Extra, Extra Read All About It...NEWS!

Literacy in history/social studies is expressed through critical thinking, communication of ideas,civic engagement, and global understanding.  To this end, the state of California is moving forward with its Civic Education Initiative. One of the 6 Proven Practices of Civic Education is discussion of current events and controversial issues. Reading the news helps our students to meet these goals and those of the Reading Informational Text strand of the Common Core. We are living in an age where media is at our fingertips...whether at the touch of a keystroke on a computer, tablet or cell phone these days. Four engaging opportunities for our students to access current events are Newsela, Newseum, Newsmap, and Vox. All of these news outlets provide news in an engaging manner to make the content focused and accessible to today's students on their website and through Twitter.

       Newsela 

       Newsela opens up many opportunities for the news and our students with their FREE high interest news articles. Have you had to deal with students in your class at different reading levels? They take news articles from major publications and adapt them to five different reading lexiles. News articles are categorized into seven categories: war and peace, science, kids, money, law, health, and arts. Additionally, some of the articles come with quizzes to check the student's reading comprehension. These articles lend themselves to close reading activities to facilitate reading comprehension.

       Newseum

       Newseum is more than an amazing museum to visit in DC. They also have a host of educational resources in their Digital Classroom, program archives, and their Front Pages is invaluable for current events. Having taught International Relations and World History, the Newseum's Front Pages is a site to keep bookmarked and get your students familiar with. Using their Sort Papers by Region link, you can customize what part of the world to have your students explore. What I loved is for them to see the front pages of different countries. If there was a major international news story played out here in the US, was it positioned so in other countries? This led to some great conversations. In every region they have, we were always able to find at least one newspaper in English. Have your students click on the newspaper and then the blue website hyperlink on the top right of the newspaper front page to see more in that publication--- this can be so eye opening for students. This is also a great resource for students whom English is not their first language and foreign exchange students. Another feature is to search the US headlines to show students how news can be regionalized and illustrate bias.

       Newsmap 

       Newsmap is a great aggregate tool to visualize trending stories. Newsmap categorizes the news into seven color coded categories: world, national, business, technology, sports, entertainment, and health. You can select which categories you wish to display on the bottom right to customize your screen. The larger the box, the more the topic is trending. Again, this is a great visual tool for students. Hover over of click on the box to read the article. You can also select region and language options on the top toolbar. This is a great website to use with students when you are wanting them to research or select news stories related to a particular category.

       Vox 

       

       Vox is a general news site with a mission to EXPLAIN the news. This is the project of journalist and blogger Ezra Kline launched this month. So far it looks great. The home page lists current news articles, Understand the News with related articles and fact cards to help one better understand the topic, videos, and conversations. The articles sometimes contain highlights of key items and include hyperlinks to provide contextual information for portions of the articles. What myself and some of the students have found useful are the fact cards. Theses are great for helping students understand the context and key points, especially in world events. The cards are also easy to share as a deck on Twitter or print out for a classroom jigsaw activity. Vox is looking like a resource to keep our eyes on and I'm looking forward to using this with my students. Again, another great source for close reading activities with students.

Get the best PD for FREE!

Many people think of Twitter as something the Hollywood types use. Twitter is actually a powerful tool for educators. Teachers across the US and other countries are leveraging Twitter to collaborate and provide the best PD for free! There are Twitter chats for every topic imaginable. Looking for some useful information, just follow a hash tag (#). Cybraryman.com is a website full of educational resources. Among this pot of gold are multiple pages dedicated to Twitter. Check out the Twitter page for beginners, learn educational hashtags, find a chat to participate in, and then participate in a chat.

You may be leary like me. However, Twitter has become such a powerful tool in my teaching arsenal. It is not just about having a PLC anymore. As educators, we are talking about the Common Core and 21st Century skills. These include collaboration and integration of technology. It is important that we model for our students and be life long learners. Today it is about developing you PLN- Professional Learning Network. Educators on Twitter are collaborators looking to learn, share, and build up each other. Initally, I was what is referred to as a "lurker." I followed people and would watch the stream on my computer for chats. Then I was brave one day and participated. Seriously, I look back and what was I thinking. Don't be afraid to just jump in. The people on Twitter are very supportive and embrace newbies. Even better, find someone on Twitter and meet up to watch how they participate in a chat. Don't worry if the chat goes too fast. You can always go back through the archives of the chat.

There are a few things you will want to know as you begin. Change the egghead profile picture and write a profile. Some people are leary to follow people without an image, it does not have to be you, or some biographical information on their profile. When you find people you like, check out who they follow as possible people to build your PLN. Fridays have become Follow Friday's (#FF). People will recommend people to follow using #FF, use these to build your PLN too. Branch out outside of your subject matter. I have learned immensely by following other teachers outside of Social Studies. When you tweet about a topic, include the hash tag for that topic. For example, include #sschat for Social Studies, #wrldchat for World History, #edtech for educational technology, #ccss for Common Core, and #HSGovChat for Government Tweets. Find a chat or two to get started. Some particular helpful ones for history are #HSGovChat Sundays at 6pm, #sschat Mondays at 4pm, and #wrldchat Tuesdays at 5pm. Other chats of interest may be #ccsschat Sundays at 6pm, #tlap Mondays at 5pm,  #flipclass Mondays at 5pm, and #caedchat Sundays at 8pm. Lastly, utilizing a Twitter client such as Tweet Deck will make following hash tags and chats MUCH easier.

That's a brief overview. Still not convinced? Google Twitter for professional development. Over 200 MILLION results come up. Read an article or blog post and come on board!