Props to my.hsj.org

I am so glad you blogged about the my.hsj.org site, Denise.

We stumbled across the site and were amazed that it was free and that it would host us. It was the perfect solution for a new staff with the desire to re-launch a high school newspaper program but also the goal to move it online.

The queue is easy to use for both staff member and adviser. Each student has an individual log in and can post articles with formatting, pictures, and even video. The adviser gets the final submit, though. My more advanced students embedded polls and widgets. Anything that can be placed within a MySpace page can be embedded, too.

Our district blocks YouTube but you can still embed YouTube videos. From the school, the article has a white space where the video would have been. From outside the school, the videos play without a problem. There are some software programs available to download YouTube videos and convert them, if needed. For our purposes, we embedded. We had a Battle of the Bands fundraiser for the drama department and each band posted their videos on YouTube within moments of performing. Our article on my.hsj.org got more hits than the YouTube videos alone so the bands and the drama department were grateful for the press.

Many of my school’s sports teams now have Flickr pages, Facebook pages, and other social networking sites to promote, notify, and communicate. We used baseball pics from the baseball team’s photo stream a team mom had posted. Since we can’t have staff members at all the events, this is a great way to capture the voice and community of the school in one place.

One final thought about the my.hsj.org site. Many of you have students who would like to be a part of the school newspaper but can’t find room in their schedule to take your class. Freelancers can post stories as well if you set up a log in. The search area on your school’s newspaper will list every article a student has written as well as every time a student has been mentioned in print. Our IB coordinator LOVES this feature because she wants her IB students to be well represented to colleges and scholarship panels. She printed out several searches to include in portfolios last year. If you keep the site going for several years, your students will amass quite a body of work.

Debbie Aughey
The Spartan Chronicles
www.tinyurl.com/spartanchronicles
Smyrna, GA