Imagine a world where every young person connects across borders to solve global problems.
News Decoder is an innovative educational resource for schools committed to teaching global citizenship. Through annual school memberships, students and faculty at our partner schools have exclusive access to an array of interactive journalism and media literacy education services that help them expand their horizons.
Our academic partners leverage News Decoder’s editorial team and exclusive online educational resources to help students develop core global citizenship competencies.
Any school can be a News Decoder member. We are particularly well-placed to partner with schools that have:
- an international outlook or commitment to global citizenship
- global studies or experiential education programs;
- an IB Diploma Programme with a Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) requirement
- journalism or media classes, clubs or programs
- an openness to innovative educational methods.
Our global community spans 14 countries across continents. By joining our school network, your students will have the opportunity to engage and collaborate virtually with their peers around the world.
Learn about:
Our services
Multimedia Content Production
Students identify and pitch their story ideas, conduct reporting and create publishable multimedia content for a variety of contexts: as a classroom assignment; for their cross-border webinar; to submit to our twice-yearly Storytelling Contest; or to fulfill the Creativity, Activity, Service component of the IB Programme.
Cross-School Collaboration
Member schools are paired across regions to research and report on a shared theme in webinars and multimedia production.
Student teams identify topics, conduct research and reporting, present their findings and co-produce multimedia packages that showcase their work.
Mentoring
News Decoder’s editorial team provides one-on-one mentoring for students participating in our Pitch, Report, Draft, Revise process.
We offer personalized feedback that challenges students to consider diverse perspectives, check their biases, consult experts and identify solutions.
Workshops
In-person or virtual workshops are available to all of our partner schools, led by a correspondent or member of News Decoder’s editorial team.
Workshop topics include pitching, reporting, interviewing, writing, media literacy and podcast creation.
E-Learning Courses
Students have exclusive access to our E-Learning library, which includes 30-minute courses developed by professional journalists on reporting, drafting, media literacy and podcast creation.
Podcast Series
Students can participate in the News Decoder podcast, co-produced with media partner Podium.me and published on SoundCloud, Spotify and Apple.
Membership levels
News Decoder offers several membership options to best suit the needs of our schools, ranging from a student-led engagement model to one-week standalone programming to campus-wide curriculum embedding.
Curious how this might look in your school? Read case studies for each membership level.
Club
News Decoder Clubs are independent student-led engagements with ND learning resources and events. Club members are subscribed to the News Decoder platform and receive access to our publishing resources, E-Learning courses, webinar archive and self-guided webinar toolkit.
Club members are eligible to submit stories to our twice-yearly storytelling contest and are featured on our website. Requires a faculty sponsor to facilitate enrollment process.
Club Case Study
Ms. Medhi is the faculty advisor for the News Decoder Club at her school. Every month, she allows students to use her classroom for News Decoder meetings. Apart from that, ND Student Ambassadors run the Club independently. Each month, Club members engage in News Decoder’s suggested activities, which are sent via monthly email newsletters. In December, students read a News Decoder article on COP (a UN climate summit) and debated whether or not high-level climate talks are effective. In January, the suggested activity was to complete News Decoder’s E-Learning course on interviewing and to apply that learning to interviewing someone on campus for a story on nutrition in school lunches.
Throughout the year, Club members use the News Decoder platform independently to pitch stories to our editors, take E-Learning courses and produce a global webinar.
Camp
News Decoder Camps are accelerated skill-building experiences where students learn how to apply journalism techniques to identify and tell important stories happening around them. A kick-off workshop with a correspondent will show students what it is like to be a foreign correspondent. Then they will work with ND editors to try their hand at finding and reporting a story in their area for a global audience. Students’ stories are eligible for News Decoder storytelling contests. This engagement is particularly well-suited for schools that host summer programming.
Camp Case Study
Mr. Lafayette is the News Decoder faculty advisor at his school. This June, he hosted a one-week summer camp on podcasting and brought News Decoder in as experts to help facilitate the workshop. During the five-day camp, News Decoder staff members Zoomed in for one hour each day and set students on tasks to be completed by the following day, under Mr. Lafayette’s supervision. Students also worked asynchronously with our editors one-on-one via email.
The week progressed as follows:
- Day 1: Students pitched a story to News Decoder. ND editors got back to students via email by Day 2.
- Day 2: Students found a source to interview for their story and compiled questions they wanted to ask. Students conducted their interviews.
- Day 3: Students storyboarded and scripted a short podcast (1 minute) based on the information collected in research and interviewing.
- Day 4: Students put their audio recordings together using a podcast creation platform online.
- Day 5: Podcast listening party!
Classroom
At the Classroom level, News Decoder programming complements existing classroom instruction with a one-week, accelerated skill-building experience. This membership includes a live kick-off workshop with ND editors and a seasoned correspondent. Students then work asynchronously with our editors to find and report a story, with the goal of having a first draft by the end of the week. After the week’s end, students are encouraged to continue working with News Decoder to see their work through to publication. Content created can be entered into our student storytelling contests.
Classroom Case Study
Mr. Li is the News Decoder faculty advisor at his school. In his English class, he embedded a one-week “media week” into his yearly curriculum. During this week, students took on the persona of a foreign correspondent and reported on an issue of global and local relevance. Some students chose to report on waste management in their city, while others tackled melting snow caps in their region. Students worked with News Decoder editors to pitch stories, interview experts and draft a story. Some students decided to produce a written story, while others turned their research into a podcast published on News Decoder’s global news site.
In advance of the designated “media week”, students were registered on the News Decoder site and submitted first pitches to the News Decoder team. The week itself progressed as follows:
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- Day 1: One hour kick-off Zoom with News Decoder editors and a virtual Q&A with a seasoned foreign correspondent. News Decoder editors provided feedback on student pitches via email.
- Day 2: Students completed our E-Learning courses on reporting/interviewing and drafting. Students began drafting their story.
- Day 3: Students submitted a first draft of their story to the News Decoder team.
- Day 4: Students received additional feedback from News Decoder and worked towards a second draft of their story.
- Day 5: News Decoder hosted a live Zoom session to reflect on the week’s learning. Students who wanted to see their story through to publication continued to work with News Decoder editors asynchronously via email.
All-Campus
At the All-Campus level, News Decoder is embedded directly into educators’ yearlong curriculum, with all students on campus granted access to our resources.
This highly-customizable membership level includes a pairing with a partner school in another region of the world, a cross-border webinar experience and personalized one-on-one mentoring by News Decoder editors.
All-Campus Case Study
Ms. Garcia is the News Decoder faculty advisor at her school. In her AP Environmental Science class this year, students pitched stories on local conservation efforts to News Decoder as part of a class assignment. Her colleague, Mr. Adebayo, teaches English literature at the same school. Through News Decoder, they organized a publicly-broadcast webinar on climate justice with students from both of their classes. News Decoder helped students research and report for the webinar, brought in experts to talk about the subject and moderated the discussion on the day of. All students at this school were registered on the New Decoder site and were eligible to pitch stories, take E-Learning courses and enter our twice-yearly storytelling contests.
School Trip Workshops
For your next school trip, News Decoder will prepare your students to think like a foreign correspondent and synthesize their experience into a publishable story. In pre-departure and post-travel workshops, students learn how to identify a unique story, how to conduct interviews and local research and put it all together in a story that could be published on our global news site. Includes two one-hour workshops with ND editors and support through the story publication process.
School Trip Case Study
Ms. Mathur coordinates one-week trips abroad for her high school. Last spring, a group of 20 students traveled to Sicily for a cultural and language immersion trip. As the academic component of the trip, students pitched stories about their travels to News Decoder.
Before departure, News Decoder hosted a virtual workshop for students covering how to identify unique stories abroad and best practices for interviewing locals.
Immediately after returning from their travels, students pitched stories to News Decoder via our online portal. News Decoder then hosted a post-travel workshop covering how to transform pitches into publishable pieces with local-global relevance. Ultimately, some students decided to produce written articles, while others used other media forms: podcasts, photo essays, video essays, etc. Story topics from this trip included the history of the mafia and the cultural significance of gelato-making in Italy.
What our partners are saying
I never believed that my voice would make such an impact, but News Decoder has made this a reality.
Working with News Decoder has been eye-opening. It helped me understand there are other ways to look at issues beyond the simple binary of right and wrong. I deeply appreciate having had the opportunity to learn from them.
Working with News Decoder has taught me to write concisely for a global audience when reporting on complex topics. Tackling global issues from the perspective of a journalist has also give me additional insight into international affairs that complements my studies.
invaluable resource.
The whole point of News Decoder is to make [writing and news] really accessible and to ask the big questions. Why does something matter? Why does a topic matter? That’s something that I’ve kept over all these years.
I was so attracted to [working with] News Decoder, because the students are experiencing first-hand these steps in the reporting process, rather than just reading about being a journalist. They are naturally asked to be curious about something they’re interested in, and follow that line of inquiry.
My main takeaway was that topics deserve discourse from different voices. It’s important for global perspectives to enter our school and educational spheres. What struck me was, whether we were talking about nationalism or climate change, students from different schools talked about similar concepts, but approached the discussion from a very local, student perspective.
It’s rare to be able to find an outlet that will find value in the words of a 17-year-old student, but News Decoder is unique in that it seeks out perspectives of the youth on contentious issues. When I first received news of the opportunity, I leapt at it.
Become a member
Membership fees
Schools pay a fee that corresponds to the membership level that best suits their needs.
News Decoder is committed to extending the diversity of our academic network by partnering with public and private schools in all parts of the world. We recognize that our fees may stretch the means of some schools and offer financial aid options.
Start your school partnership
Tell us about your school, students and educational goals in the form below. A News Decoder team member will respond to set up a call about how we might work together.