This is one of the gems of the Internet. The news service sites are legion and many are superb in their design and content. The majority of sites are electronic versions of daily or weekly newspapers, others are press agencies or broadcast news services. By tapping in to the news agency services your classroom will be receiving the news stories from around the world as quickly as the news desks themselves.

• Electronic Telegraph
• The Guardian
• The Times
• BBC News - Front Page
• Kidon Media-Link
• TotalNEWS
• Internet Public Library Newspaper Reading Room

From the first four electronic news sites (Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times and BBC News) it is possible to pick up and download the text and pictures of current stories, or to visit any section of the paper. The Kidon and TotalNEWS sites are for the most part 'link' sites which give you access to a whole range of news services through which you have the opportunity to view news sites from around the world. The Internet Public Library newspaper reading room also links to online newspapers all over the world.

A World of Paper Just to give you some idea of the range offered, here is just a sample of a few English language newspapers listed on the Kidon site: Barbados - The Barbados Advocate, The Nation Bermuda - The Bermuda Sun, The Royal Gazette Bolivia - The Bolivian Times Chile - Business News China (Peoples Republic) - China Daily (Beijing) Shanghai Daily (Shanghai) Shenzhen Economic News China (Hong Kong) - Asia Times, Hong Kong Commercial Daily China (Republic,Taiwan) - Taiwan Economic Daily News Cyprus - Cyprus Mail, Cyprus News Journal Czech Republic - Prague Tribune Denmark - Copenhagen Post Egypt - Egyptian Gazette, Middle East Times Falkland Islands - Penguin News France - International Herald Tribune (Paris) Germany - Berliner Morgenpost International Greece - The Athens News, The New Europe All of the above are listed on the Kidon site, with a lot more beside! With certain 'targets' in mind you can, in a few minutes, see what the front page news stories are in Australia, India, South Africa, Israel, Argentina, Italy, New York or wherever. Most countries around the world have English language newspapers, so you are not limited only to those which are English speaking.

An impressive number of our local newspapers also have a web presence and again it is instructive to see what local issues are 'hot' around the UK on a particular day.

The Electronic Newspaper
The electronic newspaper is quite a different beast to its paper-based equivalent and is far more than just a facsimile screen version. The typical format is for there to be a 'front page' which summarises the stories 'inside', and the reader gets to the full story by clicking on the heading. Because of the nature of the html format it is possible for there to be inbuilt links to other parts of the edition, or to previous editions. Most have some kind of search facility which will allow you to look at archive material from previous editions.

Many of the national newspaper sites ask you to 'register' with them to get beyond the 'front page', but it does not cost money; all you will be asked is to give a couple of minutes of your time when you first make the request to enter the site and you will be given a 'logging-on' password. Subsequent visits may require you to enter the password, so make it a memorable one! Some sites, such as the Electronic Telegraph, will recognise your terminal when you connect to them and log on automatically for you once you have registered.

The Daily Telegraph or News Unlimited (Guardian and Observer) sites are a good example of the kind of information you will find on a typical page of an online 'paper'. The news stories appear as an 'active' display in that the reader is able to link off to sites which have support materials outside the domain of the newspaper, and also link to previous editions of the paper where there are articles or stories which relate to the current one. There is also opportunity to search the archives of the newspaper, perhaps for further information about the story, or to search for related reports etc.

As can be seen from the News Unlimited site the news page it is organised it into a series of sections. Some of these include:

The Front Page: The latest news is always on the home page, along with the most recently updated documentaries and top stories from the paper.

Breaking News: This section contains UK and international news, updated minute-by-minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At any time, the Breaking News page will show you the 10 most recent UK news stories, five stories from the US and five from elsewhere in the world.

The Paper: Each day's complete Guardian or Observer newspaper is available in this section. Read today's or yesterday's paper, last Sunday's Observer and the most recent editions of the weekly sections, including Online, Education and the Friday Review. Many stories are enhanced with links to related Guardian/Observer stories from the archives or relevant internet sites so you can further explore the news.

Documentaries: Hot topics in the news are explored in depth in this section, combining Guardian coverage with enhancements such as photo galleries, FAQ lists, timelines, quizzes and links to relevant internet sites.

World Report: This section provides in-depth foreign coverage. Collecting months' worth of Guardian and Observer reports on more than 20 nations throughout the world, World Reports provide wide-ranging perspectives on the countries they cover. They are updated regularly.

Using the Material
What is actually done with the news material to be found on the Web is bound solely by the imagination of the teacher and the class. What an asset! - an opportunity to use actual live news to follow a story across the world, to construct an instant news-sheet of that day's news, or to trace how a story has developed over a period of time. Certainly worth organising a 'news morning' for a class with this quality of material available, live, on screen!

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