Currency through News Sources

Some students are drawn to activities that connect to local or world events. These students excel when working with real, current events and activities providing a context for learning. Provide students with choices that relate to individual interests, while still connecting to current information and ideas.

For instance, National Geographic News and National Geographic Kids contains articles such as "Mystery of the Tattooed Mummy" that will engage learners in the latest scientific news. Look for ways to connect your content area to timely news and information.

Use online newspapers, magazines, radio, and television as starting points. Seek out other news resources that contain audio and video. For instance the Earth & Sky Radio Show and ScienceNetLinks websites provide great audio articles on a wide range of science topics.

News Websites

Explore the following news sources useful for young people.

• CBC Kids - from Canada
• CBBC - from the UK for kids
• Channel One
• Environmental News Network
• Kid's Castle from Smithsonian
• KidsNewsroom
• LA Youth - by youth for youth
• Library of Congress
• Newz Crew from PBS
• National Geographic Kids
• National Geographic News
• National Geographic Today - great list of stories; leads to other stories
• Nature.com
• News Hour Extra from PBS
• NOAA
• NY Times Student Connections
• Scholastic News Zone - listen to scholastic radio
• Student News Net
• Time for Kids
• Washington Post for Kids - registration required
• Weekly Reader - subscription based
• Why Files
• World Wildlife Federation Newsroom
• Yahooligans News
• Links to others: Headline Spot and Headline Spot for Kids

Explore News from Teacher Tap.
Ask students to compare articles on the sample time from three different news sources.

 

Blogs, Podcasts, and Web Feeds

Blogs are a wonderful way to local multiple perspectives on a timely topic. However it's important that young people realize that these websites should be only one of several information sources. Also, young people should be reminded to look for information about the blog author and think about their reliability as an information source. By combining information from a variety of sources, students can get the "big picture" of a current topic.

It's easy to become overwhelmed by blogs, podcasts, and the many other types of web feeds known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Many popular websites help users consolidate this information including Google News and DIGG.

Rather than bookmarking resources and going to individual websites, the resources come to the end user in a place known as a web feed reader. Check out my eduscapes bloglines account. Google Reader is a popular choice.

Read Information Avalanche Rescue: RSS Feeds in the Classroom.
Select a few blogs or podcasts to place in your own web reader.

 

Read Learning Spaces: Blogging, Podcasting, and Vlogging for more information.

 

Customized News Services

iGoogle and My Yahoo are two of many tools that allow teachers and students to set up a personal news page. Select from news sources, web-based articles, blogs, and widgets to create your own online news source.

 

Differentiate! Design an activity to uses a specific section or articles from an online news source to motivate learners. Seek out articles at different reading levels. Also, consider audio and video resources along with text-based article. Use a Web Reader such as Google Reader to organize resources to meet individual or small group needs.

Review

Review the "big ideas" on this page:

Current resources are important because they provide a real-world context for learning. Because online news sources often provide images, animation, audio, and video in addition to text, they are particularly useful for differentiation.

Since it can be overwhelming to access and organize the constant flow of information, web readers such as Google Reader are useful for organizing new feeds such as RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

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