History of the Utah Instructional Media Consortium Membership - UIMC

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In 1967 Utah districts banded together as a consortium to purchase 16-millimeter films. Part of the consortium was known as UNIT (the Utah Network for Instructional Television), and its annual contribution was used to purchase broadcast rights for core-related K-12 programming that aired from Monday to Friday during the 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. block on Utah’s public television stations. Schools used these over the-air television shows in their classrooms.

The other half of the consortium, known as the Film Video Consortium, purchased films for classroom use. By 1970, the Film Video Consortium had made the huge technology switch from film to group purchases of videotapes. Teachers could get videotapes delivered to their classroom, or they could record over the-air programs for convenient use during instruction. Teachers no longer had to plan their instruction around the television schedule.

In 1997, the 40 superintendents in the state agreed to merge the two parts of the consortium to create the Utah Instructional Media Consortium (UIMC). The consortium members continued to pool their resources to purchase high-quality media resources to support instruction, and Utah continued to support the 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. block of instructional television with some broadcast rights purchased by UIMC.
That was a decade ago. And as they say, we’ve come a long way, baby.

Because of the consortium rural schools such as West Desert Elementary where100-percent attendance is a total of 11 students have access to more than $200,000 worth of instructional media resources for its students. The consortium purchases brought media-resources equity to small rural schools and increased access for large urban districts.

Beginning in 2001, UIMC began its quest to purchase digital distribution rights, as well as duplication and broadcast rights. Several distributors—such as Weston Wood, Landmark, Sunburst, and AIMS Multimedia—understood where Utah was headed and worked to help UIMC secure the rights to distribute the media digitally.

Around the same time, the Utah Education Network (UEN) was completing two statewide pilots with united streaming and Digital Curriculum. These pilots were annual contracts, and at the end of the pilots, teacher and student access to the media resources was terminated. Many of the media available from these services also had been purchased by UIMC. And not all the resources from these two vendors matched Utah’s state core curriculum.

A UEN stakeholder group with representatives from the UIMC discussed the pilot results and made the tough decision to move ahead with developing a Utah-based distribution system. UIMC brought its digital distribution rights and core-selection process to the table and became the K-12 anchor tenet for the Utah-based system.

Now, every school in Utah has a high-speed connection to the internet. And every school has access to eMedia— the Utah digital media file-distribution system. In support of eMedia, UIMC established a policy no longer to purchase video items without digital distribution rights.

UIMC continues to have a vendor fair each May, inviting digital media vendors to bring their newest releases. Consortium members visit with the vendors and sign up to preview curriculum-based items of interest. The videos, now in DVD format, are sent out to consortium members for evaluation for correlation to the core curriculum, student engagement, and production quality. Members meet in January to rate the media resources and make the group purchasing decisions.

UIMC has a digitization and duplication process for the purchased items as they arrive. Members can purchase the items on DVD for just the cost of the physical media and duplication time, or they can access the video resources for no cost via eMedia. eMedia protects the distribution license through both IP verification and password protection.

UIMC is continuing to look at the media needs of Utah teachers and today’s Kids. We’re looking at compelling ways to present the content to students. And we’re continuing to support teachers with professional development.

The Integrating Technology and Curriculum (ITC) workshop is three days of comprehensive professional development designed to help classroom teachers effectively integrate technology into their curriculum and classroom. The workshop focuses on the “hows” and “whys” of incorporating video, the internet, and multimedia resources into lesson plans and classroom environments.

The ITC workshop, or some derivative of it, has been offered to teachers in Utah for more than 15 years. Utah was one of the original National Teacher Training Institute (NTTI) sites, and the workshop has blossomed from there. This past year, more than 1,000 teachers participated in the workshop, which is offered in all 41 school districts and four regional service center areas. We estimate that some 40,000 K-12 students have benefited directly from the tools and resources learned by ITC workshop participants.

Today’s Kids are media savvy. UIMC is helping teachers leverage these skills and bring rich resources to bear in the classroom.