Student Blogging: Newsjack tutorial

This is the task I gave my students so that they could practice using vocabulary of several units we had covered. They had to produce one news item and several headlines based on college events. The task also encompassed a short tutorial to the site http://newsjack.in/.     

TASK FOR THE BLOG

This time you have a chance to feel like a journalist of one of the world's leading newspapers. Follow these steps to accomplish your task:

1) Go to site http://newsjack.in/

2) Enter the URL of the newspaper. You may want to choose out of these: http://www.nytimes.com/, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Press "Remix"

3) Now let the magic begin! You can edit any part of the newspaper by clicking it. You can even change pictures! Your task is to fill the front page with the news from our university using at least 20 words from the units mentioned in section 3. Change headlines and content of the news reports, articles and other entries. The main part of the task is to write one report based on a recent event (up to 150 words). TIP: Have your report typed in Word before pasting it onto the Newsjack site.

4) After you have made the changes and typed/pasted your report, press "Share Your Remix". You will see a link to your remix, which you have to copy and paste in your blog.

5) As you can see there are quite many headlines and reports on the front page. You don't have to change everything, of course (however, you can do it if you wish). Make sure you have ONE extended report (up to 150 words) and change the content on the part of the newspaper that is available on your screen without scrolling down, i.e. this much:

Here are some tips:

How to replace the text:

1. Click on the text you want to replace.

2. Delete existing information.

3. Type or paste the text you want to add.

4. Save Changes.

5. Enjoy the result!

How to replace pictures

1. Click on the picture you want to replace.

2. Delete the URL of the picture.

3. Paste the URL of the picture you want to add.

4. Save the changes

5. Enjoy the result!

GOOD LUCK!

Some examples of my students' work:
Alla

Christina