KLRN Video Blog | August 17

Take a Peek at the PBS Press Tour

I love summertime. This is when PBS announces our fall lineup and it’s so refreshing when new programs are unveiled.

What’s even more exciting is that PBS has just returned from their press tour in Calif. and is already seeing the results of their efforts.

On a conference call I participated in yesterday with the PBS Communication Advisory Council, the media team reported “…strong media attendance, including the Associated Press, TV Guide Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and more than 130 other publications and Web sites with 60 million+ total circulation.” USA Today called last week’s PBS Press Tour “excellent” and Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes said “PBS’s press tour is the best lineup by far.”

You can check out the PBS Press Tour yourself on YouTube. Among the highlights you’ll find:

• David Tennant brings a “breath of fresh air” to Masterpiece
• Astronaut Mike Massimino on twittering from Space
• Patti Smith interview outside of studio
• Paula Apsell and Susan Lacy give great overviews of the coming season and how they pick topics/ talent for each season
• Chiwetel Ejiofor – talks about filming in Africa, his parents birthplace
• The Electric Company’s “Shock” beatboxes the letters PBS @7:04

I could go on about what’s new this season, but don’t take it from me or PBS, check out the press tour yourself at http://www.youtube.com/pbs. I’ll look forward to reading your thoughts.

Your Opportunity to Walk with Dinosaurs

Have you heard that dinosaurs will be in San Antonio this fall? Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular will visit the AT&T Center on November 4 -8.

Anyone interested in dinosaurs, history, engineering, or robotics will be amazed at this show. The live show is based on the famous Walking with Dinosaurs series produced by BBC and seeks to once again bring dinosaurs to life. The entire floor of the AT&T Center will be cleared to make room for these massive creatures. KLRN viewers will have a chance to watch a behind the scenes documentary about this amazing production. “Walking with Dinosaurs: The Making of the Live Experience” will air this Sunday at 7:00pm. I’ve watched this program and, trust me, it will amaze you to see the amount of work that goes into designing and creating these life size creatures. …And I do mean life size. The largest dinosaur is 72 feet from nose to tail! Anyone familiar with engineering won’t be surprised to know that there are some tense moments. No design is every implemented without a few hitches. I don’t want to give away any details, so you’ll just have to watch. Don’t forget to tune-in to KLRN on Sunday (8/16) at 7:00pm.

Andrea.

P.S. Please note that the above clip is from the Live Experience event and not from the Making of… documentary.

Ruff n Stuff | KLRN KIDS Go Back to School

Families zoomed into the San Antonio Children’s Museum on Saturday, August 8, attending the Passport Back to School event. Over 1,100 people entered the doors and ventured to the Tooth Booth, the kid-powered elevator, and the H-E-B Kids’ Market, making new friends and having fun along the way! As children were engaged in play, they were learning! Any time is learning time and what a perfect location for children and their families to play together. It was amazing to see children pushing along their shopping baskets choosing their purchases and it was just as fun watching the parents observing and engaged too. Children stood in the middle of a large bubble in the Bubble exhibit, they dug for treasures and manned a front end loader. A special treat was the Fetch lab where they made catapults and released cotton balls; Ruff Ruffman, from the PBS KIDS GO! show, Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, made special appearances too.

Community partners shared important program information with parents and caregivers; they learned more about parenting programs, home-visiting programs, the important role they play as the child’s first and most important teacher, and about resources that are available for them in their communities! Children walked away with school supplies, backpacks, books, and smiles. We’re really excited that the event was such a hit and we look forward to the next time where we can help kick-off a new school year!

Blogger: Maricella Borroel

So What's KLRN Done for You Lately?

Katrina's back with a great big passel of fun stuff that KLRN's been up to...and even a little mystery for you to solve. But why write about it when you can see it for yourself?

It's Almost Time For...School!

Who is really able to pass up a kid-friendly, COOL place to bring the kiddos on Saturday? KLRN Kids, EarlyON, and the San Antonio Children's Museum are celebrating the beginning of a new school year with a Passport Back To School event featuring Ruff Ruffman, himself, from the PBS hit show Fetch! (Parents, remember to bring your cameras!)

Admission to the museum is FREE during the event, so gather the kids (they have to adjust to getting up early again anyway) and join us from 9a -11a at the San Antonio Children's Museum. Each child will receive a "passport" at the entrance along with a list of activity tables (stations) to visit. At each station, they will receive a stamp on their passport, and once the passport is filled with stamps, the child will get a bag full of goodies!

If you haven't been to the SA Children's Museum lately, be prepared for a great time. There is a new ball/gravity exhibit at the entrance, and kids can literally get trapped in there for hours just running their little hearts out (trust me, I've experienced it myself). If you are a frequent visitor of this great kids place, know that our activities will make this trip that much better.

Need more info? Give us a call 270.9000 or look for more upcoming events at www.klrn.org/kids (p.s. the Biscuit Brothers will be here in September!)

See you on Saturday!

Thursday Night's Conversations

If it looks like they're having fun, maybe it's because they are. The THEY are Juan Sepulveda, Julian Castro and Ricardo Romo and we brought them together to discuss the hurdles South Texans have to clear to get a higher education. Juan's new post with the Obama Administration's Initiative on Excellence in Education leaves him well qualified to speak, as do the resumes of San Antonio's new Mayor and UTSA's President.

This Conversations program was recorded at UTSA's downtown campus right after a gathering of educators and government folks had hashed over the high hills and deep ruts of south Texas' education landscape. The lively half-hour program runs the gamut on education, from TAKS test troubles to where they think the biggest hurdle to clear for getting a good education lies: and it’s probably not where you think! Check it out Thursday night at 8.

KLRN Update: Our first Video Blog entry

Katrina and Jack recently produced our first Video Blog with highlights from recent projects and a glance ahead at a couple of events and programs coming soon!

Let us know what you think of our first entry and stay tuned for more!

And as always, you can get frequent news and programming tips from KLRN on Twitter and Facebook!

This is One Slick Guy

Tom Slick was born to wealth and could have lived out his days burning through it all without a care in the world. Instead though, he cared a lot. This San Antonio native cared enough about people that to help fight disease, he established the Southwest Biomedical Foundation to research cures. He established the Mind Science foundation to research the unknown complexities of the mind. He wrote a book on World Peace before he was 30.
Tom Slick hungered for knowledge from the four corners of the world, so he traveled that world in searches for the Abominable Snowman, for the Loch Ness Monster, and even Bigfoot.
While he never found those creatures, he did find his biggest passion: Modern Art. Now, a McNay Art Museum Exhibition at the Stieren Center celebrates the man through his private collection in Tom Slick: International Art Collector.
Host Jeff Coyle speaks with Dr. William Chiego, John C. Kerr and biographer Catherine Nixon Cooke as they tell surprising, revealing and downright amusing stories about one of South Texas’ most accomplished, most fascinating men. Tune in to KLRN Tonight at 8 for a preview of his collection, plus a peek at the twisted, yet hilarious Edward Gorey exhibit currently showing at the McNay.

The World is Your Classroom at KLRN

Yesterday, I spent the day with K-12 educators at the Schertz Cibolo Universal City School District guiding them through our online video streaming service, KLRN Connect. During our discussion regarding all the great programming featured on KLRN, I was pleased to share with them the other KLRN Channels such as V-Me. I enticed the Spanish teachers to use this programming in the immersive classrooms or with ESOL students. I also had a Home Ec teacher declare her love for Julia Child and so I showed her where she could find her programs on the Create Channel. I will tell you she cried with glee when I showed her the PBS Player at http://video.pbs.org! There was Julia, in all her mallet-yielding glory, taking on a whole chicken with such style and grace that is only Julia. Go enjoy all of KLRN and Bon Appetit!

Patchwork Nation Webb County Bloggers Announced

THE NEWSHOUR has forged a partnership with the Christian Science Monitor's Patchwork Nation project to offer a unique look at how these turbulent times are playing out in different types of communities across the country.

Patchwork Nation is a reporting project that explores economic trends in the United States by tracking different types of communities over time with the help of the Christian Science Monitor, local stations and citizen bloggers.

As part of this effort, the two media organizations are, as the project coordinator for The NewsHour writes, “reaching out to proven public affairs producers in communities we would like to track in the coming year.” KLRN is one of 13 public broadcasting member stations and Laredo is one of 13 new cities nationwide selected to participate in this project.

Blogging for Webb County will be IBC Bank President & CEO Dennis Nixon; along with Joey Horta, Morning/Noon Anchor for KGNS-TV in Laredo. Nixon and Horta will each post blogs approximately twice a month.

You can read Dennis Nixon’s first post about Judge Sotomayor’s nomination here.

Say Goodbye To An Old Friend

That still at left was nicknamed Old Blue, and is what we in the biz call an ID, short for an "identification." Originally broadcast on September 1st, 2004, Old Blue's function was to tell you what station you were watching, and its point of origin--San Antonio. But a closer look reveals the letters DT, which stands for digital television. KLRN was trying to put digital television on peoples' radar screens by way of their television screens way back in 2004, so that they'd be ready by the time analog's power was pulled and digital was powered up. Computer programs track the runnings of these things and I can report that this ID ran 68,619 times. Wow!

The digital transition happened at the stroke of midnight, June 12th, and we're hoping you've made the digital leap with us. If you're getting this e-mail, but not our signal, go here for help. Maybe we can get this figured out together. You can also call 270.9000 to speak to an actual human about it.

As to the NEW ID at right--as yet un-nicknamed--it's not bound to one look. We travel around town, the hill country, and points south and west, shooting video, then augmenting that video with what we call the co-brand: the KLRN and PBS logos side-by-side. The 9.1 San Antonio tells you you're watching our main channel, not 9.2, 9.3 or 9.4. You do know we broadcast four 24-hour channels, right? A quick look on our home page can show you complete schedules for all four channels at bottom left. You'd be amazed at all the great programs we offer.

Regarding those new IDs, we create 24 of these each month that feature our fair city and its environs from daybreak through dark. We hope you get a kick out of them, and that you are reminded how lucky you are to live in the area.

And as to Old Blue--he served us well and I can report that he's happily out to pasture, and enjoying watching the new IDs along with the rest of us.

Reading is the Name of the Game at Camp!

"Sky Losoya, a youngster at La Escuela de Las Americas who's involved in the Super WHY! Reading Camp, participates in literacy adventures and games. Super WHY! is a program created to help children learn the fundamentals of reading through interactive storybook adventures."

READING IS THE NAME OF THE GAME AT CAMP
By Nazish Dholakia - Express-News
“Bubbles!” rising first-grader Jose Zuñiga screamed as his teacher asked him to name a word that starts with the letter “B.”Zuñiga is among 16 students at La Escuela de Las Americas who are involved in the five-day Super WHY! Reading Camp.

The program, funded by the U.S. Education Department, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS, focuses on bridging the literacy gap among children from lower-income families. “I have seen a huge improvement in these children,” said Claudia Garcia, a teacher leading the reading program. “I never thought it would be possible for them to pick up so much in a short time.” Read entire article...

Great photo opportunity...

What a great treat for your child...a picture with his/her best TV friend! I found this link recently and think that it is such a wonderful way to bring a smile to your child's face. You can add Elmo, SuperWhy, Curious George or even Sid the Science Kid (just to name a few) to your favorite photo. The process is very easy and the end result is one for the scrapbooks. Just upload your photo, choose your character and voila, you are done! The best part? It is free! Enjoy.

P.S. This is not for kids only. If you've always wanted your own photo with Super Grover, please, help yourself.

Children and Adults learn as they PLAY...

Children play. Children learn as they play. Play alongside children and watch what you learn too! We have hosted 43 Play and Learn groups (for children birth to five years old) in San Antonio during the past 5 months and we have loved watching the families all grow. Sharing the messages that, "Any time is learning time," "The classroom just got bigger," and "You are the child's first and most important teacher," are statements of great power.

At the Play and Learns, families are having FUN as they are learning from each other and exchanging ideas. Children are given the opportunity to socialize with others, sharing materials, singing songs, and getting messy with art activities! Parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, family members, friends, and neighbors are all joining in too!

When you were a child, what was your favorite past time? Who were your playmates? We look forward to having you attend our Play and Learns too. Join us as we go on "bear hunts," safaris, paint murals, build tiny towns, share story time, and go on marching parades! To learn more, call us at 270-9000!