The value of video.

• Author: Zack, Ian
• Position: Upfront: Teacher's Guide

Dear Teachers,

Happy New Year! We hope that 2015 brings great things for you and your students. We're excited to offer what we think is an excellent start a compelling issue chock-full of national and international news, with engaging lessons and skills pages and plenty of multimedia extras, including six videos (see list at left) and an online guide to the Civil War.

Speaking of multimedia, we want to take a moment to remind you of the important role that Upfront's videos and other digital offerings can play in your classroom. It wasn't all that long ago that videos were time fillers; you might have popped one in on a half day or set it aside for a sub to use. But thanks in large part to the Common Core and other rigorous academic standards, that's no longer the case. Like print texts, quality multimedia offerings are now seen as essential to learning.

Today, students must "analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums" (CCSSELA-RI.9-10.7) and "integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media...