Synergy: News Literacy

News literacy is a set of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and dispositions that helps people process news and media communications. News literate consumers are able to locate factual, credible information, distinguish fact from opinion, evaluate the quality of news sources, and explore multiple perspectives before drawing conclusions. Finally, they understand the role of freedom of speech in a democracy and the need for ethics in journalism.

Read a couple recently published children’s books, then learn more at the website:

GUARDIANS OF LIBERTY: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE NATURE OF NEWS by Linda Barrett Osborne explores two centuries of the guarantees expressed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Using examples throughout American history, the author explores how freedom of the press has evolved and the challenges caused by new technologies. From the Civil Rights Movement and the Student Press to fake news, each chapter explores a key idea through the use of text, historical photos, pull-quotes, and primary source documents.

BREAKING THE NEWS: WHAT’S REAL, WHAT’S NOT, AND WHY THE DIFFERENCE MATTERS by Robin Terry Brown is intended to help readers become responsible users of the media. Chapters examine the history of news, making of news, misinformation and the media today. The book concludes by providing ideas for seeking the truth and thoughts about the future of news. The colorful images and interesting text will attract young readers.

The NEWS LITERACY PROJECT is a nonpartisan, nonprofit providing resources for educators that encourage learners to be active and engaged consumers of news and information. The educator section offers an online learning platform called Checkology and lots of classroom materials.

To visit the website, go to https://newslit.org/.

ARC courtesy of Abrams and National Geographic.

Website Review: PBS News Hour

PBS NEWSHOUR is a television news program with educational materials for teachers.

The PBS NewsHour website contains full episodes of the television program, podcasts, and online articles. Resources are organizing by topic including politics, arts, nation, world, economy, science, health, and education.

The PBS NewsHour Extra provides student and teacher resources for grades 7-12. Materials are organized by subject areas and include both lesson plans and articles. The student voices section includes reporting by young adults. Students can submit their story idea, essay or poem to be included at the website.

Librarians will find this website to be useful for both students and teachers. Students will find useful information for their research, while teachers will find lots of ideas of integrating news into the curriculum.

To visit PBS NewsHour, go to https://www.pbs.org/newshour/.
To visit PBS NewsHour Extra, go to https://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/

Website Review: Youngzine

YOUNGZINE is a website sharing current news and events for school aged children.

This engaging website is organized into six categories including world news, science, technology, our earth, history, and society/art. In addition to text, most articles also contain images and sometimes an embedded video. Feature length articles are updated weekly and news flashes are released several times per week.

Experts are encouraged to submit articles in the area of science, technology, environment, culture/arts, careers, and life skills.

The Unwrite section features art, poetry, reports, and stories submitted by readers. Both children and adults are encouraged to contribute articles providing an opportunity for authentic writing experiences for students.

The Play Zine contains comics, contests, polls, jokes, and fun activities.

Librarians will find this resource provides both excellent content as well as an opportunity to involve students in real-world writing activities. Encourage teachers to set up their own classroom accounts to extend the experience.

To visit the website, go to http://www.youngzine.org.

Website Review: XYZA News for Kids

XYZA: NEWS FOR KIDS is a news website and app designed for children.

This attractive current events site contains easy-to-read news articles organized into categories including world, government, arts, science, sports, technology, fun, and entertainment.

Librarians will find this website to be a useful resource for informational reading across the curriculum. The short articles, interesting topics, and colorful photographs are sure to attract student attention.

A subscription-based program is available that allows users to customize their news page and participate in the Junior Reporter Program that encourages youth to submit their own articles, interviews, reviews, and more.

The resource is also available on iTunes as an app.

To visit the website, go to https://www.xyzanews.com/.

Technology Review: Listenwise

LISTENWISE is an educational website focusing on listening comprehension through audio programs.

The website is organized into three sections: Social Studies, Science, and English Language Arts (ELA). Users can search for lessons in their area of interest. Results can be narrows by subject, language challenge, grade level, and type.

A current events section is particularly useful. New news items are added every day. Each entry contains a title, short description, question, and audio. Tags are provided to assist users in locating related topics.

A blog contains up-to-date information about resources and how they might be used in teaching and learning. A research section provides information about listening comprehension.

Librarians will find endless curriculum applications of this website. Mine each section for programs that connect to local standards. Although a premium service is offered, many high-quality resources are available for free.

To visit the website, go to https://listenwise.com/.

Technology Review: Best of YouTube

BEST OF YOUTUBE is a YouTube page that connects with YouTube’s automatically generated channels containing the latest news, information, and entertainment videos.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when visiting the YouTube website. However, YouTube has created a series of auto-generated pages to help users locate its most popular content. Across the top of the Best of YouTube page are links to these pages.

The Popular on YouTube page contains dozens of playlists to help users locate videos by category such as animals, politics, sports, games, hobbies, and movie trailers. Playlists are often added for special events such as national elections, Olympic sports, and disasters.

In addition to the Popular channel, YouTube has other automated channels such as News, Music, Gaming, Sports, and TV Shows. The Spotlight channel is of particular note because it focuses on new and trending topics from around the world. The Live channel is useful on days when you want to keep up on a constantly changing news story. Finally, the Education channel keeps users up-to-date on popular videos across the curriculum.

Librarians will find that many of the playlists aren’t related directed to the curriculum. However, these auto-generated pages are a quick way to locate current information on topics such as politics, technology, science, social issues, and news events.

A Popular on YouTube page is available for many countries around the world. Do a Google search and you can find the links to the United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia, and others. It’s interesting for students to compare what’s popular in each country.

To visit the Best of YouTube, go to https://www.youtube.com/channels.

Technology Review: DOGOnews

DOGOnews is a website and app resource focusing on current events, news, and nonfiction articles for students and teachers.

The website consists of short articles. Most of these informational stories contain numerous images. Vocabulary words that may be unfamiliar to youth are highlighted and link to pop-up definitions and examples. Each article ends with reading comprehension questions, a critical thinking challenge, and vocabulary. A game helps readers review the vocabulary. While the website contains limited, education related advertising, it’s not distracting to readers.

Tabs lead users to articles about news, books, or movies. Within the news category, students can choose from science, sports, social studies, world, green, entertainment, fun, and other categories. They can also narrow by grade levels including K-3, 3-5, 3-8, and 3-5. This is useful when accessing articles that are appropriate for particular reading and interest levels. Within the book category, students can choose clubs, series, freebies, or seasonal works. Books are also organized by genre and reading level. Within the movie category, children can browse by categories such as mystery or animation.

The website also offers special features for students and teachers. Students can create their own avatar, earn badges, share articles, and write articles. Teachers can set up classroom accounts and make assignments.

The app works much the same way as the website. The easy-to-navigate app contains access to over 3,000 articles across the curriculum. Articles are categorized by grade level. Clicking on highlighted works leads to definitions and places are linked maps. Lesson plans are connected to national standards.

Librarians will find this easy-to-use resource is useful in reading activities. It’s also valuable for informational reading in the subject areas such as social studies and science.

To visit the website, go to http://www.dogonews.com/.

To download the app, go tohttps://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dogonews/id740364862.

Website Review: Just Think Twice

JUSTTHINKTWICE is a website for teens focusing on topics related to drug abuse and prevention.

Sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the website contains text, videos, images, and infographics related to topics of interest to young adults.

The Drug Information section includes details regarding specific types of drugs and paraphernalia.

The News and Media area includes articles, videos, publications, and other current information about drugs and drug abuse.

The True Stories section features teens whose lives were destroyed by drugs.

The Consequences area explores the impact of drugs on health, family, and future.

The Facts and Stats section provides facts, quizzes, and resources related to drug abuse.

Librarians will find this website to be an excellent source for student researchers in health or social studies classes.

To visit the website, go to https://www.justthinktwice.com/.

Website Review: NBC Learn

NBC LEARN is a website focusing on news and information of interest to K-12 students.

Thousands of standards aligned stories have been digitized from the NBC News archives dating back to the 1920s. Both subscription-based and free resources are available.

The subscription-based option is connected with the Pearson Online Learning Exchange (OLE).

The free resources include over a dozen video projects. While some collections focus on event-specific topics such as Pi Day, the Summer Olympics, and the Winter Olympics, others are connected to sports topics of interest such as the Science of Golf, Hockey, and Football. Topics specific to science include water, innovation, chemistry, and climate change.

History topics include a video series on the Civil Rights Era and one on the Titanic.

The Writers Speak to Kids is a video series containing over a dozen interviews with award-winning authors talking about the craft of creative writing. Librarians will be specifically interested in these short, quality videos.

To learn more, go to http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn.

Website Review: Science News for Students

SCIENCE NEWS FOR STUDENTS is an engaging, informational website produced by the Society for Science & the Public.

The student science news is divided into five themes: atoms & forces, earth & sky, humans & health, life, and tech & math. Within each theme, subtopics are available. A search tool allows users to search by date, topic, source, readability and sort by date.

The short articles include high quality graphics including photographs and sometimes diagrams. “Power words” provide definitions of key words associated with the story and a readability score helps teachers assign articles. Each article ends citations and links to future readings. A variety of social media options are available for article sharing including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Google+ along with email and printing.

An educator section provides resources for educators including articles organized by subject, article tools, STEM career resources, and resources for teaching science.

A blogs and resources section includes a “doing science” blog, “Eureka! Lab” blog, science project resources, and competitions.

Along with the student science section, the website also contains information about the society, student science programs, and an adult version of the science news that would also be of interest to older students.

In addition to the free website, a subscription-based service is available for both paper and iPad.

To visit the website, go to https://student.societyforscience.org/sciencenews-students.

Website Review: TweenTribune

TWEENTRIBUNE from the Smithsonian Institution is a newly launched website focusing on news and information for K-12 students.

The project is designed so that teachers can make reading assignments and involve youth in posting public or private comments. Free teacher accounts allow educators to create 9 classrooms and manage student accounts for each classroom.

The home page contains chronological access to the latest article postings. Each article contains a photo, caption, short article, and critical thinking challenge. The Lexile reading level can be selected, a comment can be added, an option is provided to assign the article to students, and a quiz link is also provided.

One of the most useful aspects of the site is the ability to choose the Lexile level for a reading assignment. While each article contains a default Lexile such as 900L, the article may also be displayed as 680L, 1090, or 1310L. A master list of articles can be listed by Lexile levels from 500L to 1600L. Teachers can also explore articles by topic such as animals, art, entertainment, fashion, and science.

In addition to the articles, a Photo of the Day area is designed for youth to write their own captions to match interesting photos.

Teachers can assign an article for a particular classroom and add a message. For instance, they might ask students to address a question using the comment feature. Quiz questions can also be assigned and student results recorded.

Common Core aligned lesson ideas are available that help connect the informational reading experience to practical assignments.

The TTJunior and TTTeens sections present articles of particular interest to younger and older youth. The TTEspanol section is still under development.

School librarians can partner with teachers to build an exciting informational reading experience across content areas. Consider a school-wide approach that involves students in reading and discussing current events.

To get started, go to http://tweentribune.com/
To visit TTJunior, go to http://tweentribune.com/junior
To visit TTTeens, go to http://tweentribune.com/teen
To visit TTEspanol, go to http://tweentribune.com/spanish
To visit the Lessons, go to http://tweentribune.com/lessonplans

Website Review: Climate.gov

CLIMATE.GOV is an outstanding U.S. government website from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) focusing on high-quality scientific data and information related to the climate.

When students are doing research on climate change, global warming or other climate-related topics, they often run into biased sites that are “pro” or “con” rather than informational sites that contain useful facts to support arguments and make decisions. The NOAA Climate website provides quality news and information students can use in STEM projects.

The HOME page links to recent topics of interest. It also provides a Global Climate Dashboard containing a quick-look at useful data in the form of graphs related to climate change, climate variability, and climate projections.

The NEWS & FEATURES section provided featured articles, along with access to departments of interest. The images and video section is useful for student projects. The event tracker may help youth focus on a particular event such as a storm or flood that may be associated with a larger climate issue.

The MAPS & DATA section explores global, U.S., and regional data.

The TEACHING CLIMATE section is designed for educators. It provides access to reviewed resources in major areas of climate research. Resources are also organized into formats including visuals, video, demos & experiments, and interactive tools.

Finally, the SUPPORTING DECISIONS section is designed to help communities manage climate-related risks. The topics in this section would be exciting for students to explore when considering the impact of climate change on society and the environments.

To explore the website, go to http://www.climate.gov/

Website Review: Factcheck.org

FACTCHECK.ORG is an award-winning website providing consumer information that can be woven across the curriculum.

This nonpartisan, nonprofit website for the Annenberg Public Policy Center shares useful information to help youth make responsible decisions related to issues of public policy. It attempts to “reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics”. At the same time, it models important information inquiry skills by discussing alternative perspectives and identifying the factual accuracy of advertisements, debates, speeches, interviews, and news.

The HOME page provides access to topics currently in the news, while the ARTICLES section links to recent topics.

The ASK FACTCHECK section allows users to ask a question. Questions and answers are provided along with a place to read more about the topic.

Around elections, go to the ELECTIONS section for up-to-date information about the facts and falsehoods surrounding particular players.

The VIRAL SPIRAL section features “a list of false and misleading viral rumors” along with a summary of facts.

The ARCHIVES provides a list of popular people and topics such as immigration, guns, and health care. Use the SEARCH for specific topic searches.

Teachers will find the QUIZ ARCHIVE particularly useful.

A companion website called FLACKCHECK.ORG focuses on political literacy and provides lots of resources to help learners identifying flaws in arguments.

To access FACTCHECK.ORG go to http://www.factcheck.org/
Use Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter to keep up-to-date on current topics from FACTCHECK.

Website & App Review: News-O-Matic

NEWS-O-MATIC is a subscription-based app that provides engaging nonfiction reading experiences for elementary students. Each weekday, readers are provided with standards-aligned, grade-appropriate news stories to read. The high-interest resources are a wonderful way to promote life-long reading habits. From covering science discoveries to sporting events, NEWS-O-MATIC provides exciting informational reading experiences across the curriculum.

Although the articles are brief, they’re a great starting point for class discussions and may stimulate interest in a more in-depth investigation. In addition to reading experiences, the features often include slideshows, puzzles, games, timelines, maps, or video clips. A read-aloud options is useful for students with special needs. In addition, a Spanish translation is also available.

Student accounts allow youth to take quizzes, write, draw, and record their results.

Available as both an iPad App from iTunes and an Android App from Google, go to http://press4kids.com/ for more information.