Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Five Reasons Why Everyone Could be Using Newsela

The district recently purchased the PRO version of Newsela. Newsela is essentially a database of news articles and reading assessments that can be assigned to your classes. 

This edition of the Friday Five is dedicated to 5 reasons why you will fall in love with 

1. Canvas Integration: Newsela has been added to our Canvas account. This means that students and teachers can connect directly from their courses to Newsela creating a single sign-on experience. For teachers, this eliminates the need for you to create classes in Newsela, they are already there from Canvas. You can add an assignment in Canvas and select Newsela as the External Tool for submission.  For students, this means they do not need to make an account, remember a password, or open a new website. When students work in Newsela, they can do so right from within the Canvas interface. 




2. Engaging and Current Content: Newsela selects articles from a variety of publications and often has articles ready 24 hours after initial publication. If there is a hot topic in the news, odds are Newsela has an article about it. Below is a screenshot of what was posted on 10/27/17.


3. Many Articles are available in Spanish: If you have a native Spanish speaker in your class or are teaching Spanish, search for articles that have been translated. Not only will the articles be translated but so will the quiz questions. This will allow you to get data on native speakers' reading skills. 


4.  Text Sets: Text Sets are curated collections of articles focused on particular topics, skills, or themes. You may use sets that have been created by others or create your own. 



5. Content for Nearly Every Discipline: Teachers can search for articles in broad categories such as War and Peace, Law, or Sports. There are also libraries of collected articles  on topics including  Careers, Myths and Legends, and  Famous Speeches. No matter what subject you teach, you can use Newsela to help engage students, explore content connected to your course, and evaluate students' reading and writing skills. 


Want to learn more now?  Follow this link and sign in to watch a great overview video.

If you have  questions about using Newsela in your classes please reach out to either Keith Veverka or me, Cara Gurysh.



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