Tween+Tribune

Resources links:

[|http://tweentribune.com]

**Strengths:**
> Free > Students have an opportunity to respond to current events. > Teachers have the ability to review student responses before publishing. > Students have personalized accounts. > New stories are uploaded daily. > The teacher selects the stories for each class. > The site creates the classes. > Teaches basic online skills to early learners. > Encourages collaboration. Students are able to blog on a particular story. > Blog respnses can be used as the basis for classroom discussion. > Allows reading across the curriculum. > Student's writings and responses can be shared by viewers worldwide. > The articles are grouped via topics.

**Weaknesses:**
> Teachers must filter through the articles to select age appropriated articles.

**Opportunities:**
> There are several opportunities to use Tween Tribune in the classroom. Teachers can select a controversial story and ask students to post a persuasive argument or ask students to find a comment they disagree with, then ask them to post facts that make an effective, opposing argument. What I particularly like about integrating this tool in the classroom, especially the mathematics classroom, is that it will help facilitate the meaning development component of a lesson. Students always ask the question, "When Will I Ever Use This?" This web 2.0 tools will familiarize students with several real world examples, issues, and situations.

There are major threats with this web tool. The teacher has the ability to preview all material before it is posted. The site assigns each student a unique password for their protection and account management.

**Ideas for the Classroom: **
This web 2.0 tool can be used to create a learning community within a school. It is a practical example of collective intelligence. Students, as a team, can present a "newscast" based on stories of interest. This web tool is an alternate form for book reviews, poetry, opinions, classroom projects, etc.

This web 2.0 tool can be used to address the literacy issue throughout the curriculum. All teachers can assess students on spelling, punctuation & grammar, oral expressions and written communication within their disciplines.

TweenTribune is a website with news that is customized for "tweens" (children who are not quite teens) and teens.

**Helpful Links**

[|TweenTribune - About the Website]

[|TweenTribune - Teachers' Comments]

[|TweenTribune - Home for Tweens]

[|TweenTribune - Home for Teens]

[|TweenTribune - Example Lesson Plans]

**SWOT Analysis**

**(a) Strengths**


 * ** Updated daily **
 * Contains news relative to readers' ages
 * Easy access for teachers
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Free
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Website works with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act


 * (b) Weaknesses**
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Advertising on site
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Upon registering, I received an email saying I'd have to wait for my login information
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Typos and grammatical errors in posts from students


 * (c) Opportunities**
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Teachers can share ideas with one another
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Can be customized for teachers' classes
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Students can comment on stories
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Place for teacher assessment of comments


 * (d) Threats**
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Site has third-party advertisements
 * <span style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Advertising companies collect information about users likes/dislikes to further advertise to users


 * Ideas for the Classroom**


 * <span style="background-clip: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; padding-right: 10px;">[|TweenTribune - Example Lesson Plans] **

Teachers can customize a page for their class, and then build an assignment where students have to post their thoughts on at least 10 different articles. Teachers can then find the posts made by each individual student and print them out as a report. Teachers could grade on amount of effort put in to the posts, grammar, while also being aware of any cyber bullying present.

Another way this site could be used is that students would have to find a number of relevant articles to a certain subject. If the subject being covered in class is politics, then students would have to find articles relating to this subject.

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