Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

Extending Newswire

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My two week experiment with the class newspaper is coming to an end, and I am very happy. Thanks again to Seb for all of the technical help to make it run quite smoothly. Now, has it been an educational success? Here’s what I saw:

  • My students were much more engaged in finding and reading news in their areas of interest.
  • They were much more engaged in the decision making process of what constitutes news.
  • They were more willing to work collaboratively to write and edit the summation posts. (Some groups were downright neurotic about it.)
  • Students became more well-informed in general as they read each other’s posts and as they searched for news.
  • Most were able to find and identify legiitimate sources of information.

    And, to top it off, I didn’t hear any complaining; that’s always a plus.

    So now I’m thinking where to go from here. My class is over, I don’t have another section coming next quarter, and the school paper is not under my purview (although I am thinking of showing them the idea). But in the interest of participatory journalism, why not extend this project by offering it up to clubs and associations and the like around school? What if, say, the Environmental club, Amnesty, Student Council, Interact and others were able to use the space to post news and announcements? And to start discussions about stuff? Or maybe I could offer it to teachers? Or both? And then, of course, the big question is how do we sell it? How do we make them use it, read it, etc? Do we make it the home page of the school Web site? And on and on…

    Will be interesting to see where it goes.
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