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Linda Walton, professor and chair of the History Department at Portland State University, is one of the two lead scholars collaborating on the creation of a multimedia series on world history to be produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

Funded by a $2.2 million grant to OPB, the series, Bridging World History, will be structured into 26 units, each organized by a study guide and including video- and text-based components. Designed to train secondary teachers in world history, the videos will be broadcast worldwide, and both interactive and text materials will be available online. Linda Walton and Washington State University professor Candice Goucher head a distinguished advisory board overseeing the development of content. The series begins production in March 2003 and should be completed for distribution in fall 2004.

"This is a path-breaking and timely project that has the potential to shape the way world history is taught in high schools throughout the U.S.," said Walton. "Providing teachers the means to help students comprehend the complexity of the world and its diverse pasts has never been more important than it is today."

Walton is the former director of PSU's Asian Studies program. A specialist in Chinese history, she teaches courses in East Asian, Chinese and world history. Goucher is the former chair of the Black Studies Department at Portland State University and is presently the director of the College of Liberal Arts and professor of History at Washington State University, Vancouver campus. Walton and Goucher are co-authors of In the Balance: Themes in Global History.

OPB received the grant from the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a non-profit partnership whose mandate is to create and distribute media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. This is the fourth grant that OPB has received from Annenberg and CPB since 2000, each for the production of a nationally distributed educational series.