Drawing from my desktop Geoff Riley, (Eton College) considers the resources that he draws regularly to the screen of his desktop during a normal week of economics teaching. One of the joys as well as challenges of teaching economics as the Undercover Economist (www.timharford.com) is that our subject is forever changing. There is an unyielding regularly finds its way into my folder; Martin Wolf runs torrent of comment, research, ideas, information and a weekly commentary and online discussion argument available through a gateway of media channels. (http://blogs.ft.com/wolfforum/); whilst Luke Johnson Keeping abreast of these fresh nuggets of content is part who recently bought out the UK branches of Borders, and parcel of the task facing the passionate teaching offers regular comment on entrepreneurship. economist! And if we can translate that passion to our And the companies and markets section of the paper students, we reap the dividend when they return to us rarely disappoints, especially if one is on the lookout for with interesting articles and super examples to enrich examples of volatility in commodity markets and a great the classroom discussion and debate. many real world examples to use when teaching business economics. In this piece I have delved into my desktop folders and considered which avenues I roam in building content for The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) and the Independent routine teaching. Once in a while this exercise can be quite (www.independent.co.uk) continue to provide an cathartic as rarely used web-links are cast into oblivion excellent flow of economic analysis and special reports. with ruthless use of the delete button! What I have opted I try to catch Stephen King’s commentary on a Monday and to describe below are the web sources and other printed Hamish McRae’s analysis throughout the week. The Guardian resources that I find most useful on a day-to-day basis. perhaps had the edge in terms of an online archive and a stronger attachment to commentary in blog format. The News flow Daily Telegraph business section is consistently good My first port of call in the morning is the Financial Times. (www.telegraph.co.uk/money/) with Tom Stevenson (www.ft.com). The paper recently hiked their price to leading much of the writing and Liam Halligan and Roger £1.30 for the weekday edition and £1.80 for the weekend Bootle also providing some thought-provoking economics version, but in my opinion it remains money well spent. in their regular features. Lionel Barber and his editorial team are enjoying a rich vein of form at the moment. Tim Harford’s weekly piece latte 28 Surfing the Blogosphere BBC business journalists: The blogosphere now offers an enormous range of www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/ economic arguments and ideas. To reduce the amount The BBC’s Business Editor writes frequently on issues of time spent online, it is fairly straightforward to add RSS in the news as does Evan Davis feeds direct to your favourites folder or departmental virtual www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/evandavis/ learning environment. On a regular basis I have a look at I also make a point each week of accessing In Business the following: (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusiness/ inbusiness.shtml) and Global Business – the Marginal Revolution: www.marginalrevolution.com – Tyler Cowen’s blog in programmes written and presented by Peter Day. which he focuses on the small ways in which we can use economic ideas to make life a little better! Getting the news sent to you! New Economist: In many cases it is possible for you to be sent email alerts www.neweconomistblogs.com – This is a blog from when new research documents are published. Most of the a macroeconomist working in the City of London, major website now provides RSS newsfeeds for users, for often excellent for picking up some of the latest example the distribution of information from the Office of research pieces that find their way onto the desks of National Statistics available using this link: city economists. www.statistics.gov.uk/includes/ nsheadlines.xml Economics UK: and regular macroeconomic analysis from the economics www.economicsuk.com – The blog from David Smith, team at the Royal Bank of Scotland economics editor of the Sunday Times. I rarely buy the Sunday Times these days, but this site allows www.rbs.com/global_options.asp?id=GLOBAL/RSS/FEEDS access to his articles for the newspaper and other publications. Social Science Blog: www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/blog/ – This is excellent for keeping abreast of newly published government reports and research from non- governmental organisations. Bryn’s AS Blog: http://brynsaseconomicsblog.blogspot.com/ – I have a folder in my outlook express into which flow A terrific example of a teacher finding stories virtually every day in the news, drawing mainly from the BBC daily Google news alerts on topics such as the “UK site, and linking to the different units of the AS course economy”, “globalisation” and “European Union together with some questions for students to consider. economy” You can customise the new alerts by Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum: visiting www.google.co.uk/alerts. The BBC news site www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/index.html – can also be utilised to forward a daily digest of I like to stay in touch with daily city comment, and business and economics news – the link is this free to access site provides a truly global newsvote.bbc.co.uk/email/news. Services such as perspective. www.newsalerts.com/business.html are also useful. Undercover Economist Blog: As the information comes in, one option is to use the http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/ – Tim Hartford has Rules option in an Outlook Express browser to direct started a new daily blog available through the the inflow into the folder of your choice. Financial Times website Geoff Riley and Tom White (City of Norwich Girls School) write Economics in the News, the most popular daily Economics Blog for teachers and students. Grab a free RSS feed of the Economics blog at http://feeds.feedburner.com/economics–news 29 latte.