Newspapers: A Comparative Study Lower Secondary English Unit Studies of Asia Learning Emphases Developing concepts of Asia Contemporary issues Specific Indonesia focus: Acquire knowledge about Indonesian newspapers. Develop an understanding of what is newsworthy in Indonesia, how it is reported and compare items with Australian examples. Students develop the skills necessary to effectively search for information on the Internet, including the use of Boolean phrases, to locate appropriate websites for newspapers in Australia and Indonesia. Indonesian Newspaper Websites Getting Started Search Engines Comparative Study Teaching and Learning Activities Note: The inclusion of English language versions of major Indonesian newspapers and magazines is only a recent addition to media outlets in Indonesia. Such papers serve an increasing international readership as news hits the headlines each day. They present students with contemporary issues - local and international - from an Indonesian point of view. Indonesian Newspaper Websites This activity provides students with an opportunity to search for the English versions of Indonesian newspapers now published on the Internet. As it involves using search engines, we have not provided any websites for students. However, if students are having difficulty finding sites, the following ones are most useful: The Jakarta Post http://www.thejakartapost.com/ Tempo Interactive http://www.tempointeractive.com/ News archive also available. Suratkabar.com http://www.suratkabar.com Indoexchange.com News http://www.indoexchange.com/indoexchange-clipping/ Includes a variety of news clippings - headlines, business and home news. Getting Started Discuss what contributes to an effective newspaper front page, eg an eye-catching masthead, a large front-page picture, one major headline and no more than three minor headlines on the front page. Ask students if they think a newspaper would look the same online. What changes would they expect and why? Tell students there are several parts to this activity: how to use search engines, using search engines to find English versions of three Indonesian newspapers and three Australian newspapers (one local and two national), and comparing these newspapers. Print out the Newspaper Study Activity Sheet. Students complete this over five days. Search Engines Explain to students that search engines are vehicles that search for Internet addresses using key words. All search engines have Internet addresses and each one can be found using the following convention: http://www.[name of search engine].com Some search engines are better suited for different topics and students can experiment with the more widely known search engines, such as: Google AlltheWeb Dogpile WebCrawler MetaCrawler Altavista Yahoo Hotbot Excite Lycos Infoseek Brainstorm suitable key words to use in the Boolean search, eg, 'Australia AND newspaper' (list the country, state, city first), 'Australia AND current affairs AND newspaper'. Model this approach with students by having them search for Australian website addresses. Divide the class into nine groups and give each group a different search engine with which to begin looking for newspaper sites. Each search-engine group reports to the class on the usefulness of their particular search engine in locating newspaper addresses. The class might then decide to use some search engines and not others, based on the class findings. Display in class the most successful Boolean phrases and the most appropriate search engine addresses. Comparative Study Students complete the comparative study of Indonesian and Australian newspapers using the Newspaper Study Activity Sheet and discuss their findings in class.   Note: The student activity sheets are available in PDF format and require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in to view and print them out. The Acrobat Reader plug-in can be downloaded from the Adobe website.   Classroom Resources | Curriculum Guides | Resources | Go Indonesia! | Home | Access Asia Lesson Plans  Commonwealth of Australia and Curriculum Corporation