Video platform EnhanceTV explains how it’s helping schools save time on finding educational content.
The use of video in the classroom is a valuable tool for teachers and an important part of the learning process for students both in and out of the school environment.
That’s according to Stefan Savva, Head of the educational video platform, EnhanceTV.
Stefan has led the company for the past two years, after it was founded six years ago to provide access to curriculum-linked video content for students and teachers.
EnhanceTV is owned by Screenrights, which administers provisions in the Copyright Act under a mandate from the Commonwealth Department of Communications and the Arts.
It allows educational providers to access content from television and radio.
All 40,000 programs available on the platform are directly supportive of the Australian Curriculum, Stefan says, and are linked to its 34 subjects, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities.
The content is taken from free-to-air and pay television and only educational programs are selected.
The platform also encourages teachers and students to create small clips of 10 to 20 minutes from entire programs and submit those to share with others.
“It’s such a time saver for teachers, who are incredibly time-poor. We take the pain out of finding videos for them,” Stefan explains.
The programs are classified by subject and whether they are suited to primary or secondary schools.
“We’re also mindful that we have a range of ages on our site and everything is age-appropriate,” Stefan says.
“We make sure we categorise everything and we remove advertisements, so everything is ad-free to make sure it’s suitable for all ages.”
EnhanceTV spent the past year listening to more than 10,000 educators through surveys, research groups, diary studies and focus groups, then rebuilding its platform based on the expressed needs.
That focus on teachers has been carried across to a new subscription model for individual teachers at a low cost, with the first nine months available free. Not all schools have the budget for a full school subscription, so the individual model allows teachers to access the programs.
“We are well aware that teachers have been asked to spend many hundreds of dollars for classroom supplies, be it staples, resources or subscriptions,” Stefan says.
The EnhanceTV platform brings filmmakers and educators together, with Screenrights licensing users and distributing fees to copyright owners in what Stefan describes as a model unique to Australia.
“As long as it’s used for educational purposes and as long as copyright owners get a fair fee, it’s a fabulous resource for local content owners and rights owners and a new revenue source that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
To access EnhanceTV for free for nine months, sign up here.