Breaking News is Russel Tarr’s latest creation on ClassTools.net. Breaking News is a template for creating fake breaking news screens like those that you might see on CNN or BBC News. Russel sent me a Twitter message about Breaking News this morning and I quickly tried my hand at making a fake breaking news screen. Through the template you can add a news headline, a ticker, a location, and custom background image. After completing the template you can download your news screen as an image or host it online at Imgur.

I initially tried the template in Chrome where it ran a little slow when I uploaded an image. I had a better experience with the template in Firefox.

Applications for Education
Russel Tarr has a bunch of examples of Breaking News screens created about historical events like the assassination of President Lincoln. You could also have students create Breaking News screens about major turning points in the plots of their favorite fiction works.