Evaluation of Techquest

The project ended up going pretty well and the students learned many things about publishing to the website. Currently, the website is not actually being published and won't be until next year. Students have been taking the articles they have used in old issues of the newspaper and have been putting them into the website. They also have experimented with some of the other functions including the flickr photo album, the other photo album provided by Weebly, blogging, and video. They picked up on the design pretty quickly because it is so limited, but they are disappointed they are not going to be given more freedom in their design. That is one thing many of the students love about newspaper- that they are able to express themselves artistically in both the written word and in design. Because the students will still publish some special issues, I will most likely allow them to get extra creative with their layouts so that they feel excited about their designs. Hopefully this will meet my students' needs.

One thing I would have done differently if I did this again was already mentioned in the above paragraphs. I would get my students extremely excited about publishing the newspaper online by showing them examples of other online newspapers. This would motivate them to take ownership of the site and to get excited to publish to the site too. I also would raise some money to purchase an account from a site that would provide us with more creativity when it comes to design. I probably would choose one that costs around $400 to start up and $200 to maintain every year, because they are specially designed for newspapers, offer the students more opportunities and functions, will probably upload images and videos more quickly, are more appealing to the eye, and are much more professional. My students and I will most likely have a paper drive at the beginning and at the end of next year so that we can raise money to provide this site the following year. In addition, many of the students were excited that they will be able to publish videos to the site next year. We don't currently have a video camera, but a colleague of mine recently told me of the educators' discount on the flip cameras that hook up directly to the computer. I plan to purchase two of these to begin the videographing, and then hopefully advance from there. The Flip video cameras can only hold about an hours worth of footage, and I'm not sure how much editing can be done, but I do know that they hook up directly to a computer with the usb drive attached to the camera. The students and I can learn the basics of videography and then move on to more advanced things from there.

One of the most important lessons I learned is to be patient with weebly and to publish, publish, publish all of the time so as not to lose any work. This is also something I found very important to tell students too, since they will be the ones actually using weebly to post to the website next year. One thing I was worried about with having to publish the work all of the time was that my administrators wouldn't have prior review of the articles, which they currently have with the print we publish now. Luckily, there is a function on weebly that allows you to password protect the site prior to accessing the page. Right now, the site is password protected so that no one can access it besides the students who know the password. A few other things we learned while publishing to the site with the paid access are the following:

• The flickr album uploads much faster than photos that are posted to the photo album application provided. With the limited amount of time we have in class, it is much more time efficient to use flickr. However, each person is only allowed a limited number of photos through flickr per month, and that quota fills up fast when you are posting flickr photo albums for several events throughout the month. In order to have more photos, one can purchase a larger account through flickr. I have not checked out pricing yet, but plan to do so next year when we are getting ready for the first issue.
• The YouTube videos work very quickly, but it does take some time to upload a home video that is not posted to YouTube to the site. If you are going to have both photos and videos posted to the site, it is probably good to have two or three different students in charge of different sections of the website to make more efficient use of class time. I plan to have an editor for every single page of the paper. We will see how this works when there are six different people accessing and editing the site! Hopefully it will work well and we won't have to adjust the system much!
• It also takes time to upload embedded documents. Often times there will be an "error" message that comes up. Most of the time we just needed to try again and the document would end up uploading, but sometimes it would take several tries to upload the same document. I have no idea why it works at times and doesn't work at others.
• There is limited space on your account. If you have multiple webpages under the same paid account, your storage space gets taken up quickly. If a person plans to use a website for a newspaper, it would be a great idea to have a paid account set up for JUST that web page and not for others. I had my students working on the website, which is in the same account as my personal web page. Thank goodness my students and I have a great rapport, but I might be nervous in some instances if students had access to my personal web page and could alter my image or my information.

Techquest project implementation

If the link to the podcast does not work through the title, please click here to find a copy of this on a website I am in the process of building.

Internet Research for Techquest Project

For my Techquest, I plan to implement an online newspaper into my classroom. I am preparing to incorporate some of it this year, but will really implement the majority of it next year when a group of both advanced and beginning students enter the class.

The Process of Researching

Researching for articles to support my decision to move the newspaper online was surprisingly difficult for me. I started by searching for “online newspapers”+”high school” and conducting other similar Boolean searches on Google. Needless to say, I did not get the results I was looking for, so I tried Google Scholar and the databases we have access to at the school. Again, the results I got were not those I was hoping for. The only valuable resources I found were newspapers that had already gone online. While these will be very beneficial in the construction of the site, I still wanted some research to support my decision to move online. The articles I did find on the databases and on Google Scholar were published in the 90s and were very outdated. Thankfully, Sue emailed me some links she found using the Internet Public Library. These links proved to be very beneficial.

Best Results of Research

I split my research goals in two:

1. Research to support that other high school newspapers are going online and it is beneficial to start the transition soon

2. Examples of high school newspapers that have already gone online to aid my students and I in designing the website

Research to support moving online

The first article I found to be amusing was actually found as a link to a lesson plan on highschooljournalism.org. This link brought me to the article “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources: Audience Segments in a Changing News Environment.” (http://people-press.org/report/444/news-media). This article revealed the results of a 2008 Pew study. Possibly the most interesting result in this article was that “Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially more people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%).” In this article, there is also a graph that readership of newspaper, radio, and tv news has steadily decreased while the readership of online news has steadily increased. In 2008, a larger percentage of people got their news online for three or more days a week than read a newspaper. I can imagine the number of people who read their news online will continue to increase as the technologically savvy youth of today get older.

Because of the increase in online readership, it is important that the high school newspapers go online. This will not only help to retain readership, but will also prepare for the future of online publications.

In addition, there were several articles that had information about the flood of high school newspapers that were going online, including “High School Journalism Going Online.” This article, published in 2009, stated that “In the past 12 to 18 months, the number of schools using ASNE's content-management system doubled to 3,000.” The biggest factors attributed to causing the change to publishing online were budget and the change in the industry as a whole. As stated earlier, this was a comment commonly found in several articles I encountered.

After having read these two articles and several others, I feel fully confident that the conversion is the appropriate thing to do as of now.

Research of examples of high school newspapers online already

While struggling in my research for quality articles, Sue pointed me in the direction of highschooljournalism.org. Once arriving at the page, I searched “online newspaper” on the site and instantly found article after article about other high schools converting to online newspapers for budget reasons as well as readership issues. Instead of listing numerous articles about individual newspapers going online, I will instead just include this link that you can click which lists all of the articles about high school newspapers going online.

I found a few examples of high school newspapers that have already gone online. Some of them were some I would like to model the Drifter after, while some were not well designed. Instead of pointing out those that I would consider examples of what not to do, I will highlight a couple that I really liked, which include Newton West High School’s Lion’s Roar , Grand Junction’s “Orange and Black,” and Carmel High School’s HiLite Online.

Some of the elements all of these papers had in common, which I would like to implement on the Drifter site, include:

Podcasts

Vodcasts

Blogs

Polls

Multiple pages that are easy to navigate

Access to Back Issues

The ability to create dominance in story postings

Easy to read/good graphic design

Calendar

In this research, I also found there were several services I could use to construct this website, with the best being School Newspapers Online. This site was too expensive though, so I am going to start out with the free/cheap Weebly and then hopefully progress from there.

As a side note, I also found some lesson plans for getting my students excited for publishing online, since some have reservations. I also found that many newspapers are producing both an online and print publication. Most only print a couple issues a year and are special newspapers for events such as spring break, prom, the senior issue, etc. This might be an effective way for me to transition next year into publishing online, since students will get experience publishing online but will still be able to have some of their work published in print.

Internet Research for Techquest

For my Techquest, I plan to implement an online newspaper into my classroom. I am preparing to incorporate some of it this year, but will really implement the majority of it next year when a group of both advanced and beginning students enter the class.

The Process of Researching

Researching for articles to support my decision to move the newspaper online was surprisingly difficult for me. I started by searching for “online newspapers”+”high school” and conducting other similar Boolean searches on Google. Needless to say, I did not get the results I was looking for, so I tried Google Scholar and the databases we have access to at the school. Again, the results I got were not those I was hoping for. The only valuable resources I found were newspapers that had already gone online. While these will be very beneficial in the construction of the site, I still wanted some research to support my decision to move online. The articles I did find on the databases and on Google Scholar were published in the 90s and were very outdated. Thankfully, Sue emailed me some links she found using the Internet Public Library. These links proved to be very beneficial.

Best Results of Research

I split my research goals in two:

1. Research to support that other high school newspapers are going online and it is beneficial to start the transition soon

2. Examples of high school newspapers that have already gone online to aid my students and I in designing the website

Research to support moving online

The first article I found to be amusing was actually found as a link to a lesson plan on highschooljournalism.org. This link brought me to the article “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources: Audience Segments in a Changing News Environment.” (http://people-press.org/report/444/news-media). This article revealed the results of a 2008 Pew study. Possibly the most interesting result in this article was that “Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially more people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%).” In this article, there is also a graph that readership of newspaper, radio, and tv news has steadily decreased while the readership of online news has steadily increased. In 2008, a larger percentage of people got their news online for three or more days a week than read a newspaper. I can imagine the number of people who read their news online will continue to increase as the technologically savvy youth of today get older.

Because of the increase in online readership, it is important that the high school newspapers go online. This will not only help to retain readership, but will also prepare for the future of online publications.

In addition, there were several articles that had information about the flood of high school newspapers that were going online, including “High School Journalism Going Online.” This article, published in 2009, stated that “In the past 12 to 18 months, the number of schools using ASNE's content-management system doubled to 3,000.” The biggest factors attributed to causing the change to publishing online were budget and the change in the industry as a whole. As stated earlier, this was a comment commonly found in several articles I encountered.

After having read these two articles and several others, I feel fully confident that the conversion is the appropriate thing to do as of now.

Research of examples of high school newspapers online already

While struggling in my research for quality articles, Sue pointed me in the direction of highschooljournalism.org. Once arriving at the page, I searched “online newspaper” on the site and instantly found article after article about other high schools converting to online newspapers for budget reasons as well as readership issues. Instead of listing numerous articles about individual newspapers going online, I will instead just include this link that you can click which lists all of the articles about high school newspapers going online.

I found a few examples of high school newspapers that have already gone online. Some of them were some I would like to model the Drifter after, while some were not well designed. Instead of pointing out those that I would consider examples of what not to do, I will highlight a couple that I really liked, which include Newton West High School’s Lion’s Roar , Grand Junction’s “Orange and Black,” and Carmel High School’s HiLite Online.

Some of the elements all of these papers had in common, which I would like to implement on the Drifter site, include:

Podcasts

Vodcasts

Blogs

Polls

Multiple pages that are easy to navigate

Access to Back Issues

The ability to create dominance in story postings

Easy to read/good graphic design

Calendar

In this research, I also found there were several services I could use to construct this website, with the best being School Newspapers Online. This site was too expensive though, so I am going to start out with the free/cheap Weebly and then hopefully progress from there.

As a side note, I also found some lesson plans for getting my students excited for publishing online, since some have reservations. I also found that many newspapers are producing both an online and print publication. Most only print a couple issues a year and are special newspapers for events such as spring break, prom, the senior issue, etc. This might be an effective way for me to transition next year into publishing online, since students will get experience publishing online but will still be able to have some of their work published in print.

In short, through this research, I have learned that I will be implementing the online newspaper in baby steps (this seemed to be the way most newspapers were converting). I also learned ways to get students excited about publishing online, and I learned about the main elements online high school newspapers are using so I can implement them in our school newspaper as well.

TechQuest Proposal

The educational need or opportunity:

For my project, I plan to incorporate an online newspaper. I will have taught the class for four years, and the publication has always been print. Because of the cost of printing, my principal has asked that I go online with the newspaper. Not only is this needed because of funding, but it is also essential to the journalism program if it is going to adequately prepare students to seek journalism as a career. Most newspapers are converting to sharing news online rather than in print. Print publications are becoming “dead” while online publications are becoming the norm. Most of my students who have gone on to pursue journalism are now publishing online and are learning a variety of things they must know for online publications in order to succeed in the profession once they earn their degrees. This emphasizes the importance of making sure students in high school are prepared when moving on to higher education and into the workforce. If they are to succeed, my students must be taught a variety of things including but not limited to:

· how to write for an online publication vs. a print publication

· how to create appropriate podcasts and vodcasts

· the appropriate ethical and legal issues associated with online publications

· how to post to an online publication

· methods of design online

· how to use a variety of mediums of technology

Use of Technology to meet the educational need and opportunity:

There are several services that are offered to teachers of publications. As far as funding goes, they vary in pricing. The sites that are designed specifically for online publications are usually really well designed, but cost about $400 to set up and $200 to maintain every year. This will be too expensive for our paper, so I am going to opt for a free website, Weebly. This service will allow me to first create a free site, with the option to pay about $58 a year to incorporate audio and video and to increase storage space. $58 will not be too expensive, and we can easily fundraise or sell ads in order to pay for the site. Because my principal asked that I convert to an online publication due to funding, it is important that I stick with a service that is relatively inexpensive, but is also user-friendly and will be easy for students to upload to. Weebly will offer us these qualities.

Research

In my research, I surprisingly could not find much about the benefits of online newspapers in the secondary classroom. I did see several sites that mentioned they offer students more opportunity to create videos, podcasts, and blogs, and to publish for a wider audience, but not much more was offered. I did check out a few high school newspaper websites to see how they set theirs up. I emailed a few advisers a week ago to see which programs they used, but none of them have responded yet. A few of the newspapers I looked at include the following:

Channel One News- Student Newspapers Online

HiLite Online

I also looked at the following sites in my search for programs and services I may use instead of Weebly:

Online School Newspapers

School Newspapers, School Web Site Publishing & Student Newspaper Templates

Plan for Implementation

During this course, I will implement the free website to my class. Since some of my students will be returning next year, I will show them how to upload articles and images, and how to design the site. Students will be able to practice by publishing their current articles to the site. This will give them the necessary experience of building the webpage prior to incorporating more advanced programs. I plan to have students actually help me design the site so that they have ownership over the site and are excited to use it next year. After the site is complete, students will work with Audacity and with the video camera (if I can borrow one from the film production teacher). They will begin using the technologies so that they can get used to their functions. Next year, I plan to teach students how to appropriately write for and create podcasts and vodcasts. Once the site is up and running and students are prepared to take the next step, I will spend the $58 to incorporate vodcast and podcast.

Four common places of education:

This project addresses the following four common places of education in the following ways:

• Someone teaching: This site will help me teach to the journalism standards of higher education and the workforce in a user-friendly way.
• Someone learning: The students will learn the cutting edge technology that they will need to know in order to succeed in a career in journalism. If they do not plan to pursue a career in journalism, they will still be learning essential tools of technology (website construction; writing and publishing for a large, online audience; blogging; podcasts and vodcasts; ethical and legal issues in online publishing, etc.)
• Some subject matter: Both beginning and advanced journalism
• In some setting: In the journalism classroom, in a brick and mortar high school.