gavels, welcome! Sit back and get ready to become obsessed with the I-wonder-what-is-coming-up-next syndrome. For you seasoned auction viewers and bidders, know that this year will be as exciting as ever. Tickets, furniture, travel packages, gift cards...the list goes on and on.

There is still time to become part of the action, though, so please contact us if you have questions.

Donate an item-- e-mail jcostello@klrn.org
Become a sponsor -- e-mail twright@klrn.org
Volunteer -- e-mail dsilva@klrn.org
Call and talk to someone about your questions: 210.270.9000 (or 800.627.8193)
Have an auction story to share? Please send it our way: stories@klrn.org

WATCH! BID! BUY! See you at the auction!

What's coming to KLRN TV?

Ever wonder what's coming to KLRN beyond what your TV's on-screen program guide will tell you?

Subscribe to KLRN's Previews Newsletter and we'll send you updates via email about every two weeks.

As an example, coming up in May, you can catch the second two installments of Masterpiece Mystery! with Kenneth Branagh as well as the winning 2009 Fresh Cut student film. That, and the always inspiring National Memorial Day Concert from Washington, DC.

And that's just a taste. Check out the most recent KLRN Previews for more highlights.

To sign-up to get KLRN Previews by email, visit http://www.klrn.org/signup/.

Exciting news from PBS Showcase

This week PBS is holding their annual meeting, PBS Showcase, in Baltimore, Maryland. PBS executives and producers have announced some exciting changes to the schedule coming down the pipeline. One such announcement is the addition of a new animated children’s series, “THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT!” which will premiere in Fall 2010. Martin Short will voice the Cat in the Hat and the series will feature his two helpers, Thing One and Thing Two. Children will follow 6-year-old Sally and Nick as the cat leads them through amazing discoveries of natural science. Program outreach will also feature an important element to all PBS Kids series—an interactive website with learning tools for children and resources for their parents. To read more about this new series, click on the following link: http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20090511_pbskidscatinthehat.html.

Andrea.

Energy, Creativity, and Markers... Reading Rainbow!

During this year's Reading Rainbow contest, we were very lucky to read stories with characters like alligators, poodles in Paris, rainbow fruit, and the missing letter "m." Writers entertained us with stories about stamps who travel the world, a dog and cat who become friends, and a king who gives his daughter the world in her hands. This year we had an absolutely amazing response to our 15th Annual Young Writers and Illustrators Contest as we read 265 entries! Stories poured in from Bandera, Boerne, Bulverde, Cibolo, Converse, Devine, Elmendorf, Fair Oaks Ranch, Floresville, Gonzales, Harper, Helotes, Kirby, La Vernia, Lacosti, Leakey, Live Oak, Lytle, Mountain Home, New Braunfels, Pipe Creek, San Antonio, Schertz, Seguin, Somerset, Tarpley, and Universal City! Whew, that was a handful.

Over 450 people joined Mr. Steve and Miffy at our celebration on May 3rd in KLRN's Tobin Studio. The children arrived with smiles plastered on their faces and with amazing energy and excitement! Singing along, clapping, and grinning from ear to ear, children were involved in Mr. Steve's performance. One lucky second grader even strummed on Mr. Steve's guitar! Madison, KLRN's past national winner from 2001, joined us. She even read her winning entry with the families!

During the awards presentation, stunned and excited parents and winners popped up from the crowd when the entries appeared on the screen. Congratulations to all of the children who submitted a story and congratulations to the winners too! First place winners received a laptop donated by Mr. and Mrs. Vollmer, second place winners received a Leap Frog gift pack, and third place winners received a Reading Rainbow gift pack. Thank you to H-E-B and the Gladys Dalkovitz Fund for the generous support! Thank you to everyone who supported the contest and event. Thank you to Miffy for sharing warm hugs with the children too!

Check out our page on klrn.org/readingrainbow.

Looking forward to next year!

Have you installed your DTV converter box only to find you can't receive KLRN?

If you are using an antenna (not cable or satellite), here are a few tips that might help:

If you have one of those compact indoor antennas – at lot of the antennas that are promoted as “HDTV” antennas – it has very poor performance in receiving VHF television stations, like KLRN-DT. All the rest of the DTV stations (for now) broadcast in the UHF band and those smaller antennas may work just fine on UHF but are not satisfactory for VHF. At the very least, you need an all-band antenna (VHF+UHF).

If you live outside San Antonio, you may need an outdoor antenna to receive our signal. When the FCC calculates DTV coverage, their formula assumes that the receiver has an all-band outdoor antenna mounted on a 30’ mast. Of course many people would have difficulty installing such an antenna.

If you live inside the city, you might try to receive our signal using a basic set of “rabbit ears” – nothing fancy, just the two telescoping rods. You’ll need to experiment with the orientation of the rods to get the maximum signal level – and there should be a signal strength indicator in your DTV converter box. Look in the Menu for that display.

We'll keep posting more information as we move towards the June 12 transition, but you'll find much more on our DTV site at klrn.org/dtv.

KLRN and Discovery Education honor NISD for 1 Millionth View

A student at Thomas C. Clark High School was responsible for the one millionth view in KLRN Connect by watching a timely piece entitled Assignment Discovery: An Inside Look at the Flu. KLRN Connect is the digital video streaming service provided by KLRN and Discovery Education. With 40 districts subscribing to this service in the south central Texas region, NISD is one of the first districts in the country to reach this landmark achievement.

On May 6, KLRN and Discovery Education presented Northside Independent School District Superintendent John Folks with a certificate signed by Discovery Education President, Bill Goodwyn and KLRN General Manager, Joanne Winik, recognizing his school district’s one millionth educational video viewed.

According to Northside ISD Superintendent John Folks, "Using technology to increase academic excellence is a top priority for Northside ISD. Using KLRN Connect helps us improve student achievement and puts us on the leading edge of technological innovation in the San Antonio area."

KLRN and DE congratulate NISD adminstration, staff and students in making that innovation a reality!

The Entire Museum Reach Project in 1/2 Hour!

You've probably heard of the Museum Reach, that fabulous new River Walk project, running from the Lexington Street Bridge all the way to the Pearl Brewery. That's a lot of ground to take in, so instead of you researching it on foot, why not let us do the heavy lifting? In fact, we've already done so, and with camera in hand.

Thursday night at 8 Conversations reveals the soup-to-nuts details on what's surely South Texas' largest public works/public art installation in the last...oh, I'd say bazillion years. The San Antonio River Foundation (SARF) has combined the creativity of Artists, the backbreaking work of hundreds of skilled workers, and labor-saving machinery to create a landmark project through the city's old industrial northeast downtown area.

Candidly, this was not a garden spot. Abandoned Warehouses and overgrown lots were the norm in this corner of the city that time seemed to skip over. But it had one major thing going for it: the San Antonio River runs through it. So a wise group of people who think we ought to be proud of what we leave those who come after decided to do something BIG.

And the diamond they spotted in the rough...has now been shone to near perfection. It's taken 12 years, a handful of mayors, a small passel of city managers, a collaboration between the city, Bexar county and the San Antonio River Authority to make it happen. And they've succeeded. Mightily.

Tanji Patton hosts a half-hour look at the breath-taking project, with Kim Abernethy representing SARF, Thursday night the 7th right here on KLRN.

Conversations with Ken Burns at Brackenridge High School

Tonight we are featuring a new episode of Conversations with Ken Burns at 8:00 pm on KLRN. This interview was conducted at Brackenridge High School and included a very attentive audience of high school students from the school's media literacy program. In this taping, Ken Burns talked about his new documentary airing this fall, The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Ken came to San Antonio to highlight the Missions National Parks and showed the students a specially produced mini-documentary entitled San Antonio Missions - Keeping History Alive. Afterward students were invited to ask Ken questions regarding his projects and filmmaking.

For more information about The National Parks documentary go to http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

Wrestling with Our Stories: We Shall Remain

Have you been watching “We Shall Remain” from the folks at American Experience? If you have, you’ve witnessed a moving account of the complex and controversial birth of our nation and the trials of those who were here long before the first settlers arrived.

I grew up in Robeson County, North Carolina in the ‘70s-‘80s, where the racial divide was split equally among whites, African Americans and Native Americans. While I knew vaguely of the local lore of Henry Berry Lowrie and plight of the Lumbee Indians, most of what I knew about our country’s native people could be summarized in a kindergarten class reenactment of the Thanksgiving feast.

“We Shall Remain” has reintroduced me to the stories of real people and families who saw their way of life radically changed by the expansion of the United States. I hope you’ll take time to explore, and perhaps wrestle, with these stories as well.

You can catch the final two chapters of “We Shall Remain” on Monday, May 4 (Geronimo) & May 11 (Wounded Knee) at 9 PM on KLRN. You can watch past chapters (After the Mayflower, Tecumseh’s Vision, and Trail of Tears) online on PBS’ new video player at pbs.org/video. There’s also a robust website of information and resources at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain.

PBS Unveils Its Fabulous New Video Playback Site

So what happens if you look up and it's 10 o'clock on Tuesday night and you realize you forgot to watch Frontline? Or you got home late on Sunday and missed the Masterpiece Theater you had intended to watch. Now you'll be out of order on that fabulous 6-part series you've been watching. What the heck can you do?

Do this: watch it online. PBS has now unveiled their new video portal. It's really quite fabulous, with searches by subject matter, title, even topics. If that layout looks a little familiar, it bears a certain resemblance to what you might find in your ipod. I'd file that under "Why Re-Invent the Wheel?"

If you're wondering whether KLRN programming will be there, yes it will. The PBS portal is still in its test phases. Once it passes those tests, we'll be back to add KLRN Productions to the PBS mix.

And a last-minute reminder: KLRN's Fresh Cut 2009 high school student documentary contest is still taking votes online through midnight this Sunday night--that's the 26th. You can watch the top 14 entrants now by clicking on the above link. Vote for your favorite and give that high school "doc jock" some positive re-enforcement. 'Til next time...

A Conversation about your brand spankin' new River Walk!

That's one of San Antonio's most-revered TV personalities, Tanji Patton at left, and Kim Abernethy at right. You may not know Kim, but she plays a major role in a project that's going to put the Alamo City on the Art Map like never before. She's raising the money for the Extreme Makeover that the San Antonio River is undergoing. The phase nearing completion is the Museum Reach portion of a fabulously huge project that will change the face of San Antonio forever.

I won't detail what's in the show, but I'll invite you to watch it instead: Catch it Thursday, May 7th at 8PM on KLRN. Can't remember when Conversations is on? Then check out the KLRN web site and look at bottom left where you see the words KLRN schedules. Our entire schedule is there, including those hard-to-find program details that you find handy. Hint: you could mark it as a favorite and zip there daily to see if what we're showing is must-see TV. If you do, I think you'll be surprised at how much you'll feel you must see!

Reminder: Tomorrow night's Conversations with Father David Garcia, and next Thursday night's with Filmmaker Ken Burns. Great stuff!

The time has come to VOTE for CHANGE!

Are you a student, parent, faculty, admin, alumni or friend of any of the following schools: Churchill High School, Communication Arts High School, East Central High School, Film School of San Antonio at Harlandale, Jefferson High School, MacArthur High School, North East School of the Arts, or Reagan High School?

If so, it is TIME to VOTE for CHANGE! Introducing the Viewer's Choice Award for Fresh Cut 2009! Student projects from these schools have made it into the finalist round for Fresh Cut, KLRN's annual student film competition! So grab the popcorn, sit back and click here to cast your vote for CHANGE!

And make sure to send this link on to everyone you know such as grandparents, aunts and uncles and neighbors, too. Let's see if we can get 1,000 votes before the polls close on Sunday, April 26 at midnight!

Become a fan of Earth

So, I'll admit it. I'm a big fan of our Earth...and I know that I am not alone. I am at the pinnacle of my happiness when I am outside, and I believe that my 3-year old is the same way. The fresh air, green grass and never ending exploration is enough to fuel my fire. That said, you can probably imagine just how much I love Earth Day.

I want to encourage all parents to remember to teach our young ones (and not-so-young ones) to be kind to our planet...on Earth Day and beyond.

Here are some links to help you start the conversation:
Fun Earth Day projects for your kids: http://www.pbs.org/parents/special/earthday.html
Your kids can post their favorite Earth Day idea: http://pbskids.org/speakout/earth/
Of course, Earth Day programming:
(0-6 yrs) http://pbskids.org/video/
(7-12yrs) http://pbskids.org/go/video/

What ideas have you and your kids come up with?