Posts Tagged ‘cable TV’

Dr. Eugene G. White, superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, has been named the recipient of the fifth annual Administrator Award for Distinguished Support of Music Education sponsored by the VH1 Save The Music Foundation and partner Bright House Networks.

The honor will be awarded Thursday (Feb. 11) at the general session of the American Association of School Administrator’s (AASA) National Conference on Education in Phoenix.

White was chosen for his commitment to ensuring that music education is part of the core curriculum in all 64 IPS schools. He became superintendent of IPS with the goal of the district becoming a model urban school district. He implemented many groundbreaking changes to the system, including his vision that a model urban school district would include instrumental, choral and general music programs in all schools by 2010. White made the commitment to ensure all schools had certified music teachers and that the district was staffed with music supervisor positions to coordinate and foster quality music education in the district. In August 2009, that goal was met and all students in IPS have access to the benefits of music education.

Since 2000, the VH1 Save The Music Foundation and partner Bright House Networks have provided 42 IPS schools with $1.13 million of new musical instruments to jumpstart the district’s elementary instrumental music programs and the success has been maintained by the continued support of both White and the IPS Board of School Commissioners. Instrumental music, including band and strings programs, are offered to students in elementary, middle and high schools. Under White’s leadership, the district has revived the All City Choir, district music festivals and in 2009 a summer music camp that included transportation, breakfast and lunch free to IPS students.

When Bright House Networks first joined VH1 Save The Music Foundation to re-create music education programs throughout IPS, music programs were virtually non-existent in the elementary schools and suffering in the higher grades because of budgetary constraints and the high cost of musical instruments, said Wayde Klein, vice president of marketing and customer operations for Bright House Networks Indiana.

“We at Bright House Networks believe it is critically important to help keep music alive in our schools and for children at early ages and beyond to have the opportunity to express and challenge themselves with music,” Klein said. “Today, these schools have dedicated and talented teachers leading vibrant musical exploration instructions that are equipped with free instruments for students. This far-reaching and high-impact initiative would not have been possible without Dr. White’s devotion to each school that IPS serves and his dedication to keeping music alive for IPS students.”

Bright House Networks will launch two new services designed to bring even greater value to its customers’ TV and Internet viewing experience beginning next week.

Customers will now have more control of their TV schedules with the introduction of “Start Over,” a popular and exclusive enhanced TV feature that allows viewers to restart a live program from the beginning at any time during its scheduled broadcast. Bright House Networks will also increase the speed of Road Runner Turbo High Speed Internet service by up to 33 percent next week. http://tinyurl.com/yhpm233

To help busy teachers out, Bright House Networks has extended the deadline for submitting entries to its national Star Teacher Award competition and enabled teachers to submit entries online. The deadline for teachers to submit entries this year has been pushed back to April 2.

To be eligible for a Star Teacher Award, teachers must demonstrate how they’ve utilized cable TV programming to develop curriculum, cross-curricular studies, classroom-to-community activities and more. Classroom projects must have been taught between September 2009 and March 2010. Teachers must also work in a state-accredited public or private school in grades kindergarten through 12 within a Bright House Networks service area, which in Indiana includes Marion, Hamilton, Hancock and Grant counties.

Teachers can visit the official Bright House Networks Star Teacher Award Web site to submit their entries online. See the Indianapolis Star for more about the new deadline.

Congratulations to three central Indiana students who won first place in their respective age groups in this year’s Bright House Networks Holiday Card Design Contest. Students from Trinity Christian School in Indianapolis, Clay Middle School in Carmel, Ind., and Bethesda Christian School in Brownsburg, Ind., earned top honors this year.

Layla Viles, a second-grade student at Trinity Christian School in Indianapolis, won first place in the contest’s elementary school division. Her winning entry shows Santa climbing down from a utility pole after decorating cable wires with colorful bulbs and placing presents at the base of the pole.

Sarah Bruns of Carmel, an eighth-grade student at Clay Middle School, won the middle school division of the contest. Her winning artwork depicts tiny elves after bedtime busy at work decorating her family’s living room, hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree that spell out “Bright House Networks” and being watched by a young child peeking around a doorway secretly watching the action.

Taking the top spot in the contest’s high school division is Kristen Craig of Plainfield, a senior at Bethesda Christian School in Brownsburg. Her winning artwork shows a family huddled together on their living room couch watching TV while a snowman peeks in their picture window.

Each of the three first-place winners will receive a $500 educational scholarship from Bright House Networks and an award plaque. Nearly 200 elementary, middle and high school student-artists entered this year’s contest, which was open to all central Indiana students enrolled in grades kindergarten through 12. This winning entries will be printed as covers for Bright House Networks’ annual holiday cards sent to civic and community leaders.

On the heels of adding nearly 20 new and popular high-definition channels last month and 11 new Spanish-language channels already this month, Bright House Networks this week will add 13 new, popular HD channels.

Friday, the company added NHL Network HD (Channel No. 863), Tennis Channel HD (Channel No. 864), Outdoor Channel HD (Channel No. 865) and IFC HD (Channel No. 794). Today, Bright House Networks is adding BBC America HD (Channel No. 847), Style HD (Channel No. 860) and Headline News HD (Channel No. 726). Wednesday, Fuse HD (Channel No. 840), TV One HD (Channel No. 866) and G4 HD (Channel No. 810) will go live. And Friday, Bright House Networks will launch Investigation Discovery HD (Channel No. 804), MavTV HD (Channel No. 753) and NBA TV HD (Channel No. 862).

Also this month, Bright House Networks will launch a new on-screen service called Start Over. Interactive TV customers can utilize Start Over to restart, pause and rewind certain programming at any time during a program’s broadcast.

Starting today, Bright House Networks is adding 11 new Spanish-language channels to its central Indiana lineup. Bright House Networks president Buz Nesbit said the company continues to meet growing customer demand for Spanish-language programming. The new channels are:

Lo Mejor On Demand (Channel No. 449), Telemundo (Channel No. 450), Cine Latino (Channel No. 451), CNN en Espanol (Channel No. 452), Discovery en Espanol (Channel No. 453), History en Espanol (Channel No. 454), ESPN Deportes (Channel No. 455), Fox Sports en Espanol (Channel No. 456), EWTN Espanol (Channel No. 457), Canal Sur (Channel No. 458) and WAPA America (Channel No. 459).

Bright House Networks has again partnered with C-SPAN to encourage central Indiana students to explore national issues that are most on their minds by entering C-SPAN’s 2010 StudentCam video documentary competition. The national competition supported by Bright House Networks is now in its sixth year. Bright House Networks invites all middle school students in grades 6-8 and high school students in grades 9-12 to produce a five- to eight-minute video documentary and submit their work to the competition. 

Students are asked to produce their original documentary on either one of the nation’s greatest strengths or a specific challenge the country is facing.

C-SPAN will award a total of $50,000 in cash prizes this year, including 75 student awards and 11 teacher awards. The grand prize winner with the best overall entry will be awarded $5,000, with multiple cash prize awards of $3,000, $1,500, $750, $500, and $250, respectively, to students in both middle and high school categories.  

Entries must represent varying points of view and include C-SPAN video that supports the documentary’s topic. Students, working alone or in groups up to three, can upload an entry form and videos directly online at www.studentcam.org. Documentaries must be the original work of students; however, teachers may provide guidance and critiques. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, Jan. 20. Winners will be announced in March. Winning videos will air on C-SPAN in April. Educators can register for updates and view competition details at Bright House Networks’ StudentCam page.

Bright House Networks has extended its sponsorship of the Indiana Pacers for another four seasons, the company announced today. The renewed sponsorship, in effect this season through 2013, includes continued exclusive sponsorship of Legends presented by Bright House Networks inside Conseco Fieldhouse and being the presenting sponsor of the Indiana Pacemates.

A new Video On Demand channel on the Bright House Networks system will also be created as part of the sponsorship. Pacers On Demand will be on channel No. 633 and available soon. The channel will feature pre- and post-game interviews, player interviews, Pacer executive interviews, video of the Pacemates in action, Pacers community involvement and more. Programming will be on-demand programming, allowing Bright House customers to watch whatever the Pacers programming they choose whenever they want to watch.

In 2006, Bright House Networks first entered into a major, multi-year commitment to the Pacers by sponsoring Legends presented by Bright House Networks, the large, 600-plus limited-membership area that offers an exclusive, all-inclusive environment designed to meet business and entertainment needs with style, comfort and first-class amenities during Pacers games and other events at Conseco Fieldhouse.

If you live in central Indiana and have both high-speed Internet and phone service from Bright House Networks, by the end of the month you’ll have caller ID available on your computer.

It’s a new feature called Caller ID on PC and it doesn’t cost a cent extra to use. Caller ID on PC works on both Macs and PCs and gives you more phone features on your computer, including contacts, recent call history, voicemail on your computer and text messaging. All you have to do to have Caller ID on PC once it launches in this area is visit Bright House online and download and install Bright House Networks Easy Gadget with Caller ID on PC.

If you happen to be a Triple Play customer, once the new phone service launches you can enjoy Caller ID on your phone, TV and computer.