Helen Soule Ph.D.

Executive Director
Alliance for Community Media

Throughout her career, Helen Soulé, Ph.D., has focused on providing leadership at the intersection of media, technology and learning. She has broad experience leading public and non-profit organizations, most recently as the Executive Director of Cable in the Classroom, the cable telecommunication industry’s education foundation.

Previously Soulé served as chief of staff to the assistant secretary for the Office of Post Secondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education and for eight years, was director of the Mississippi Department of Education Office of Technology, with responsibilities including the statewide internet backbone, teacher professional development, state and local technology planning, E-rate, and textbooks. As former teacher and district technology coordinator, she worked with teachers and administrators at every level to use technology and media to transform and enhance teaching and learning.

Soulé is one of the founders and past chairman of the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA), has been a member of the George Lucas Educational Foundation Advisory Board and has served on the board of the Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education. She is the recipient of Converge magazine's 30 "Shapers of the Future" award for 2001, a recipient of the 2001 E-School News "Impact 30 Award for Excellence", the 2004 SETDA Pioneer Award and a recipient of CableWorld’s 2007 “Women with Clout” award.

Soulé holds a B.S. in Elementary Education from Mississippi State University, M.A. in Educational Administration from Mississippi State University and Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Southern Mississippi.

You can listen to the entire interview or listen to individual subclips that appear below. Please consider leaving a comment or a question and subscribing to the discussion.



Full interview.
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http://www.archive.org/details/20_Soule_full_interview


In the first subclip, Helen points to the ACM's biggest strength and its greatest challenge.
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http://www.archive.org/details/21_Soule_ACM_strength_challenge

Helen says that "localism" is the key to the success and sustainability of PEG operations.
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http://www.archive.org/details/22b_Soule_localism

It's critical that we get our message to government officials.
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http://www.archive.org/details/23_What_msg_to__offcials

...the importance of building coalitions on the local and national level...
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http://www.archive.org/details/25_Web2ToolstoTeach

What does a PEG staff need to accomplish?
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http://www.archive.org/details/26_Meet_Community_Needs

Helen's favorite part of the job.......
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http://www.archive.org/details/27_Soule_Favorite_Part

What are Helen's hobbies outside of work?
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http://www.archive.org/details/28_Soule_Hobbies

George Stoney Interview

George Stoney is considered to be the “Father of Public Access TV” in the U.S. He advocated for public access channels on local cable TV systems. He trained some of the first persons to manage public access production centers. He pioneered the first national organization for PEG media centers - now known as the Alliance for Community Media.

He is also a pioneer documentary film producer having started in the ’40’s. He has been a professor of documentary studies and production at New York University since the late ’60’s. In this interview he stresses the importance of making public access media centers serve the public good and increase the scope of community communications.


You can listen to the entire interview or listen to individual subclips that appear below. Please consider leaving a comment or a question and subscribing to the discussion.


Full interview with George Stoney.
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http://www.archive.org/details/01_georgeStoneyFullInterview


In the first clip George speaks about Challenge for Change project that influenced his concept of Access TV.
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http://www.archive.org/details/02_Stoney_Clip1_ChallengeforChange

Here George recounts how the Alternate Media Center was an incubator for community media.
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http://www.archive.org/details/03_Stoney_clip2_AlternateMediaCtr

George recounts how the marriage of community media with cable TV was proposed.
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http://www.archive.org/details/04_publicAccessIsBorn

The first 12 public access directors are chosen and trained. (Hear more about this in the Sue Buske interview.)
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http://www.archive.org/details/04a_theFirst12PublicAccessDirectors

The city of Reading, Pennsylvania was the home of one of the first public access TV centers.
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http://www.archive.org/details/06_readingPennsylvaniaEarlyAccessCenter

George warns of the biggest pitfall for public access media centers and points to one antidote.
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http://www.archive.org/details/07_pitfallsToAvoid

Advice for Access TV trainers and hosts.
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http://www.archive.org/details/08_tipsForTrainersAndHosts

George notes a foreshadowing of public access in his early radio work.
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http://www.archive.org/details/09_earlyInfluenceRadioShow

George recounts an example of using video as a tool to resolve community tensions.
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http://www.archive.org/details/10_videoAsASocialTool

George speaks about using film to shape the image of his subjects to others in the community.
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http://www.archive.org/details/11_videoAsAToolToShapeImage