Adult education — The PBS Business Channel: After building a small training business using satellite videoconferences, PBS took on an investor in 1996 to expand the PBS Business Channel into high-tech video-on-demand system for work training of corporate workers, but the investor backed out after two years, and, lacking capital, PBS sold the service in 1999.

Adult education — Literacy Link: In 1996, PBS announced a service for the underemployed and unemployed —LiteracyLink, a medium-tech computer-and-video project for reading-and-writing employability education.

College-level telecourses--the Annenberg/CPB Channel: The Annenberg/CPB Projects founded by millionaire publisher Walter Annenberg will expand accessibility for the college-level telecourses and teacher-training videos in January 1998 with a move to the "education neighborhood" on the same satellite that carries PBS programming. The next step could be availability through major DBS services, if the DBS companies are interested.

College-level telecourses — two-year degrees via distance learning: With the help of the Annenberg/CPB Project, by 1993 colleges had video/print versions of all the courses needed for a two-year college degree. That's the objective promoted by PBS's Going the Distance Project.

Children's programming: See Current Briefing

"Electronic field trips": Public broadcasters are among the producers offering electronic field trips via satellite. Students have taken "trips" to such sites as Mars, Colonial Williamsburg, bird sanctuaries and Antarctica.

"E-rate" discounts on the information highway: Most sections of the big Telecommunications Act of 1996 freed telecom and media industries from regulations, with debatable benefits for the public. But one provision, little noticed by the public, opened the way for discounts for schools, libraries and rural health care providers. It was a tentative win for the nonprofit sector, which had been seeking to establish a "public lane" on the infohighway. As a result, schools and libraries will get a break of 20 to 90 percent on their phone and other telecom services, a panel of FCC and state utility regulators recommended in 1996. After seeing rules governing the discounts, officials said educators will need to take a series of steps for their schools and libraries to benefit.

Federal education grants: The U.S. Department of Education offered billions in grants for educational technology projects including the kinds that public TV wants to do, could do well and needs money to do, wrote lobbyist John Lawson in a 1999 commentary. But most pubcasters let the opportunity pass.

Mathline and Scienceline teacher training: After two years of operating the Mathline service for teachers, PBS planned to add ScienceLine in fall '96. (It actually didn't get going until 1998-99.) Both services are departures for public TV; they're aimed at teachers instead of the general public, and they rely on videocassettes and online services more than broadcast TV. In 1998, PBS began consolidating the services with PBS Online in an expanded TeacherSource section.

OnCourse/Online Education Service: Public TV, which got its start in many cities as a source of visuals for the classroom, is developing a higher-tech way to connect with elementary and secondary schools. OnCourse, a national organization seen as parallel with PBS, planned to begin beta-testing its online on-demand service for teachers in fall 2002. Twenty-one universities and public TV organizations agreed early in 2001 to invest in start-up of the project, then known as the Online Education Service. The initiative grew out of brainstorming and studies led by CPB.

Private-sector competition: A Viacom/Simon & Schuster subsidiary (and sibling of MTV, Paramount and Blockbuster) wooed school administrators with a "near-on-demand" satellite service that promised teachers the specific video clips that they want, though at a hefty price. The competition prompted skepticism — and admiration — among instructional specialists in public TV.

Youth Radio: Hundreds of Bay Area teenagers have learned self-expression, discipline and media skills at Youth Radio. And the storefront project, run by a former NPR reporter, brings little-heard young voices to public radio.