Your final drafts of editorial articles are due on Tuesday, 3/3.
All earlier drafts should be included - and a reflection where you express: what you learned? challenges you faced? things you could have done better?
your most recent draft should be on top.
If your final isn't turned in on time, it will NOT be considered for publication in The Blazer.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
google group for file storage
i created a google group where you can access the files you need for working with your layout projects in indesign. if you want to upload you need to join the group.
http://groups.google.com/group/foundations-in-journalism
http://groups.google.com/group/foundations-in-journalism
Friday, February 20, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Make up work
Good afternoon all:
I was just going over teacherease and many of you are missing many assignments. Please login to teacherease and try to make up some of the work you owe.
Particularly the midterm reflection which should be emailed to me.
Thanks,
Ms. S
I was just going over teacherease and many of you are missing many assignments. Please login to teacherease and try to make up some of the work you owe.
Particularly the midterm reflection which should be emailed to me.
Thanks,
Ms. S
Friday, February 13, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Pearl Reporters update
The following people have completed all 3 assignments on the Pearl website:
Avi S
Nadine
Raisa
Rosemarie
Mary
Robin
Allison
Maggie
Donna
Anastasia
The rest of the class is missing one or more of the assignments. Please log onto the website and find out what you are missing and complete the assignments. (i.e. If your name is not on the above list, please do the work.)
Avi S
Nadine
Raisa
Rosemarie
Mary
Robin
Allison
Maggie
Donna
Anastasia
The rest of the class is missing one or more of the assignments. Please log onto the website and find out what you are missing and complete the assignments. (i.e. If your name is not on the above list, please do the work.)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Midterm reflections
I was contemplating how I wanted to do this since the 6 week mark has already passed for the second trimester...
Here is what I decided:
I'd like each of you to email me the answer to the following questions:
- How do you honestly feel you are doing in the class specifically using evidence from your work to support your thoughts? (Reference specific assignments and/or activities to show your understanding of specific skills and/or standards)
- What are you doing to contribute to the classroom community? (again be specific - you help your classmates or you are always prepared, etc)
- What do you need to continue working on? Be specific -
- How can I help you work on your perceived weaknesses on your standards?
- What have you learned so far this year? Be specific...
- What have you improved? (be specific)
- What are some goals you have for this class by the end of this trimester? the end of the year?
- Have you made an attempt to come for extra help if needed?
- Do you check the blog every day? how often?
- What do you use the blog for? is it useful? explain
Email your answers to me at msackstein@yahoo.com - put midterm reflection as your subject
You Can’t Sell News by the Slice - opinion piece - to read
February 10, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
You Can’t Sell News by the Slice
By MICHAEL KINSLEY
SOMEWHERE at Microsoft, there is a closet packed with leftover Slate umbrellas — a monument to the folly of asking people to pay for what they read on the Internet. These umbrellas — a $20 value! — were the premium we offered to people who would pay $19 for a year’s subscription to Slate, the Microsoft-owned online magazine (later purchased by The Washington Post). We were quite self-righteous about the alleged principle that “content” should not be free. The word itself was an insult — as if we were just making Jell-O salad in order to sell Tupperware.
The experiment lasted about a year. Still, every so often the dream of getting people to pay recurs. It’s recurring now because of the newspaper crisis: they have been hemorrhaging subscribers and advertisers for their paper editions, even as they give away their contents online. In the current Time, its former managing editor, Walter Isaacson, urges a solution: “micropayments.”
Micropayments are systems that make it easy to pay small amounts of money. (Your subway card is an example.) You could pay a nickel to read an article, or a dime for a whole day’s newspaper.
Well, maybe. But it would be a first. Newspaper readers have never paid for the content (words and photos). What they have paid for is the paper that content is printed on. A week of The Washington Post weighs about eight pounds and costs $1.81 for new subscribers, home-delivered. With newsprint (that’s the paper, not the ink) costing around $750 a metric ton, or 34 cents a pound, Post subscribers are getting almost a dollar’s worth of paper free every week — not to mention the ink, the delivery, etc. The Times is more svelte and more expensive. It might even have a viable business model if it could sell the paper with nothing written on it. A more promising idea is the opposite: give away the content without the paper. In theory, a reader who stops paying for the physical paper but continues to read the content online is doing the publisher a favor.
If the only effect of the Internet on newspapers was a drastic reduction in their distribution costs, publishers could probably keep a bit of that savings, rather than passing all of it and more on to the readers. But the Internet has also increased competition — not just from new media but among newspapers as well. Or rather, it has introduced competition into an industry legendary for its monopoly power.
Just a few years ago, there was no sweeter perch in American capitalism than ownership of the only newspaper in town. Now, every English-language newspaper is in direct competition with every other. Millions of Americans get their news online from The Guardian, which is published in London. This competition, and not some kind of petulance or laziness or addled philosophy, is what keeps readers from shelling out for news.
Micropayment advocates imagine extracting as much as $2 a month from readers. The Times sells just over a million daily papers. If every one of those million buyers went online and paid $2 a month, that would be $24 million a year. Even with the economic crisis, paper and digital advertising in The Times brought in about $1 billion last year. Circulation brought in $668 million. Two bucks per reader per month is not going to save newspapers.
And the harsh truth is that the typical American newspaper is an anachronism. It is an artifact from a time when chopping down trees was essential to telling the news, and when you couldn’t get The New York Times or The Washington Post closer to your bed than the front door, where the local paper lies, sopping wet.
The Times, The Post and a few others probably will survive. When the recession ends, advertising will come back, with fewer places to go. There will be a couple of surprises — local papers that execute their transfer to the Web so brilliantly that they will earn a national readership (like the old Manchester Guardian in England). Or some Web site might mutate into a real Web newspaper.
With even half a dozen papers, the American newspaper industry will be more competitive than it was when there were hundreds. Competition will keep the Baghdad bureaus open and the investigative units stoked with dudgeon. Competition is growing as well among Web sites that think there is money to be made performing the local paper’s local functions. One or two of these will turn out to be right. And then, who will pay even a nickel for the hometown rag?
Michael Kinsley is the founding editor of Slate magazine.
Op-Ed Contributor
You Can’t Sell News by the Slice
By MICHAEL KINSLEY
SOMEWHERE at Microsoft, there is a closet packed with leftover Slate umbrellas — a monument to the folly of asking people to pay for what they read on the Internet. These umbrellas — a $20 value! — were the premium we offered to people who would pay $19 for a year’s subscription to Slate, the Microsoft-owned online magazine (later purchased by The Washington Post). We were quite self-righteous about the alleged principle that “content” should not be free. The word itself was an insult — as if we were just making Jell-O salad in order to sell Tupperware.
The experiment lasted about a year. Still, every so often the dream of getting people to pay recurs. It’s recurring now because of the newspaper crisis: they have been hemorrhaging subscribers and advertisers for their paper editions, even as they give away their contents online. In the current Time, its former managing editor, Walter Isaacson, urges a solution: “micropayments.”
Micropayments are systems that make it easy to pay small amounts of money. (Your subway card is an example.) You could pay a nickel to read an article, or a dime for a whole day’s newspaper.
Well, maybe. But it would be a first. Newspaper readers have never paid for the content (words and photos). What they have paid for is the paper that content is printed on. A week of The Washington Post weighs about eight pounds and costs $1.81 for new subscribers, home-delivered. With newsprint (that’s the paper, not the ink) costing around $750 a metric ton, or 34 cents a pound, Post subscribers are getting almost a dollar’s worth of paper free every week — not to mention the ink, the delivery, etc. The Times is more svelte and more expensive. It might even have a viable business model if it could sell the paper with nothing written on it. A more promising idea is the opposite: give away the content without the paper. In theory, a reader who stops paying for the physical paper but continues to read the content online is doing the publisher a favor.
If the only effect of the Internet on newspapers was a drastic reduction in their distribution costs, publishers could probably keep a bit of that savings, rather than passing all of it and more on to the readers. But the Internet has also increased competition — not just from new media but among newspapers as well. Or rather, it has introduced competition into an industry legendary for its monopoly power.
Just a few years ago, there was no sweeter perch in American capitalism than ownership of the only newspaper in town. Now, every English-language newspaper is in direct competition with every other. Millions of Americans get their news online from The Guardian, which is published in London. This competition, and not some kind of petulance or laziness or addled philosophy, is what keeps readers from shelling out for news.
Micropayment advocates imagine extracting as much as $2 a month from readers. The Times sells just over a million daily papers. If every one of those million buyers went online and paid $2 a month, that would be $24 million a year. Even with the economic crisis, paper and digital advertising in The Times brought in about $1 billion last year. Circulation brought in $668 million. Two bucks per reader per month is not going to save newspapers.
And the harsh truth is that the typical American newspaper is an anachronism. It is an artifact from a time when chopping down trees was essential to telling the news, and when you couldn’t get The New York Times or The Washington Post closer to your bed than the front door, where the local paper lies, sopping wet.
The Times, The Post and a few others probably will survive. When the recession ends, advertising will come back, with fewer places to go. There will be a couple of surprises — local papers that execute their transfer to the Web so brilliantly that they will earn a national readership (like the old Manchester Guardian in England). Or some Web site might mutate into a real Web newspaper.
With even half a dozen papers, the American newspaper industry will be more competitive than it was when there were hundreds. Competition will keep the Baghdad bureaus open and the investigative units stoked with dudgeon. Competition is growing as well among Web sites that think there is money to be made performing the local paper’s local functions. One or two of these will turn out to be right. And then, who will pay even a nickel for the hometown rag?
Michael Kinsley is the founding editor of Slate magazine.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Required files for Indesign tutorial
you need these files for the indesign tutorial layout, ctrl-click and save link as... to save the files to your local computer.
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/journalism/uncle-ben.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/journalism/town%20hall.txt
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/journalism/spiderman brief.txt
(edit)
for those that were not paying attention in class, these are the files you need to complete the indesign tutorial using donna's page 3 that we went over in class. when you spend class time working through the tutorial you will need to download these files to the computer that you are using in order to place them in indesign. everyone will be required to use these files to create the layout shown in the tutorial and then email me a pdf of the final product. we'll go over this again in class.
(edit)
if you lost the tutorial here's a soft copy:
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/Indesign%20Layout%20Tutorial.doc
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/journalism/uncle-ben.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/journalism/town%20hall.txt
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/journalism/spiderman brief.txt
(edit)
for those that were not paying attention in class, these are the files you need to complete the indesign tutorial using donna's page 3 that we went over in class. when you spend class time working through the tutorial you will need to download these files to the computer that you are using in order to place them in indesign. everyone will be required to use these files to create the layout shown in the tutorial and then email me a pdf of the final product. we'll go over this again in class.
(edit)
if you lost the tutorial here's a soft copy:
http://mysite.verizon.net/laiernie/Indesign%20Layout%20Tutorial.doc
Friday, February 6, 2009
HW for Tuesday - comment on this post - editorial writing
Thumb through the editorials in either the Times or Newsday over the weekend… what topics are covered? Read at least one of them and discuss what the writers do… what is the language like?
How are the topics covered?
Post to the blog what you notice
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Assignment 2 - articles for publication
Please forward me your assignment 2 articles if they are new (i.e. not the ones you turned in for a grade already) for possible use in the school paper
Please make sure that you change your titles to headlines before you send them to me... remember an active headline has a verb in it... no one word or two word titles!
This is just a reminder... All Pearl Assignments should have been submitted on the Pearl website already. They are beginning to evaluate your work and if you would like certification, you should consider getting this work done ASAP.
Please make sure that you change your titles to headlines before you send them to me... remember an active headline has a verb in it... no one word or two word titles!
This is just a reminder... All Pearl Assignments should have been submitted on the Pearl website already. They are beginning to evaluate your work and if you would like certification, you should consider getting this work done ASAP.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Homework DebateKids, Parents and Teachers Disagree On How Much Is Too Much
Tuesday, January 27, 2009; C12
Backpack bulging, worksheets galore, read this, study that . . . all after seven hours in school already.
HOMEWORK.
If you think kids are the only ones who disagree with teachers about the need for homework, you may be surprised to learn that many parents don't like homework any more than their kids do.
A new survey shows that parents and teachers don't always agree on why homework is assigned -- or how involved parents should be in helping their kids get it done.
Ask kids about the dreaded "H" word and you'll hear something similar to what Sabrina Martin, a third-grader at Wood Acres Elementary School in Bethesda, told us.
"I'd rather not do it, but I know I have to," said Sabrina, 8.
Teachers say homework is important in the learning process and can help kids develop study and organizational skills. They say kids need to practice what they've learned in school so that the material sticks in their brain.
Some teachers say they give homework to get parents involved in the learning process. "My hope is that they will have a conversation with their kids about the homework so it is not just a drill," said Sue Ann Gleason, a first-grade teacher at Cedar Lane Elementary School in Loudoun County.What Homework Works?
There is a big debate among educators about how much homework, and what kind of homework, really helps kids learn.
Harris Cooper is a professor of education and psychology at Duke University who is an expert on homework. He said there is very little evidence that most homework in elementary school helps kids learn.
Reading is important, he said. There are some studies showing that kids in grades 2 through 5 do better on tests when they complete short assignments that practice basic skills that will be on the test, he said.
Those skills can be in any subject, he said, including math and spelling. But young kids should not get homework in areas that haven't been completely explained in school.
But a survey of parents and teachers showed that many parents believe teachers give homework to kids on subjects they haven't learned well in school.
In fact, 68 percent of the parents surveyed said that teachers use homework to cover material they haven't had time to teach in class. Only 17 percent of teachers said that is why they assign homework.
The survey also showed that a lot of parents wish they were less involved in homework. But most teachers don't think parents are involved enough.
Sabrina said that now that she is in third grade she doesn't ask her parents to help her much at all -- and that's the way her teacher wants it.
"We are not allowed to ask our parents" for help, Sabrina said, "unless it is a challenge. She wants to see what we can do by ourselves."Does Homework Help?
One of the big homework issues is exactly how much makes sense to help kids learn.
Sabrina said she usually gets two assignments each night in different subjects, and she is supposed to spend no more than 20 minutes on each. In addition, she said, she is supposed to read a book 20 minutes a day, which she loves to do.
Her father, Dan Martin, said he thinks that an hour of homework in third grade may be too much but that the assignments seem to help Sabrina learn.
So how much homework is too much?
Researcher Cooper says studies show that up until fifth grade, homework should be very limited. Kids in middle school shouldn't be spending more than 90 minutes a night on homework. In high school, the limit is two hours, Cooper says.
Cooper also has a little advice for elementary school teachers doling out homework to kids: Make the assignments fun. Teacher Gleason agrees.
"The best homework is when I choose a piece of literature for a particular child because it will tickle his or her funny bone," she said. "Learning should be fun."
-- Valerie Strauss
© 2009 The Washington Post Company
Monday, February 2, 2009
Pearl Remnders
You should have finished all the modules of the Pearl Reporters Course... Assignments 1 and 3 are long past due. Only about 12 of you have done both of these... that means more than half of you haven't.
Please go onto the pearl website
http://www.pearl.iearn.org/course/login/index.php
login is your first and last name with space, all lowercase
for example: john smith
password: john
go into the journals online and submit online for assignments 1, 2 and 3.
Assignment 2 is due tomorrow. Assignment 2 is the full feature or news story. You can use something you've already written, but I would have recommended actually writing something new for this.
Pearl Reporter Certification is a feather in your cap that you will be able to put on your high school resume for your college applications. However, if you don't complete the course the opportunity will pass you by.
All other assignments related to Pearl were due on our blog on specific dates. You are all off today... please make up all blog assignments that are missing. Look on teacherease... go on the blog and make up the work.
When we return, we will be moving on to something else.
Please go onto the pearl website
http://www.pearl.iearn.org/course/login/index.php
login is your first and last name with space, all lowercase
for example: john smith
password: john
go into the journals online and submit online for assignments 1, 2 and 3.
Assignment 2 is due tomorrow. Assignment 2 is the full feature or news story. You can use something you've already written, but I would have recommended actually writing something new for this.
Pearl Reporter Certification is a feather in your cap that you will be able to put on your high school resume for your college applications. However, if you don't complete the course the opportunity will pass you by.
All other assignments related to Pearl were due on our blog on specific dates. You are all off today... please make up all blog assignments that are missing. Look on teacherease... go on the blog and make up the work.
When we return, we will be moving on to something else.
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