NEWSELA Getting started guide

Remote Teaching Toolkit

NEWSELA Student Toolkit

Two-week Remote Learning Example

More Resources and also virtual office hours help

What is NewsELA?

NewsELA (pronounced News-Ze-lla) is a subscription based spot to that aggregates news content from various K-12 (and non education websites such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, etc.) for current events or other various topics.  They pull in at least 10 new articles a day for students to access and use. 

TEACHERS

Logging in to Newsela

Go to Student Homepage

Click on the Clever icon and login

Scroll down to Newela button and click on it.

If this is your first time logging in you will be presented with the screen below. Click No and continue. If Yes it will link your current account to the Clever account.

Now, you will be brought to the Newsela home page and will open the window below.  You can click on Explore Products to learn more or click the X to close the window.

Syncing Classes From Clever

The first thing you need to do is sync your classes from Clever.  At the top right click on your initial and click on settings

Go to the Classes tab and click on the Sync with Clever button.

Select all your classes that you wish to sync over and click on Sync Selected Classes.

Now, you will see your synced classes from Clever  Click on the Newsela button on the top left to take you back to the home screen.

Creating an Assignment

There are many ways to go about creating an assignment.  I will show you one way that is quick and easy.

You can either browse the subjects in the top bar or use the search to do a more fine tuned topic search.

Once you find something you wish to assign, a blue assign button is visible.  Either click on the assign button or use the blue arrow next to the assign button to Create Assignment or Add to Assignment.

If choosing create assignment this will create a new assignment 

If choosing add to assignment this gives you the option to add it to a previously created assignment.

Once you click on Assign you will be on the assignment page.  From here you can change the assignment title, which classes this assignment is for, or save as draft so you can add more modules to the assignment before assigning it to students.  Once you are ready click on the blue assign button.

If you don't change the text level, it'll assign the reading level at the NewsELA Recommended Level.  

It's also important to note, that as of 4/7/2020, you can only assign to entire classes.  There's no way to assign an individual article to an individual student A gets reading level X while student B gets reading level Y, unless if you create a manual class with each student within NewsELA.

Adding Assignment to Multiple Classes:

To assign to multiple classes choose multiple classes in the drop down

Viewing Assignments

To view assignments. On the top bar go to binder → Assignments

This will show you all your assignments and show general progess of an assignment.  Click on the assignment to get a better breakdown of what each student has completed.

Other Tools in Binder

Activity Feed

The activity feed provides list of activity like student x is reading article Y

Reading Summary

This provides more information on different skills and levels students are performing at.

Educator Center

This is a great resource for learning how to do everything from basic tasks to more advanced tasks   Located on far right of newsela home page.

What are the Lexile Ranges and Grade Ranges for NewsELA?

See this link for the breakdown of lexile ranges and grade level within NewsELA.

STUDENTS

How do I log into NewsELA?

1. Navigate to the Student Homepage (https://links.min201.org/) and click "Clever" button.
   
2. If prompted, then choose "Log in with Google" and then enter in your MIN201.org email address and password.
    
3. After getting signed into Clever, click on the "NewsELA" icon.
   

I'm logged in... now what do I do?

Each time you log in, you'll be taken to the assignment dashboard.  Here is where you can see all the current or previous assignments that are assigned by your teacher(s).

To start working on an assignment, click on the article name.  

If you navigate away from this screen and need to get back, click on the blue 'NewsELA' icon in the upper left hand corner and it'll always bring you back to the dashboard.

So... I read the article.. now what?

After you've read the article, there's always at least 1 activity per article.  Click on the activities tab to see the available activities after finish reading the article.

Possible activities for the article you're reading: 

• Take a Quiz - A short 4 question multiple choice quiz designed to test reading comprehension.  At the end of the quiz, students will see what they got correct and incorrect.  By clicking on the blue link, it'll take them what the correct answer was.
• Write - Students may be required to choose their class in which the written response is designed for.  This is an open-ended type of response that you can type.  The box will save your answers as you type, so only hit the 'submit response' green button when you're fully done and happy with your answer.
• Annotate a Document - By highlighting on any text within the article, you can annotate or take notes on the document.  You can change the background of the highlighted text (by clicking and dragging the text, as if you were to copy and paste the text) and change the color.  You can also type in the box to make a comment.
• Power Words - A short 4 or 8 question quiz regarding new vocabulary at the Lexile range may be offered.

Can I leave my progress and come back another day?

Certainly!  Next time you log in, you'll be brought the article dashboard (if you navigated away from it, it's also under Binder → Progress). 

To resume an assignment that was in progress, click on the assignment name, and what you were working on it returned to the screen once you come back.

How can I see all my assignments that were assigned to me?

If you're not on the assignment dashboard, then hover over Binder → Your Progress.

You'll see dropdowns in which controls what you see such as all assignments in a certain class, a subject, or a date range.

How can I 'turn in' my assignment?

NewsELA keeps saving progress of what you are doing and completing the progress.  There's no special 'turn in' button, as teachers are able to check in on your progress in realtime.