Put Teachers on TV
The solution to remote learning is putting school on television
I have been saying this since the pandemic hit - the single fastest way to provide access to all students is by putting teachers on TV. According to Nielsen National Television Household Universe Estimates, there are 121 million TV homes in the U.S. for the 2020-21 TV season. The number of persons age 2 and older in U.S. TV households is estimated to be 307.9 million. There are 328.2 million people in the U.S. That means 93% of Americans have access to T.V. Only 73% of households with children always have access to the internet for online learning.
There was a 0.2% increase in TV households in the U.S. from last year and also an increase in Hispanic (+1.9%), Black (+0.9%), and Asian (+2.7%) TV households.
What does this all mean? While we wait for SpaceX to get us all access to the internet, let’s put school on TV and get the vast majority of students access to their lessons. This is something that we can be doing right now while we wait for broadband and even device access to follow.
Where to start and how EdTech companies can get involved:
First of all, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) tech companies already have a large repository of quality, educational video content. Move this World is a great example. Their video content is already in the lesson plans of public school teachers in all 50 states and could be screened on TV starting today.
In some local markets, Fox stations joined with local school districts or teacher unions to put teachers on television and this trend is continuing to grow. This is a huge opportunity for edtech companies to get involved - to help teachers everywhere produce their lesson plans on tv. In the same way that 2U, Trilogy, Noodle and more have been allowing colleges and universities to create online versions of their courses, they could be doing this for all school districts - or a new company specializing in k-12 schools could join the market. Putting teachers on TV is one thing, adapting their lesson plans for live broadcast is another.
ESL learners would win the most from viewing their lessons on TV. English-learner educators often offer tailored support for their students in class, something that is not available in many of the online programs schools have implemented as they transitioned to remote learning. They are also the fastest-growing student population group, according to the National Education Association so tech companies, take notice.
In 2021, we need to be thinking about the intersection of edtech and Media a whole lot more and any edtech company joining the market should be thinking about ways they can give freemium access via public television as a means of top of the funnel.