I’ve been really happy to see that my students are beginning to embrace the hyperlocal idea that I’ve been pushing for in regards to our school newspaper (this doesn’t seem like the right term anymore – -but what do you call it? Newsblog? Hyperlocal Journalism Site? Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it? Any suggestions?). We’ve got a long way to go, and I think I’d like to write more about what the quarter’s been like (maybe a podcast on what we’ve been up to) as we’ve gotten used to the idea that we’re writing online.
One good example of a hyperlocal story – one you won’t hear about anywhere else – is the recent theft of a camera from our computer lab. The story’s good on the basics, and is a big step for the writer who wrote it. You won’t see the story anywhere else, and it marks an important benchmark for the student who wrote it.
I’m very pleased that she would cover the issue in the first place, and I’ve enjoyed watching her writing improve as she starts relying more on her ideas and less on the words of her sources. (I even think she’s going to sign on to take the class again next quarter, in spite of the fact that I’ve already told her that she’ll be podcasting her stories after she writes them.)
Another story that I was especially pleased with this week is Rance’s editorial on Internet filtering. Although I want to look at filtering as a possible thesis topic, Rance proposed the story quite some time ago, and I tried to stay out of his way. (I wonder sometimes about how my enthusiasm for a particular topic or idea influences the way that a student proceeds. It’s a tricky issue.)
I’d like Rance to play more with some of the wording in the piece, but I thought it was ready to be published. (John Temple recently pointed out one distinct advantage that online journalism has over print — the ability to change the story after it first runs. I’m not one hundred percent comfortable with making changes to a "published" piece — but I think the web lends itself to such. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)
One more note — I’ve turned off all the commenting screening that I was doing when the site first began. Feel free to share your thoughts with our student writers, if you so desire. It should be pretty easy, now that the bumbling teacher’s gotten out of the way.
Yes — there’s lots more to say about how we’ve put OldeSchoolNews.com together — but that’s info for another day.
Hyperlocal — Sometimes, with Several Asides
