HBO and its “A March of Time” video clips

HBO has put about 50 newsreel clips up on its site and made them available to registered users. The sign-up is free.

What you get is full-length video clips of Time Inc’s “The March of Time.” You’ll have to pick and choose but there’s some pretty interested stuff here. Most of your use will probably come by using the video clips to give a sense of time and place. Still . . . a great way to suck kids into the moment!

From 1935 to 1967, Time Inc’s newsreel series, “The March of Time” chronicled the events of our lives. The March of Time separated itself from its competitors using its trademark “pictorial journalism,” mixing highly-produced, long-form, documentary-style stories with dramatic re-enactments. These award-winning motion pictures recorded global events and brought them to big screens around the world and then later, television.

The videos play within your browser in Quicktime format. Clicking the “Show all clips” button that appears once you select a full-length video gives you many more shorter clips.

ProCon – Blue AND Red

Wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere online that simply presented facts without all the nutty opinions? A place that isn’t Democrat or Republican or Fox News or MSNBC or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal or whatever blog is saying that Obama is the anti-Christ?

If you’re looking for something like that . . . well . . . okay, I got nothing. There is no site or paper or news outlet that is completely without bias. But there some that come pretty darn close.

ProCon is one of those places.

They are?

. . . an independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. We provide pros and cons on diverse controversial topics with facts and quotations from thousands of experts. Our sites are 100% free and contain no advertising.

Their mission?

“Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan primarily pro-con format.”

They start with 20 different topics ranging from immigration to Iraq to euthanasia. You can then dig down into an individual topic to find sub-topics and finally to specific questions. And for each major topic, you get a “1-Minute Overview,” the “Top 10 Pros and Cons” and a “Did You Know?” section.

And while we know facts by themselves seem to carry less weight in today’s world than people who spend their time yelling at each other on cable, it’s always nice to have a resource that simply lays out the basics.

Pretty handy site if you’re leading a student conversation and need some background or if your kids need a place to gather some basic data for research.

And it comes without all the yelling.

Newswer

There are lots of news aggregators out there. Yahoo, Google, obviously lots of news outlets like the NY Times and CBS. But few are like Newser.

Face it: there’s too much news. At Newser, we choose the most important stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs. And we do it 24/7—you can come back morning, noon, night (and in between) for something new that matters.

It’s got a wide variety of sources and sections and, like most aggregators, lets you personalize the site to fit your interests.

It does a nice job of incorporating images as the “news holder.” As a visual learner, I really like it. I’m guessing a lot of your kids will too.