Everyone's Doing It- Going Online

Aaron Manful, Francis Howell North Advisor and JEA Digital Media Chair, spoke to a group of excited journalism teachers on getting their newspapers online.

Manful broke down the process into 10, easy to follow steps for helping teachers take their print edition to online. Step one included giving the online edition an editor in charge, offer incentives and create positions that revolve around the web. This idea should help get students excited to work on stories for the web.

"Everything must involve around it," Manful said.

Another helpful tip so teachers do not feel overwhelmed was, "start small and build," according to Manful. Many teachers feel they must go from never having a website to having this complicated site where they upload stories daily with multimedia and other videos. Manful offered helpful advice to the group by reminding them start with a "solid foundation and then add bells and whistles."

Websites take months to build and properly promote for it to be successful. Manful offered helpful tips to do both.

One piece of advice that stuck out was Manful's philosophy in the classroom. He allows the students to have the capability to upload stories to the website before running them by the principal or himself. Manful trusts his students with the passwords and reminds them to always check if they see a "red flag." The students take pride in the stories and know it comes back on them if there are mistakes or inaccurate reporting.

"Give the students the responsibility," Manful said.

Even though the process seems intimidating, according to some teachers, Manful's steps and helpful tips really inspired the group to achieve the goal of getting their newspaper online next year.

Kat Gurganus

Keller High School

Keller, Texas