TweenTribune for the classroom – Free!

Engage, inform, and educate your students with TweenTribune. TweenTribune lets students intecract with the news, while fulfilling requirements for language arts, computer skills, and other classes. Kids love it – and so do their teachers. Find out what they’re saying here.

Here’s how TweenTribune works. Each weekday, we scour the Web for age-appropriate news stories that will interest tweens (generally defined as kids aged 8 to 14), and invite them to comment. All comments are moderated before publishing, so it’s Web-safe. (Find out more about TweenTribune’s safety features, below.)

But it gets better.

Customize TweenTribune for your classroom. Register your classroom with TweenTribune using the form at the right. Then ask your students to sign up.  (They’ll need to create a username and password, then select your classroom.) Once your class starts using TweenTribune, the site will automatically generate custom pages showing:

• The stories your class has commented upon
  
• Individual comments by each student, on his or her own page
  
• All comments by your students, in one report that can be sorted by students’ names, comments, or dates
• And don't worry – you can moderate, edit, or delete your students’ comments before they’re published.

You can access all these features using a groups of links that appear on the right side of every page at TweenTribune. These links are labeled with a headline that reads "For teachers." If you can't find the links, click here.

Click. You’ve just printed individual reports for every student in your class. Click the Print reports link, and TweenTribune will print out individual reports for each of your students, showing the comments he or she has made on various stories. And each report contains space for you to critique the writing, analysis, or critical thinking reflected in your students’ comments. To download a sample report, click here.

Then visit the Faculty Lounge, where you can share ideas and lesson plans from teachers across the country and around the world. After all, the Internet is global.

Now what? That’s up to you. The stories at TweenTribune can be relevant to almost any school subject – from social studies, to language arts, to science, to art. One German teacher asked her students to comment on the stories in German. And an art teacher in Virginia Beach developed this lesson plan you can download.

To see a Top 10 List of Lesson Plans, click here.

We’d love to hear how you use TweenTribune in your classroom. Send us an email.

Stay safe. TweenTribune is in full compliance with COPPA - the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – as outlined by the Federal Trade Commission. This means that:

• Students may not use their last names.
  
• Students may not use their email address anywhere on the site.
  
• TweenTribune does not gather or store student email addresses.
  
• Teachers can moderate students' comments before they’re published.
  
• TweenTribune only uses news stories from reputable news organizations, such as the Associated Press, AOL, CNN and local newspapers and TV stations.
  
• Teacher's identities are independently verified before they are granted administrative privileges.

Here's how you can join and use TweenTribune.

• Fill in the form on this page, at right. We will notify you via email with your account information.
• Ask your students to create accounts at TweenTribune, using the "Sign up" link at the top of the homepage, so they can post comments at TweenTribune. And don’t worry – if they forget their passwords, the site will help them choose another one when they click the "Forgot your password?" link.
• Give your class an assignment. Here’s a great sample you can download. It offered students three options for posting meaningful comments.
• Log on to TweenTribune. Links will appear on the right side of the page that allow you to administer the site for your class.
• Click the "Comments awaiting approval" link on the right side of the page to review, then publish, your class's comments.
• Click the "Print comments" link to print out your class's comments — one page for each of your students.

Here's how your students can join and use TweenTribune. After you receive your confirmation email, invite your students to join, by clicking the "Sign up" link at the top of the homepage. Each student will enter a unique user name (usually the student’s first name, or first name and last initial) and a password of his or her choice. Then he or she will select your classroom from a series of dropdown menus, beginning with your state. It’s that easy.

You may be tempted to register all your students yourself, but it makes more sense to let them do it themselves. Here's why:

• You can't sign up students if you are logged in. You must log out first.
• Your entire class can sign up themselves in less time than you can.
• If you create the student sign ups, then you'll need to manage their passwords. However, if they create their own usernames and passwords, they can retrieve their passwords without bothering you.