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
Go to newsela.com and sign in.
Click “Video” in the left-hand menu or scroll down to the video row.
Click a view title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video.
From the Newsela Social Studies browse page
Go to newsela.com and sign in
Click “Browse” in the top menu
Click “Social Studies” under the subheader, Subject Areas
Click “Video” in the left-hand menu or scroll down to the video row.
Click a view title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video.
From Search
Go to newsela.com and sign in.
Click the search bar in the main menu at the top of the page.
Enter a term, or click “search” to see all of the videos on Newsela.
Click the “Video” tab.
Videos that match your search term will display.
Video Accessibility
All interactive videos on Newsela include
A transcript
Closed captions
Audio descriptions (when applicable)
A 4 question comprehension quiz
Transcript accessibility features
Autoscroll may be enabled or disabled by selecting the “Autoscroll” checkbox.
Each line of the transcript is a button that when selected will move video playback to that point of the video.
Transcript text size adjustments can be made by selecting the “+” and “-” increase and decrease text size buttons under “Text Size”.
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
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.
Select “On” or “Off” under “Captions” and “Audio Descriptions”.
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
The Activities panel contains four question comprehension quizzes.
Each quiz is available on-demand in the Activities panel, or via quiz buttons in the video playback progress bar.
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.