Discovery Communications : Education Streaming Services Enter New Era with Enhanced Content Creation Features and Resources to Deepen Classroom Engagement and Develop Students’ Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Reasoning Skills

- Latest Enhancements Also Provide Educators Even More Examples of How to Integrate Digital Content into Classroom Instruction-

Silver Spring, Md. (June 26, 2017) - Discovery Education, the leading provider of digital content and professional development for K-12 classrooms, today announced a number of new features will be added to its award-winning Discovery Education Streaming services in the coming weeks. With these planned enhancements, which are scheduled to go live in August 2017, Discovery Education Streaming is positioned to serve a new generation of teachers and students with resources they can immediately use to deepen students' engagement in learning and develop pupils' critical thinking, collaboration, and reasoning skills.

Launched in 2001, Discovery Education's Streaming feature tens of thousands of standards-aligned and searchable videos, images, primary source documents, podcasts, audio books, articles and more, making it the leading cross-curricular K-12 digital content resource for educators around the globe.

In 2012, Discovery Education launched Streaming's popular Board Builder feature. A safe environment in which students can create their own content, Board Builder helps users create virtual project boards that use multimedia and text to synthesize their thinking and provide evidence of their understanding of a concept or problem.

This latest iteration of Streaming will feature an updated, more modern look and feel that is optimized to work on small and large devices and in the classroom and on-the-go. In addition, the content creation tools within the services' new Studio feature will be greatly expanded to allow teachers and students to safely and easily collaborate in real-time on virtual projects. These features can be controlled by the teacher to monitor interactions, provide instant grading feedback, review progress, and assign small classroom work groups to differentiate classroom activities.

Also, included in the new Studio function will be content creation features that provide students the ability to create online, multiple-page student portfolios, as well as preloaded templates that will help students jumpstart new projects. Finally, Discovery Education Streaming's new creation tools will enable students to use content found within Discovery Education's services or effortlessly import their own self-produced media into projects with the appropriate citations.

While teacher resources including lesson plans, content collections organized around themes, as well as instructional videos, skill builders, and writing prompts, have always been available through Discovery Education Streaming, the latest improvements to this service will include even more support for teachers. To save busy teachers time, customizable streams are set to be added to the services' homepage so that educators can more easily access new and relevant content. Topical and timely content will be found in the Trending Now Stream, while an Activity Stream will quickly help educators find content they recently viewed, searched for, or liked.

This latest update to Discovery Education Streaming will also include valuable new content that supports educators as they evolve their classroom practice and transform the way they teach. Among the new resources set to be added are:

• Spotlight on Strategies-The creative, research-based instructional strategies introduced in these short videos are presented by teachers for teachers to help them incorporate digital media into classroom activities in new, effective, and practical ways.
• DE in Action-A new series of immersive 360 experiences that model how members of the Discovery Education Community and their students are using digital content and educational technologies in authentic classroom settings, these experiences model successful integration strategies.
• A collection of powerful and engaging STEM resources-Designed to fuel a cultural shift in STEM teaching and learning, these new resources include STEM Career Challenges, which provides opportunities for students to learn more about exciting STEM careers, and STEM Strategies that Work, which help STEM educators build a STEM culture in meaningful and practical ways.
• Student Exploration Resources-Featuring new resources that help students explore their interests, conduct their own research, organize evidence, and communicate their ideas, this new content empowers educators to deepen pupils' critical thinking, collaboration, communication and reasoning skills.

Together, the new enhancements coming to Discovery Education's Streaming services provide even more support to educators teaching their students to think critically about the content they use, see, and experience in their daily lives.

'As a long time Discovery Education Streaming user, I've seen this service evolve tremendously over the years to meet the changing needs of teachers and students,' said Shelby Bailey, a 5 Grade Math teacher in Missouri's Warren County R-III School District. 'However, the coming iteration of Streaming includes so many new features, it is almost a new service. These latest enhancements, together with the Discovery Educator Network Online Community features rolled out in March, make Streaming a simple and elegant resource for all teachers working to prepare their students for success beyond the classroom.'

The Discovery Education Community will continue supporting all Discovery Education Streaming users' efforts to transform students' learning experiences with dynamic digital media. A global community of education professionals, the Discovery Education Community connects members across school systems and around the world through social media, virtual conferences, and in-person events, fostering valuable networking, idea sharing and inspiration.

'For more than 15 years, Discovery Education's Streaming services have set the standard for cross-curricular K-12 digital content resources,' said Robert Onsi, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Discovery Education. 'While a generation of students have grown up consuming streaming content, we know that when students make the shift to content creation, they are inspired to dive even more deeply into a topic. So, in this latest iteration of Streaming, Discovery Education is adding a host of new enhancements to help teachers both deepen students' classroom engagement and develop their pupils' critical thinking, collaboration, and reasoning skills. In addition to meeting the evolving needs of today's teachers and students, these new enhancements demonstrate Discovery Education's continued commitment to meeting the ever-changing needs of teachers and students everywhere.'

For more information about the Discovery Education's Streaming services or other services and resources from Discovery Education, visit: www.discoveryeducation.com.

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About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12, transforming teaching and learning with award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia content, professional development, and the largest professional learning community of its kind. Serving 4.5 million educators and over 50 million students, Discovery Education's services are in half of U.S. classrooms, 50 percent of all primary schools in the UK, and more than 50 countries. Discovery Education partners with districts, states, and like-minded organizations to captivate students, empower teachers, and transform classrooms with customized solutions that increase academic achievement. Discovery Education is powered by Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK), the number one nonfiction media company in the world. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.