Instantaneous News Sources

In the past five years, schools have made a concerted effort to bring cable television into classrooms. This rich resource brings access to quality educational programming and late-breaking news. This "live" news coverage allows instructors to seize the educational "moment" provided by major national and world events. Many instructors choose to interrupt or even abandon lesson plans when major news stories break. Other instructors try to integrate news programming into their teaching with regularly scheduled "current events" times.

Today, cable television news coverage is supplemented by on-line Web-based news sites. While these sites cannot match the immediacy of live video and audio feeds, they often provide much richer detail and analysis of events in a simple-to-use, easy-to-search graphical interface. These websites archive "old" news stories, so students can trace the unfolding of current events through time. Also, these sites provide links to related articles that shed additional light on the political, economic, social, and moral dimensions of news stories. Perhaps best of all, these sites offer weekly reviews of the news - an especially helpful feature for scheduled current events discussions.

The on-line news sites provide instantaneous access to news stories, usually with quality text articles, informative photographs, and digitized audio and video clips. Almost always, these sites offer more and deeper analysis of the news than network news coverage. Visit the sites below for the latest updates on the news and weather.

Examples:

• CNN Interactive

  Simply the best news resource on the Web.

• San Jose Mercury

  One of the best on-line newspapers with special emphasis on high-tech matters.

• The New Republic

  An online version of this news and commentary magazine.

• Newsweek Magazine

  A great example of an on-line version of a news magazine.

• Time Magazine

  A great example of an on-line version of a news magazine.

• USA Today

  An on-line version of one of the most popular national newspapers.