From Newsroom to Classroom

Date: May 9, 2013

Summary: Join Matthew Green and Matt Williams of KQED, along with Chris Sloan of the Wasatch Range Writing Project and Kirsten Spall of the Area 3 Writing Project, as they discuss the various dimensions of Newsroom to Classroom, a pilot project in which pairs of NWP teachers from around the country develop resources and curriculum packages that focus on news topics. You can also hear a student perspective on this opportunity to use digital tools to weigh in on the issues of our times.

Excerpt from Show

Chris Sloan, Journalism and New Media teacher at Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City and a teacher-consultant with the Wasatch Range Writing Project, on "connected research":

I started noticing the past couple of years that the way that students were doing their research was changing too. There was a time this year when someone wanted to do some research on wickets, you know, so we were looking in social networks to try to find information. So you start with Google search and things like that. Then we started looking at things like Twitter and Facebook as research places, and what I started to realize was that my students were connecting to experts in a lot of different ways, and richer ways, than they used to...These important people in the conversations—like the journalists, like Matthew and Matt—they're actually part of the conversation in ways that they weren't before."