Online Newspaper Makes News Interactive for Students
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 10/6/2009
Florida’s Naples News Media Group wants K-12 students to keep turning the pages of its daily newspaper—but digitally.
The news organization’s latest launch, eDaily, offers children, educators, and the public the ability to view the exact pages of their local dailies online through computers at home and interactive white boards at school. Featured on the new electronic newsstand are the Naples Daily News and the Bonita Daily News, as well as community papers including the Marco Eagle and the Collier Citizen.
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Students at Lely High School in Naples, FL, view digital versions of local newspapers. |
As many news organizations are painfully aware, more people are getting news from online sources, with subscriptions to print editions dramatically decreasing over the last few years. So news groups are searching for ways to excite this next generation about their product—and hopefully turn them into lifelong readers by making online news sites more engaging and fun.
One way eDaily hopes to capture students’ interest is to allow local high schools to eventually publish their school newspapers on its electronic newsstand for free. That feature is expected to go live within the next few months, says Velasquez.
While Chris Black, media specialist at Lely High School in Naples, FL, is excited about his school posting digital versions of its paper, he admits that print still partially rules at the school. Students at Lely often read newspapers as teachers take attendance in the morning, and printed copies are still easier to manage at their desks than laptops and allows everyone to read something different.
“The worst thing to do is tell a high school student what to read,” says Black. “If you tell them to open the paper and find something that interests them, they will.”
Still, Black knows that the 1,450 ninth through twelfth graders will be thrilled to see their school newspaper eventually migrate on the Web, and for friends and family to read their stories about the drama club, debate team, and even senior prom.
“As a way to get our community involved, this is amazing,” says Black.
