This semester the ACHS Journalism Club has been focused on "going online," and the process has been educational. Jen Bellingham has learned the frustration behind the old lament, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." She has tried every trick we can think of to get the members to write their stories, but they just don't seem to be thirsty horses. Meanwhile, she has not posted any stories either! When I mention to her that she should lead by example, she tells me the challenges that have kept her stories from being posted. They are real. So are the challenges that each of the members of the club are facing.
As hard as all this has been, the learning curve for the designers in the club has also been steep. We are all learning together, since neither I nor my friend and club coach Jay Gamel know the ins and outs of Wordpress or the tricks behind our chosen theme, Sliding Doors. Yet, I do believe we're nearly ready to show our results to the world.
I'm feeling a bit schizophrenic at this point: one part of me thinks it is bizarre and unacceptable that we have not "published" anything this semester, and I'm embarrassed when I think about that; the other part of me thinks we are poised at the edge of a landmark achievement, which will turn out to be a spectacular addition to our school's publication/communication landscape. OK, the truth is somewhere between those extremes.
The schools sports teams, in only their second varsity season, have done extremely well, playing in postseason competition in four sports: golf, girls tennis, water polo, and football. We don't have a story about that!? I cannot believe that we cannot get this done. Now I'm thinking we need to cultivate a system of stringers to achieve something that deserves to be online. I don't know if anybody on campus will feel proud to put THAT on his or her resume, but I think it's worth a try.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Web advertising
As a total neophyte in the world of web advertising, I started by asking my contacts how they price their ads for online student news reporting. I found that a lot of advisers are also neophytes, and mostly heard that it is hard to sell space in the online version of the paper.
Finally I decided to research the question on line, and I found a lot of helpful basics. Most of the answers lead to more questions of course, but now I feel less foolish as I attempt to understand what we need to do. Having the vocabulary is always a good start. So, now I know what the measurements are (pixels, duh). I also have a better understanding of how price and pixels relate. However, the emphasis seems to be on CPM (cost per mille), which means that putting a price on advertising before you have a history of page views is a guessing game. Still, when we DO have a history, we can either brag about it or keep silent until we've driven it up enough to brag about.
Page views and clicks. Those are more important than pixels. Now I know. Of course, it's still good to be able to talk about banner ads, sidebar ads, popups, pop-unders, floating ads, etc. The best information I found is here:
Brain, Marshall. "How Web Advertising Works" 08 April 2002. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-advertising.htm> 28 June 2012.
While the date shows that the information is dated, I needed the primer.
Finally I decided to research the question on line, and I found a lot of helpful basics. Most of the answers lead to more questions of course, but now I feel less foolish as I attempt to understand what we need to do. Having the vocabulary is always a good start. So, now I know what the measurements are (pixels, duh). I also have a better understanding of how price and pixels relate. However, the emphasis seems to be on CPM (cost per mille), which means that putting a price on advertising before you have a history of page views is a guessing game. Still, when we DO have a history, we can either brag about it or keep silent until we've driven it up enough to brag about.
Page views and clicks. Those are more important than pixels. Now I know. Of course, it's still good to be able to talk about banner ads, sidebar ads, popups, pop-unders, floating ads, etc. The best information I found is here:
Brain, Marshall. "How Web Advertising Works" 08 April 2002. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-advertising.htm> 28 June 2012.
While the date shows that the information is dated, I needed the primer.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Going Online!?
Before the school year came to a close, the club had a meeting (not well-attended) and decided that going online is the right route to pulling ourselves out of our financial problems as well as re-energizing our membership. The first result comes from the fact that we can do the website for something like $100 per year, compared to printing costs of $325 per issue. The second hope is that our members will be more excited because their stories will be published regularly, and we can report actual news!
This also adjusts the focus of our summer meeting: we'll be getting clear on the relationship between the newspaper (WolfPrints), the web site (achswolfprints.com), the school web site, the Wolf Prints Facebook page, Twitter, and Echo (our school learning platform). Then we'll have to quickly make some design decisions, do some fun journalism training aimed at newer members, and get down to the technical aspects of using our technology. That's a lot to accomplish in three days!
The JEA Outreach Academy I attended at SF State was a great help. I met another great group of Journalism teachers from the SF Bay Area, spent 3 days talking about issues of journalism education, bought a few really great new books on journalism, and picked up a slew of resources on all kinds of topics. My "bookmarks" listing is now overflowing.
Yesterday I met with the journalism teacher from Hercules High School, Natalie Wojinski. Two hours of sharing experiences and ideas left both of us with a lot more clarity and new ideas to try out. I know I'll be using Natalie's wisdom going forward, and I hope my experiences will give Natalie some additional inspiration.
Now, to the dashboard. I do need to make some background decisions for the online presence so we can hit cyberspace running in August. I'll have more to report in a few days after lunch with our Coach, Jay Gamel, and the co-publisher of Kenwood Press, Ann Quenan Peters on Friday.
This also adjusts the focus of our summer meeting: we'll be getting clear on the relationship between the newspaper (WolfPrints), the web site (achswolfprints.com), the school web site, the Wolf Prints Facebook page, Twitter, and Echo (our school learning platform). Then we'll have to quickly make some design decisions, do some fun journalism training aimed at newer members, and get down to the technical aspects of using our technology. That's a lot to accomplish in three days!
The JEA Outreach Academy I attended at SF State was a great help. I met another great group of Journalism teachers from the SF Bay Area, spent 3 days talking about issues of journalism education, bought a few really great new books on journalism, and picked up a slew of resources on all kinds of topics. My "bookmarks" listing is now overflowing.
Yesterday I met with the journalism teacher from Hercules High School, Natalie Wojinski. Two hours of sharing experiences and ideas left both of us with a lot more clarity and new ideas to try out. I know I'll be using Natalie's wisdom going forward, and I hope my experiences will give Natalie some additional inspiration.
Now, to the dashboard. I do need to make some background decisions for the online presence so we can hit cyberspace running in August. I'll have more to report in a few days after lunch with our Coach, Jay Gamel, and the co-publisher of Kenwood Press, Ann Quenan Peters on Friday.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Growing Pains
2011-2012 was a tough year for the Journalism Club. Our second year of existence began with a huge membership and plans to increase our publication from prior year to 3 per semester. For a club, this is pretty ambitious, particularly since we are 100% self-supporting. My summer institute at Arizona State University had me so pumped up with enthusiasm, and our membership included so many bright, enthusiastic, dedicated students, that I was sure we could do whatever we set out to do.
Now, at the end of the school year, we are reflecting on what we learned and resolving to make next year better. We learned that we should not begin to lay out an issue of the paper until we have the ads in hand to pay for it. We learned that once we get behind financially it becomes ever more difficult to recover. We learned that a lot of people appear to be enthusiastic at the beginning but that many will fall away when times get tough.
The field trip to the SF Chronicle was very informative though very different from what any of us expected. Several highly experienced writers and editors shared their experiences with us in the room where the staff meets each day to review the paper. A group from University of Nevada at Reno was visiting the same day, so we shared the room with them, getting the perspective of a college paper as a bonus.
We ended the year having published 4 issues and $500 in debt. Attendance at meetings went way down; several officers stopped showing up. I wondered if I should continue advising, since my students seemed to need a different kind of adviser: I believe that the students need to lead the club, with advice and guidance from me, but maybe they need someone who will be more directive. When I posed this question to the remaining officers, they disagreed, saying that nobody else is as qualified as I am, and they need me. OK, so I'm on board for the future.
We are working on producing our first annual Journalism Summer Camp, with guest speakers from two local newspapers, student-run workshops on a variety of topics, some fun reporting activities, and a day in the computer lab so experienced members can lay out the first issue of the 2012-2013 school year and new members can begin to learn the ropes of InDesign from our coach.
This blog clearly is not getting much attention from this adviser, but I hope to check in now and then to keep it somewhat current. Check out Wolf Prints at the American Canyon High School web site, where youll find links to our PDFs.
Happy summer!
Now, at the end of the school year, we are reflecting on what we learned and resolving to make next year better. We learned that we should not begin to lay out an issue of the paper until we have the ads in hand to pay for it. We learned that once we get behind financially it becomes ever more difficult to recover. We learned that a lot of people appear to be enthusiastic at the beginning but that many will fall away when times get tough.
The field trip to the SF Chronicle was very informative though very different from what any of us expected. Several highly experienced writers and editors shared their experiences with us in the room where the staff meets each day to review the paper. A group from University of Nevada at Reno was visiting the same day, so we shared the room with them, getting the perspective of a college paper as a bonus.
We ended the year having published 4 issues and $500 in debt. Attendance at meetings went way down; several officers stopped showing up. I wondered if I should continue advising, since my students seemed to need a different kind of adviser: I believe that the students need to lead the club, with advice and guidance from me, but maybe they need someone who will be more directive. When I posed this question to the remaining officers, they disagreed, saying that nobody else is as qualified as I am, and they need me. OK, so I'm on board for the future.
We are working on producing our first annual Journalism Summer Camp, with guest speakers from two local newspapers, student-run workshops on a variety of topics, some fun reporting activities, and a day in the computer lab so experienced members can lay out the first issue of the 2012-2013 school year and new members can begin to learn the ropes of InDesign from our coach.
This blog clearly is not getting much attention from this adviser, but I hope to check in now and then to keep it somewhat current. Check out Wolf Prints at the American Canyon High School web site, where youll find links to our PDFs.
Happy summer!
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