Lemon Tech Tidbits

       Richard Bryne’s latest blog post is about reading newspapers around the world for students to build a better understanding of the different cultures, politics, and viewpoints.      In August, he had a post where he talked about how he uses maps to show news from around the world when talking about current events in his social studies classes. You can read the entire blog post here: https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/08/exploring-newspapers-through-maps.html      But recently, Larry Ferlazzo shared another great site to find all of the headlines from around the world. The site is called Today’s Front Page .      You have three options to explore the front pages. You can look at them in a gallery view, by list, or by map. One of the issues though is the newspapers are in a different language when you first view them. However, for many newspapers, you have an option of opening it up on a website and then can click ...

It is important for students to read updated news articles for Social Studies as well as to increase their reading skills with new vocabulary. Reading Nonfiction text has its advantages. But where can you find quality articles for students to read for free? The answer is DOGO News. This site has fun articles for kids on current events, sports, science, and more. There are stories, pictures, and the occasional video as well. In addition, there is an integrated dictionary available for challenging words and maps for geographical context. As a student, you can read and comment on the articles without worry about signing in. Students can also watch the video of the week by simply typing in the word Video in the search box. As a teacher, you can create a class page where you can load a variety of articles, insert a calendar, favorite sites list, lesson plan instructions, and monitor students feedback. Take a look for yourself: https://www.dogonews.com/

DUBIOUS STATISTICS Every year in my high school tech class, we spend a great deal of time learning about Fake News and how to detect it. There are many different units we cover such as how to evaluate the sources, recognize the use of satire, understand bias and debunk deceptive statistics. Getting ready for this unit, I came across this blog post by Tim Stahmer over a BBC podcast over a debunking guide in the size of a postcard. If you are short on time can don’t want to listen to the podcast, here is a list of the advice (but you should really listen to the podcast, it’s less than 11 minutes): Remember confirmation bias - how you feel about a statistic is important. Understanding the claim - know what you are not being told in the statistic. Get the backstory - who is responsible for the statistic. Put things into perspective - things may sound better or worse than they are. Embrace imprecision - there are many things that cannot be precisely depicted. Be Curious - if a...

Newsela and Google Classroom Newsela  is a wonderful site to find up-to-date news articles in a students lexile level. New articles are provided daily in 5 different lexile levels to chose from. There is even an assessment at the end for students to take to check for understanding. Recently, Newsela has teamed up with Google Classroom . It is now easy to share news articles with your whole entire class.  Before you begin, you and your students must have accounts set up in Newsela. But even this step has been made easier as you can upload your entire Google Classroom. To find out how, click on the  Quick Start Guide for Teachers:  https://goo.gl/lwsSv0 For more information, click on the Newsela support pages: https://goo.gl/89FrBP