McHENRY, Ill., March 1, 2017 – Follett today announced it is the exclusive United States distributor of The Day USA, an online daily news service providing high-interest articles for K-12 schools, along with teacher resources to support information literacy. The Day USA may be a new product to the U.S., but it has been a successful product since 2011 in the United Kingdom.
"As arguments over fake news, propaganda and spin dominate the public sphere, we are thrilled to be helping students, with our partner Follett, to understand current affairs," said Richard Addis, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Day USA. "Young people are our future. Everything we do is designed to help them seek a true understanding of the world, ask the right questions, debate the big issues and be armed with the confidence to play their part."
The Day USA will be available through Follett to U.S. schools, U.S. international schools,and Canadian schools. Addis said the structure and design of the American version is the same as the U.K.version, but with articles tailored for the U.S. and featuring separate editors. The Day USA is targeted for middle and high school students, while The Day USA Explorer version is geared for elementary school students.
Supporting both teachers and librarians, The Day USA and Explorer versions can be used for critical thinking, debate, writing, collaboration, and to help students determine the credibility of what they read online. Engaging and interactive articles, questions, homework and research activities can be printed, saved as PDFs, and made accessible via an LMS.
All the content can easily be accessed online, and supports multiple languages, grades and skill levels. As many as six new articles are published daily and updated as necessary, more than 2,000 archived articles are available continuously, and pertinent links are provided to educate about other topical current affairs. Moreover, teachers can pair the news articles with fiction being used in the classroom for higher order thinking skills.
Petaluma (Calif.) High School's Connie Williams has been a pilot user of The Day USA and the teacher librarian suggests there is no better way to encourage critical thinking than using the news.
"The Day USA brings news, government, science, economics, and culture into your classroom – an excellent venue to discuss current events and placing them in the context of your classroom studies whether it's history, science, literature, geography or sports," Williams said. "It all fits seamlessly. The Day USA offers the details of an event, person or theme in a way that allows students to examine with a critical eye."
According to Nader Qaimari, President of Follett School Solutions, The Day USA succeeds on its promise of inspiring curiosity, sparking dialogue and debate, and helping students with media literacy by evaluating information critically and competently, all the while reporting with truth, balance and reason.
"This is a time-tested, proven online news service that brings the news of the world to the classroom as it's unfolding," Qaimari said. "Unlike some of its competitors, The Day USA offers a pro-con structure to its articles as well as a social platform that genuinely engages students as it allows them to cast votes on questions posed. Plus, it continues to expand the library into the classroom, something at Follett to which we are wholly committed."
For Follett customers, The Day USA can be integrated with its market-leading Destiny product and is searchable by Destiny's convenient OneSearch option.
For more information about The Day USA, visit http://thedayusa.com/info/find-out-more. For more information about Follett, visit FollettLearning.com, and to order a free trial of The Day USA, visit www.follettlearning.com/books-materials/learn/digital-content/educational-databases.
About Follett's PreK-12 Business
Follett is the largest provider of educational materials and technology solutions to PreK-12 libraries, classrooms, learning centers and school districts in the United States, and a major supplier to educational institutions worldwide. Follett distributes books, reference materials, digital resources, ebooks and audiovisual materials, as well as pre-owned textbooks. Follett also is one of the leading providers of integrated educational technology for the management of physical and digital assets, the tracking, storing and analyzing of academic data, and digital learning environment tools for the classroom focusing on student achievement.
About Follett Corporation
For more than 140 years, Follett has been a trusted partner to preK-12 schools, colleges and campus stores, taking care of the critical details that make it easier for schools to run, teachers to teach, students to learn and fans to celebrate. A leading provider of education technology, services and physical and digital content, Follett currently works with 70,000 schools and operates more than 1,250 local campus stores and 1,600 virtual stores. With the 2016 acquisition of Baker & Taylor, LLC, Follett's reach also extends into the public library and global retail markets. Today Follett Corporation is the world's largest single source of books, entertainment products, digital content and multi-media for libraries, schools and retailers. Follett is a $3.6 billion privately held company headquartered in Westchester, Illinois.