Originally Posted By benson chang on February 11, 2019
Hi all. I created a short video using Lightworks (first time using it) promoting the usage of Newsela. Newsela is a database of articles designed for use in the classroom. It facilitates differentiated learning as the articles are written for five different reading levels. Have a gander. It is quite a useful tool.
It was interesting watching the video in this post, not just because of Benson’s sales pitch sounding voice, but because I was introduced to Newsela a few years ago, but I learned a bit from this video. One of the features I was knowledgeable about was the choosing of the different levels of reading. This aspect has been very useful in a school with a large ELL population, where some students are quite new to English, while others are native English speakers, and students at all levels inbetween. Students themselves can choose the level, although I personally try and get them to challenge themselves, rather than start from the lower level and work their way up. But with all students reading about the same topic no one really knew who read at what level. One aspect I also liked was that it was linked to BrainPop!, although that partnership recently ended. In watching the post, I did see that you can link Newsela to Google Classroom and that you can make writing assignments or quizzes with the readings. One aspect I did not like when I used to use it was the lack of Canadian stories, as I would try and use it for teaching about current events, but the stories about news in Canada was lacking. Benson does discuss the Pro version, however when I went to look today, I could not see any differences, but this may be due to special features being accessible due to COVID-19. If you have different levels in your class, this is a resource that I would definitley recommend.