NIE workshop emphasis utilizing e-tools in the classroom
The nation’s newspaper industry has been scratching its head, wondering how to attract young readers. And as circulation dwindles, reversing the trend becomes increasingly urgent.
The answer, according to some educators, might not require an overhaul of newspapers, but changing the way people use newspapers.
"After a while you start to realize just how analog schools are and how digital students are," said Margaret Chance, educational services manager for Sun Journal in New Bern, N.C. "That’s going to have to change and its not going to be easy."
On Saturday, more than 200 teachers and educational consultants attended the Brownsville Herald’s Newspapers in Education "Get It ... with NIE" workshops at Garcia Middle School.
Topics ranged from how to use newspapers to teach students to think globally to help develop critical thinkers, problem solvers and political cartoon geniuses.
Chance led a workshop on e-literacy, coving e-editions, blogs, podcasting and Google Earth.
She projected Google Earth onto a LCD screen, revealing an arial view of a local address. This neat feature easily impresses, but it can also be a useful tool to show students where events are taking place.
Chance gave her audience fair warning, however, Google Earth can send some students into a tizzy.
"I’ve got to warn you," she said. "When you decide to show this feature, your students are going to want to see their house, their friend’s house and their grandmother’s house."
Another useful feature for the classroom is the e-edition, or electronic edition.
The online feature displays the newspaper as it appears in print. If a teacher wants students to search for a story about bridges, for example, he or she can enter the key word bridge and story options will pop up.
The e-edition helps users narrow their search further by breaking stories down by category and highlighting the key word in the text.
"Reading the paper is like a buffet," Chance said, "and the section tab is like the menu."
Vanessa Cantu teaches second-grade gifted and talented students at Burns Elementary. She presented "Character Education and Newspaper Activities: Differentiation for the GT Student" later in the day, but attended Chance’s workshop.
"It was awesome," Cantu said of e-literacy. "A traditional curriculum can be boring for students sometimes, but kids love computers and there are so many things to take advantage of."
Cantu uses newspapers for classroom instruction every week, and now she has a few more ideas of how for her students.
That's what Chance likes to hear. She has made a priority of drumming up interest about e-literacy, but she doesn’t expect that online will erase print any time soon.
"I don’t see the online replacing print because students still are very tactile learners," Chance said. "They like to touch it cut it and that’s hard to do with computers. Online is just a new education tool in the toolbox."
