By Joannis Kaliampos

As Amer­i­can stud­ies and for­eign lan­guage edu­ca­tion schol­ars, we some­times tend to over­look the vast demand for teach­able online resources out­side of acad­e­mia. My work in the transat­lantic blend­ed-learn­ing edu­ca­tion ini­tia­tive Teach About U.S. has helped me to estab­lish long-stand­ing rela­tion­ships with high school teach­ers and edu­ca­tors in Ger­many and the Unit­ed States. Amid the cur­rent glob­al health cri­sis, these teach­ers are step­ping up to sup­port their stu­dents and find nov­el ways to engage them in edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties while they strug­gle with ‘the new nor­mal’ dur­ing the pandemic.

As schools have been shut down for weeks, many of these col­leagues have reached out to us, seek­ing advice on edu­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy and its imple­men­ta­tion. All too often, they are pushed to cre­ate makeshift solu­tions as their school servers are over­whelmed with the sud­den spike in user demand. Many col­leagues have shared their expe­ri­ence of set­ting up pri­vate chat and social media groups to share assign­ments and edu­ca­tion­al resources, unsure whether this may vio­late school and state rules.

With mis­in­for­ma­tion about the coro­n­avirus on the rise, a his­toric pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cam­paign in the Unit­ed States, and the press under attack from dif­fer­ent sides, I would like to share some of my favorite stu­dent-friend­ly news media as well as resources on media lit­er­a­cy for pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school students.

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