Video Content

Newsela features a library of over 1,000+ interactive videos in addition to our article content. These videos are available to licensed students and teachers of Newsela ELA, Newsela Social Studies, and Newsela Science.


Teachers and students can:

  • Save videos using the bookmark feature

  • Play videos, with closed-captions and/or audio descriptions

  • Read an auto-scroll transcript

  • Complete an embedded 4 question comprehension quiz

  • Assign videos

  • Add a video to an assignment alongside text and other videos

  • Share the video via Share button to Google Classroom, Remind, email, facebook, or Twitter.

Additionally, videos are curated within the lessons of five social studies course collections (premium for Newsela Social Studies): United States History: Pre-Contact to Modern Times, Civics and Engaged Citizenship, Economics and Financial Literacy, World Geography, and Ancient Civilizations.

Accessing Videos

From the homepage

  1. Go to newsela.com and sign in.

  2. Click 'Content Library' at the top of the screen and select 'Video' from the dropdown menu.

  3. Click a video title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video.

    Background section

From the Newsela subject-specific browse page (ELA / Social Studies / Science)

  1. Go to newsela.com and sign in

  2. Click the specific subject title from the menu at the top of the page

  3. Locate and click on the Videos item in the menu at the left hand side, or scroll down to the video row

  4. Click a video title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video. If the card is displaying a video set, click on the title or image to display the full list of videos included in the set, then proceed to click on the video title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video

    Background section

From Search

  1. Go to newsela.com and sign in.

  2. Click the search bar at the top of the page.

  3. Enter a keyword or term to describe the topic you're looking for, or enter 'Video' into the search bar to see all of the videos on Newsela.

  4. In the search results page, click the “Video” tab at the top to filter the results down to videos only.

  5. Videos that match your search term will display.

    Background section

All interactive videos on Newsela include

  1. A transcript

  2. Closed captions

  3. Audio descriptions (when applicable)

  4. A 4 question comprehension quiz

Background section

Transcript accessibility features

  1. Autoscroll may be enabled or disabled by selecting the “Autoscroll” checkbox.

  2. Each line of the transcript is a button that when selected will move video playback to that point of the video.

  3. Transcript text size adjustments can be made by selecting the “+” and “-”  increase and decrease text size buttons under “Text Size”. 

  4. Users can choose between light and dark transcript modes by selecting the light and dark circle icon button under “Mode”.


Closed captions and audio descriptions accessibility features

  1. To enable or disable captions and/or audio descriptions, select the three dot icon button in the lower right corner of the video controls to open the options. This button is labeled “Controls for Audio Descriptions and Captions” for screen readers.

  2. Select “On” or “Off” under “Captions” and “Audio Descriptions”.

  3. Once your selections are complete, either click away from the options or select the three dot icon button again to close the controls for audio descriptions and captions. 

 

4 question comprehension quiz accessibility features

  1. The Activities panel contains four question comprehension quizzes. 

  2. Each quiz is available on-demand in the Activities panel, or via quiz buttons in the video playback progress bar. 

  3. The quizzes are also generated automatically when the quiz buttons are reached during video playback; this will cause the video to pause to allow users to navigate to the quiz.