Become a Reporter for Global Village News

Teachers, Library-Media teachers, Computer Coordinators!!!
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Are you looking for a telecommunications project which combines language arts/journalism (reading and writing) with social studies (geography, history, and current affairs)? Are you looking for a project which will bring contact with students from other parts of the world? Are you looking for a project which can be easily handled by classes without direct BBS connections in their own classroom?

Check out Global Village News. This is a project on K12Net for students primarily ages 10 - 16+ yrs. Global Village News is a worldwide student Newspaper (Newsmedia!). Students write stories about events, people, issues and life in their local city or region. Hopefully, the topics are chosen so that they will have interest for our worldwide audience! News items which showcase some unique aspect of life in your region are especially valued.

To participate each class should pay attention to the news, events and happenings in their own school, town and region. As moderator, I suggest that the class/students try to write stories about:

1) people who help your community;
2) community celebrations or seasonal traditions in your region;
3 sporting events and athletes;
4 events in the community or region.
5) wild weather in your region;
6) issues which affect your community and maybe all of us such as the Environment; 

Students can locate news by reading newspapers, listening to radio, watching TV or experiencing it first hand. Write the news story in your own words. Remember to include those basic facts: who, where, what, when, and then include a headline and a byline (so we can know who wrote it). Check your spelling, remember your story is going around the world! Then you can go on-line and upload it to K12 Channel 11.

This is an Open Project which means that you may join in at any time. Please identify your school and location, and teacher with your news story. This project has been in operation 12 months a year for the last two years. The following are the suggested "Ten Rules of Participation".

1. Notify the Moderator of the class intent to participate.

2. Organize class into "reporter teams".

3. Research and write from 1-3 news stories each month. Regular, longterm participation is better than 25 stories all at once!

4. Check the stories to be sure that all the facts are included and spelling is correct. Remember to include answers those basic journalistic questions: Who, What, Why, Where, When. Prepare stories as text files (ascii) in your computer.

5. Go on-line with the bulletin board carrying K12Net and post your story on Channel 11 (Usenet newsgroups: K12.Sys.Channel 11). Include your names, School and location.

6. Download new messages and print out copies of the news stories from around the world. Read the stories as a group or some other way be sure to share the news.

7. Create a bulletin board to share the news from students from around the world. I suggest that you use a world map to locate other reporters.

8. The Moderator/s will reply to each news story. Participants are welcome to respond as well if they have questions or comments related to the story, perhaps a comparison with their own situation or experience. Please, however, do not respond with "chatting" letters. Those belong in the appropriate Chat Channels. Teachers, you are welcome to assist the Moderator. We are all volunteers here making our world just a bit smaller!

9. For questions about participation and other issues, please use the K12.Projects channel. Address posts to Lorna Kropp, Subject GVN. That way we can keep the project channel only for news and responses. It helps everyone enjoy the project more, believe me. Occasionally stray messages find there way into the channel, please let the Moderator handle them.

10. Read! Write! Learn! Enjoy!

For examples of news stories check out the article about Global Village News in K12.News.

Lorna Kropp, Moderator Global Village News

From: Lorna.Kropp@f3.n346.z1.fidonet.org (Lorna Kropp)
Subject: BECOME A REPORTER FOR GLOBAL VILLAGE NEWS
Message-ID: <781780536.AA09078@puddle.fidonet.org>
Date: Sun, 09 Oct 1994 23:11:23 -0800