Baby Steps

Former high school journalism teacher Kristy Roschke focused on the steps of high school publications getting online today as part of the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute.

She emphasized the importance of getting online to get to your audience and doing so at a pace that is most comfortable to you and your staff. 

She said that a good place to start is to upload your PDFs. You are printing issues anyway, just upload them to the Internet and start there.

From there, she said, you can take the steps that are comfortable to you and your staff. 

“Your biggest challenge is mindset,” Roschke said. “Your website is at the center of everything.”

As I try to make the transition to online, I have to keep these ideas in mind.

There are certain expectations that I have for our online content, but we need to start somewhere.

My concern is finding when it will be appropriate to make that leap.

I want to make sure we are producing content frequently enough that traffic will continue on our site. My worry is that if we launch and don’t produce content on a daily basis, readers wont come back.

I am committed to focus on our content production first, then transition to putting it online on a daily basis.

The plan is to use the first month or so to establish those norms and when we have an understanding of what we can and can’t do, what will and won’t work, then set up a launch.

"It doesn't have to be perfect," Roschke said.

That is so true and something I have to keep in mind.

Chad Renning
Sandra Day O'Connor High School
Phoenix