I’ve had my staff members create print portfolios of their work at the end of each semester for years. I think it’s nice for them to have a collection of their work once their time on staff is over. The portfolios (with resumes included) have proven to be beneficial for staffers looking for jobs, as well as applying for colleges and scholarships. In addition, they serve as great alternative assessments in place of a written final exam.

Last semester, as I was evaluating the semester project, I decided to use my editors as guinea pigs and have them create an online portfolio in addition to their hard copy version. For a first attempt, I think it went very well and it’s something I’ll probably be instituting staff-wide next year.

While working on a newspaper staff, collaborating and writing stories becomes a difficult task that could result in missed deadlines or worse, an out-of-sync staff.

There is an easy fix to this issue: Google Apps.

Looking for a way to organize your beats on staff to generate online content? We have a few different posts on the site concerning that topic. Here is another one, created by the staff of FHNtoday.com. It’s been evolving for the last two years into what you see today. Katie O’Neil, a junior at Francis Howell North High School who has overseen FHNtoday.com for the past two years and currently serves as the Digial Media class Editor-in-Chief, has shared the staff’s latest version of how their beat system works.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size
Beatshandout.pdf	This is the best sheet used by the staff of FHNtoday.com to explain their system to staffers.	76 Kb

Didn't get to hear the webinar by Paul Kandell, 2009 DJNF Journalism Adviser of the Year? No worries, HSBJ.org has it archived and available for you to listen to. Paul talks about everything from press rights to the future of scholastic journaslim in the webinar titled "2020 Vision: Teaching the New High School Media."

For the first time, I had students apply for staff with an online application. I actually wrote about it a couple week ago, showing everyone what I was doing. Well, not that the application and selection process for next year is over, I decided to take a look at what I learned by doing this for the first time and decide whether or not I would do it again. Here’s what I learned.