Carol Briggs

SLM 521

June 22, 2009

Elective 6: Current Events

Assignment One:

I looked at four different online news source websites: The Washington Post, Scholastic News for Kids, The New York Times, and CNN.

While the Washington Post is a respected source for news, the biggest thing that I didn't like about the site was the need to sign in with an email address and password. We really stress with students at school not giving out personal information on the web. While the sign-in wouldn't necessarily keep me from using this as a site, I would have to think about how to handle the sign-in aspect with students.

I was curious about Scholastic News for Kids, so I checked it out. I think this site is great for younger students. It is nice for teachers to have kid-safe, kid-friendly sites to use. However, I am interested in doing a current event activity with middle school-aged students. While this site had a lot of nice kid-friendly content, it wasn't a great site for finding information about current world events (like what is going on in Iran right now).

The New York Times was one of the sites I really liked. I clicked around and never had to sign-in with a password or email address. The New York Times is a respected news source. It was easy to find information about world events and it was easy to navigate their page. They have very clear tabs with world news and US news. When you click on the world news tab, you have an opportunity to access news by continent. I like how the New York Times website is somewhat graphically reminiscent of the newspaper.

CNN is another site I really liked. CNN is a respected source of news and their website is easy to navigate. They have very clear tabs to click on for US news, world news, politics, etc. When you click on the world news tab, you can find world news by region. One can access all the information on this site without having to give out personal information by signing on. As you might expect, this website has a lot of video content. You must watch a short commercial before you watch a video, which is a little annoying, but not too bad.

Assignment Two:

Find out what is going on in the world!

We will be looking at world news on two different news websites and answering the questions below.

Websites:

The New York Times

CNN

Questions:

1. Look at the world news on both websites. You will be able to find world news by continent. (On the New York Times website you might have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it initially.) I want you to look at the news stories on both sites about Africa. Are there any news stories covering the same content or story on both sites? Which countries or issues are coming up in many of the stories? Do you think one website has more information?

2. Again look at the world news section on both websites. Now I want you to look at news about Europe. Are there any news stories covering the same content or story on both sites? Which country or issues are coming up in many of the stories? Do you think that one website has more information?

3. Find one article about Iran. You may use either website – whichever one you like best. Read the article and write a brief, one paragraph summary. Make sure you write the name of the article and the name of the website where you got the article in your summary.