Featured 3-5-2014: Teaching Kids News

Teaching Kids News produces daily, timely, relevant kid-friendly news articles for kids, classroom educators, and parents. A new article, based on what is actually happening in the world, is offered every day (except holidays).

 

Every story is in kid-friendly language and is appropriate for kids in grades 2-8. As well as accessible vocabulary, Teaching Kids News provides context for everything in each story, so students can understand what’s going on, and why.

 

In the Curriculum Connections, students are encouraged to think critically about the story and also about the way the story is presented. Does the story exhibit a bias? How might the story be written differently by another journalist?

 

Teaching Kids News strives to "teach balanced literacy in a meaningful way.” Teachers have a current events resource that can be used for shared, guided, and independent reading lessons. At the bottom of each article are Writing/Discussion Prompts, Grammar Features, and a Reading Prompt that will enable you to connect with your students and solve real-life issues.

 

 

The articles are intended to work well in a classroom setting, in small groups, or for individual students. Each article can be a nearly complete lesson plan.

 

 See a video introduction to Teaching Kids News

 

Teaching Kids News has a sister site, Getting Kids Reading, with tips, activities, games, websites, research information and ideas that will help you get your kids reading.

 

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Featured: 1-23-2014 News-O-Matic

News-O-Matic from Press4Kids* offers children aged 7 to 11 their first daily newspaper. News-O-Matic produces five news stories each day, covering world news, science, sports, and more.

 

News-O-Matic readers also have access to history timelines, news games, interactive maps, and many other features. Readers also have the opportunity to rate the articles, ask questions, and submit drawings that relate to the news.

 

Each News-O-Matic article is aligned to the 3rd- and 4th-grade levels of the CCSS for English Language Arts and Mathematics. The articles provide students with necessary and exciting nonfiction content. The free daily Teacher Guide will indicate the precise correlations. Recall, comprehension, and discussion questions included within the guide will provide further practice. 

 

 

For schools without tablet technology, News-O-Matic will be accessible via a free daily School Version emailed in PDF format.  

 

Watch a video about News-O-Matic

News-O-Matic helps develop a daily reading routine while encouraging readers to become knowledgeable, global citizens.

 

*Incorporated in 2012, Press4Kids is a publisher of daily news applications for young readers built by journalists, educators, and entrepreneurs. Their goal is to inform children about current news and world events as well as to encourage them to read on a daily basis. All Press4Kids publications are 100% ad-free. 

 

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Featured: 12-5-2013 Newsy

Newsy is a multisource video news service that highlights nuances in reporting from multiple media outlets around the world.

 

Newsy can enhance your understanding of a news story by allowing users to compare video news sources from around the world to see how a story unfolds.

 

Newsy conveniently brings you a broader view of news, in a concise format - when, how, and where you want it.

 

 Watch Introducing the All-New Newsy App for iPhone

 

 

In addition to the website, there are free Newsy apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows 8, and more.

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Featured: 11-7-2013 Chalkbeat

Journalists who believe that "an independent local press is vital to ensuring that education improves," created the nonprofit news organization Chalkbeat.

Chalkbeat reporters are currently working in four bureaus across the country, New York, Colorado, Tennessee, and Indiana. Plans are to add others as funding becomes available.

Chalkbeat reporters, tell the story every day of educational change, focusing on the low-income communities that have the most at stake. It is Chalkbeat's policy to not take a position on the complex changes happening in education. They strive to faithfully report on events as they happen, both the good and the bad.

Chalkbeat doesn’t publish a print edition, and as a nonprofit, their business model is an unconventional blend of philanthropic donations and revenue generated from sponsorships and their jobs board.

Chalkbeat stories appears on their own websites, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and the news sites of our partners in the press.

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Featured: 8-6-2013 Breaking News English

Breaking News English provides free, ready-to-print ESL/EFL lesson plans for teaching current events.

Breaking News English presents simple news, in seven levels from elementary to advanced, that is easier for English learners to understand.

Breaking News English delivers a new lesson every two days. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news. Lessons have up to 26 pages of printable activities and handouts available as downloadable PDFs. There are 30 or more online quizzes for each lesson.

 

 See a Breaking News English video tutorial example from Shelly Terrell

Listening files in mp3 format in British and North American English can be downloaded or subscribed to via a podcast. Breaking News English includes graded listenings with each lesson.

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Extra: 1/21/2013 EA and GlassLab Announce SimCityEDU

Game developer EA, in collaboration with GlassLab, Friday announced development of SimCityEDU, an online educational community based on the award-winning SimCity™ videogame. SimCityEDU will be a resource for classroom teachers interested in driving student interest in STEM subjects utilizing digital learning tools. SimCityEDU’s curriculum and tools will be correlated to U.S. Common Core standards.

Teachers will be able to create and share digital SimCity-based lesson plans that will encourage students to think critically about the challenges facing modern cities: urban planning, environmental management, and socio-economic development.

To learn more visit www.SimCity.com.

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More Honesty Among High School Students?

An article in USA Today Online says that the results of a bi-annual survey from the Josephson Institute of Ethics suggests that in 2012, high school students who admit to cheating, lying, or stealing dropped for the first time in a decade.

It’s implied that more attention to character may be one reason for the decline. Such changes may be the consequence of a major shift in parenting and school involvement in issues of honesty and character.

Read the full article here.

COD - 7/30/2012 - LawForKids [Social Studies]

LawForKids is a web site intended to teach children about the law, created by the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services and Education.

The goals of LawForKids are to educate youth, parents, communities, and schools about youth laws and to encourage law-abiding behavior.

In the Interative section, students can ask or browse questions regarding the law on numerous topics such as bullying, curfew, drinking, driving, school, family, sexual assault, and many more. Law-related videos and cartoons, personal stories, news, and documents can be found at LawForKids.

The Arizona Supreme Court's Juvenile Crime Reduction Fund makes LawForKids possible using surcharges on fines paid by those convicted of breaking the law.

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COD - 7/10/2012 - NewsHour Extra [Current Events]

Using the standards and resources of PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NewsHour Extra provides students and teachers with quality educational resources based on current issues and events.

NewsHour Extra provides unique current events resources for teachers such as news stories, pictures, maps, video, in-depth lesson plans, stories written by students, and more.

Lesson plans are organized by topic and can be found on these category pages: US, World, Science, Economics, Health, and Arts/Media. In addition, you can use the search function at the top of every page. 

Visit the NewsHour ExtraYouTube channel

NewsHour Extra also provides an outlet for young people to speak out on issues important to them by publishing essays and original audio and video. These student voices are often directly related to the news and give adults insight into how events affect young people.

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COD - 5/1/2012 - National Institute for Early Education Research [Early Education]

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) supports high quality, effective, early childhood education for all young children through its research.

The National Institute for Early Education Research believes such education enhances the physical, cognitive, and social development of young children, and can lead to subsequent success in school and later life.

Among the aims of NIEER's research program are to provide a usable and understandable vision of early education excellence, monitor and assess national and state progress toward early education excellence, and explain the costs, outcomes, and economic benefits of alternative policies.

The NIEER works to:

• stimulate national and state discussions of early education policy.
• develop a coherent national research agenda in partnership with other organizations.
• deliver and publicize vital information about early education.

The National Institute for Early Education Research supplies independent, research-based advice and technical assistance to educators, researchers, policy makers, and journalists.

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Flashback Malware Free Web-based Detection Tool [Mac]

If you are one of the many EDge21 readers who uses a Mac, you now have a free web tool from Russian security site Dr. Web to test your computer for the presence of the Flashback malware.

Flashback is a form of malware designed to grab passwords and other information from users through their Web browser and other applications such as Skype. A user typically mistakes it for a legitimate browser plug-in while visiting a malicious Web site. At that point, the software installs code designed to gather personal information and send it back to remote servers. In its most recent incarnations, the software can install itself without user interaction. [from C-net]

The process does require finding your Mac's UUID number using your machine's System Information utility, then copying and pasting it into a Web form, but that's all, and clear instructions are provided.

I found this utility through C-net and so feel reasonably confident about its quality and authenticity. Click here to visit C-net for full information about Flashback and what to do if your machine is compromised.

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COD - 1/24/2012 - Social Studies for Kids [Social studies]

Social Studies for Kids is a resource for students and teachers of social studies covering history, geography, economics, cultures, current events, holidays, religions, languages, archaeology, and more.

The Social Studies for Kids site includes

• A forum on social studies topics.
• Fun facts such as Paul Revere never finished his ride.
• Glossaries for both US and world history.
• A free weekly newsletter.

The home page features Current Events topics, This Week in History, and a Geography item.

The author of Social Studies for Kids is David White, the former About.com Guide for Social Studies for Kids.

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Catch of the Day - HistoryBuff.com - 7/7/2011

HistoryBuff.com is a website providing free primary source material for students, teachers, and other American history buffs.

The primary focus of HistoryBuff.com is on the way news of events in American history were reported in the newspapers of the time. HistoryBuff.com's online newspaper archives cover the period from 1700 through 2004.

HistoryBuff.com contains two kinds of primary source material:

• Transcripts of original newspaper articles about major events in American history
• Articles written by "everyday people" about events or eras in American history

You will also find information about the technology used to produce newspapers over the past 400 years.

Guided panoramic virtual tours of American historic sites are a new feature of HistoryBuff.com. To see an example, click here.

Visitors to HistoryBuff.com can subscribe to the free newsletter

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Catch of the Day - Newspaper Map - 6/21/2011

 

Using Newspaper Map you can link to the websites of newspapers from all over the world.

 

Newspaper Map also makes it possible to translate most of them to and from several languages with a single click. Often you will also find links to the YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media feeds of these newspapers.

A UK version of Newspaper Map is available, as well as a German edition and a Japanese variant.

Watch a video introduction to Newspaper Map

Newspaper Map regularly collects and updates these links.

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Catch of the Day - PE Central - 3/8/2011

PE Central is a website for PreK-12 physical education teachers, students, and parents providing the latest information about developmentally appropriate physical education programs for children.

Teachers can submit their innovative programs and ideas on PE Central where they will be shared and recognized. Submit a PE video and, if it's published, receive a $50 gift certificate. PE Central also offers a free e-mail newsletter to help users keep up with the newest information about physical education and health education.

Some of the resources on PE Central include:

• over 2000 ready-to-use PreK-12 health, physical education, and integrated lesson ideas
• downloadable ready-to-print assessments
• a store featuring the latest books, DVDs, and music for PE teachers
• adapted and preschool PE information
• programs that allow kids to log their physical activity and motivate them to continue being active
• ideas for creating and maintaining a positive learning environment
• free job announcements

The primary mission of PE Central is "to assist teachers, parents, and others who work with youngsters to guide them in the process of becoming physically active and healthy for a lifetime".

PE Central originated in the fall of 1995, with Dr. George Graham and the doctoral students in Virginia Tech's Health and Physical Education Program.

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Catch of the Day - PE Central - 3/8/2011

 

PE Central is a website for PreK-12 physical education teachers, students, and parents providing the latest information about developmentally appropriate physical education programs for children.

Teachers can submit their innovative programs and ideas on PE Central where they will be shared and recognized. Submit a PE video and, if it's published, receive a $50 gift certificate. PE Central also offers a free e-mail newsletter to help users keep up with the newest information about physical education and health education.

Some of the resources on PE Central include:

• over 2000 ready-to-use PreK-12 health, physical education, and integrated lesson ideas
• downloadable ready-to-print assessments
• a store featuring the latest books, DVDs, and music for PE teachers
• adapted and preschool PE information
• programs that allow kids to log their physical activity and motivate them to continue being active
• ideas for creating and maintaining a positive learning environment
• free job announcements

The primary mission of PE Central is "to assist teachers, parents, and others who work with youngsters to guide them in the process of becoming physically active and healthy for a lifetime".

PE Central originated in the fall of 1995, with Dr. George Graham and the doctoral students in Virginia Tech's Health and Physical Education Program.

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