(May 22, 2013) — SNO FLEX is the latest, greatest upgrade you should have from School Newspapers Online, the leading provider of websites for high school and college newspaper programs across the nation. The new responsive design allows your news site to be easily read on a smart phone, tablet or computer. In addition, you can now experiment with all the design templates to find the one that’s just right for your program. You can now add Google fonts to customize your site’s look from the wide variety of typefaces available.

SNO FLEX templates have fresh, fun new design options, including the showcase carousel or photoblock to display top stories, more control and additional features over where the breaking news ticker. menu bars, and other information appears in the browser window to help you create content that can be easily read on almost any reader device. In addition is the long-awaited SNO Photo Gallery Widget that allows you to display a photo gallery from the images attached to any story on your site. (This plugin is only compatible with the SNO FLEX framework from School Newspapers Online.)

Read the entire post on nwscholasticpress.org.

2013 NSPA Online Pacemaker Winners

The Rider Online, Legacy HS, Mansfield, Texas

Clarion, Riverside-Brookfield HS, Riverside, Ill.

Edge Online, Pleasant Grove HS, Texarkana, Texas

2013 NSPA Best of Show Awards – Publication Website Small School

3. Knight Errant, Benilde-St. Margaret’s School, St. Louis Park, Minn.

4. Mill Valley News, Mill Valley HS, Shawnee, Kan.

5. Southwest Shadow, Southwest Career and Technical Academy, Las Vegas, Nev.

2013 NSPA Best of Show Awards – Publication Website Large School

1. The Lancer Link, Carlsbad HS, Carlsbad, Calif.

6. Sunrise, Corona Del Sol HS, Tempe, Ariz.

7. Jagwire, Gregori HS, Modesto, Calif.

9. The South Lakes Sentinel, South Lakes HS, Reston, Va.

I urge my journalism students to think about their readers when they write––to make sure their stories are engaging from the first word and to think about what their readers already know, what they want to know, and what they need to know.

After they finish writing and we’re laying out the print edition of the paper, we think constantly about the reader’s experience on the page and how we can make it better. We think about how the person skimming through the paper will experience it and how we can get them to stop and read. We make sure that the story is not just readable, but that it appears to be readable. Then we realized this year that we were doing a poor job of paying attention to our readers’ experiences when they read stories on our website.

Read more…

54 finalists have been selected in the 2013 ACP Online Pacemaker contest out of a total 277 entries.

The contest was judged by a panel of professionals with extensive online media experience. Judges noted that the most successful sites had clean and accessible designs, excellent writing and editing, strong handling of breaking news and had superb social integration.

Online Pacemaker winners will be announced at the 92nd Annual ACP/CMA National College Media Convention in New Orleans on Oct. 26, 2013. Comments from the judging team will be posted shortly after the convention.

High School Digital Publication Gold Crown

The Rider Online, Legacy HS, Mansfield, Texas
http://therideronline.com

High School Hybrid Publication Gold Crown

The Boiling Point, Shalhevet High School, Los Angeles, California
http://shalhevetboilingpoint.com

The Viking, Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, California
http://vikingsportsmag.com

Tiger Times, Texas High School, Texarkana, Texas
http://tigertimesonline.com

High School Digital Publication Silver Crown

Achona, Academy of the Holy Names, Tampa, Florida
http://achonaonline.com

Inklings News Online, Staples High School, Westport, Connecticut
http://inklingsnews.com

High School Hybrid Publication Silver Crown

The Kirkwood Call, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri
http://thekirkwoodcall.com

The Patriot, John Carroll School, Bel Air, Maryland
http://jcpatriot.com

The Red Ledger, Lovejoy HS, Lucas, Texas
http://theredledger.net

Knight Errant, Benilde-St. Margaret’s School, St. Louis Park, Minn.
http://bsmknighterrant.org

The Communicator, Community HS, Ann Arbor, Mich.
http://www.chscommunicator.com

The Lancer Link, Carlsbad HS, Carlsbad, Calif.
http://www.thelancerlink.com

Inklings, Staples HS, Westport, Conn.
http://www.inklingsnews.com

The Rider Online, Legacy HS, Mansfield, Texas
http://www.therideronline.com

The A-Blast, Annandale HS, Annandale, Va.
http://www.thea-blast.org/

The Muse, Dreyfoos School of the Arts, West Palm Beach, Fla.
http://themuseatdreyfoos.com

Clarion, Riverside-Brookfield HS, Riverside, Ill.
http://www.rbclarion.com

Mill Valley News Online, Mill Valley HS, Shawnee, Kan.
http://www.mvnews.org

Southwest Shadow, Southwest Career and Technical Academy, Las Vegas, Nev.
http://www.southwestshadow.com

Edge Online, Pleasant Grove HS, Texarkana, Texas
http://www.pgedgeonline.com

First, Firestorm will provide relevant content for SNO schools to use in their student-run online news publications. Written by Firestorm’s experts, articles will include subjects such as: school violence, cyber bullying, social media, disaster preparedness, online predators, and effective school drills. “We are very excited about this collaboration created to provide journalism educators the tools they need to keep our schools and students safer. Firestorm and its Expert Council Members have the strongest credentials in the school safety industry and have responded to some of the nation’s greatest school tragedies, such as Virginia Tech and Columbine. It’s our goal to utilize our Predict.Plan.Perform® process to help create disaster-ready people and organizations,” said Paige Rucker & Brett Ledet, Principals, Firestorm.

Also starting in March, Firestorm will conduct webinars specifically for SNO schools. These webinars, planned to be broadcast live and available as recordings after, will cover similar school preparedness in-depth topics.  The first webinar’s topic, “Is Your School Safe?” will be presented by Firestorm CEO Harry Rhulen on Wednesday, March 20 from 2:00-3:00 pm EDT. Registration for both the live broadcast and access to the recorded webinar is available at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/941525714

In addition to providing content and education, Firestorm will give SNO schools access to its School Crisis Response Management Panel – an expert panel to turn to for concerns regarding school violence. “We are pleased to offer the expertise of Firestorm as a valuable resource to our journalism programs around the country,” said Tom Hutchinson, co-founder of SNO.  “These programs serve as a vital communication tool for schools, and Firestorm’s experts will help student journalists and faculty advisers better address these difficult issues.”

Finally, Firestorm will introduce a Firestorm School Reporter program for student journalists at SNO client schools.  This program will give students the opportunity to publish articles on the Firestorm website.  Also, student reporters will provide insights into the issues facing schools today by responding to polls and suggesting areas of concern to Firestorm experts.

About Firestorm: (www.firestorm.com), Firestorm transforms crisis into value, and is a recognized leader in continuity services, crisis management, critical decision support, crisis communications, crisis public relations, and consequence management. Firestorm staff and Expert Council members, who include– attorneys, engineers, physicians, law enforcement professionals, psychologists and many other talented individuals, bring hands-on crisis expertise to its clients at the time when they need it most. Firestorm maintains a network of offices throughout the country to be responsive and accessible to its national and international roster of clients.

About SNO:  (www.schoolnewspapersonline.com), School Newspapers Online (SNO), was established in 2008 by a high-school newspaper advisor and teacher and an expert in content management systems. Based in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, SNO focuses specifically on the needs of college and high school newspapers looking to create—or enhance—their presence online. With over 1000 educational institution customers nationwide, SNO continues to meet or exceed the needs of newspaper advisers and their staffs in an era of tight school funding and in the face of the ever-increasing costs associated with print. The company aims to keep its websites affordable while offering all the functionality and design flexibility found on major newspaper sites.

Contact: 
Paige Rucker, Firestorm, 847.235.7033, prucker@firestorm.com
Tom Hutchinson, SNO, 888.649.7784, tom@schoolnewspapersonline.com

It makes sense that the print edition maintained this central role––it offers a tangible, real experience that can’t be replaced by a website. There’s a physical presence to the newspaper: students feel its heft in their hands as they walk around the school, handing it to their readers and seeing their immediate reactions. They return from distribution with ink-stained hands and begin to flip through the final product themselves with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

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SNO FLEX, a new WordPress platform for online newspaper publishing developed by School Newspapers Online (SNO), has the solution. SNO FLEX was built on the principles of responsive design and automatically scales to look great on any screen size instantly. This new technology brings online publications powerful tools without a hefty price tag and gives high-school newspaper advisers an affordable option that remains ahead of the curve.

Finding the right balance between price and technology can be tricky for high school publications with limited budgets. Additionally, student editors are often students or overworked advisers, with little time to spend managing the technological aspects of the publication. SNO created its platform so that school newspaper advisers could focus on journalism without worrying about technology.

Staff members can jump right in and start taking advantage of the tools this platform offers without having to spend time learning difficult coding or working to resolve bugs. This allows students to get right to work, especially important for high-school publications where students are often only available for a year or two before graduation. A few simple clicks of the mouse can dramatically change the look of the site, without having to spend hours scanning through endless PHP files.

Elizabeth Wilson, former student editor of The A-Blast at Annandale High School in Maryland, said, “The platform is really beautifully designed. The interface is straightforward and clear which allows us to focus on the design and improvement of the site, rather than spending time trying to figure out how to implement our ideas. It allows the webmaster to be much more efficient in their job… SNO clearly understands the needs of high-school papers like ours, and through the SNO FLEX platform they have given us all the tools, support, and freedom to build and run whatever site we can imagine.”

Mitch Eden, Kirkwood High School media adviser, chose SNO FLEX for its mobile capabilities. He said, “The Kirkwood Call decided to switch to the SNO FLEX design because our audience is mobile. They are viewing our site on their phone or a tablet. We wanted the look to complement their platform.”

Adaptive technology and responsive design aren’t the only benefits of this technology-driven platform. Jason Wallestad, newspaper adviser of the Knight Errant at Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and co-creator of SNO, shared his insights regarding design options available within the platform. “Beyond being a responsive design, the SNO FLEX platform offers its users complete design flexibility. It has six design presets that users can easily switch between, and every color, style, and font on the site can be changed without users having to change any code,” he said, also mentioning that the Google font library has been incorporated into the platform giving users access to more than 500 fonts.

Additionally, the platform is built entirely using drag-and-drop widgets, making home page redesigns simple and allowing newspapers to custom tailor their unique look to the news that presents itself any given day. Gone are the days when a simple tweak to the site meant hours of searching through code. SNO FLEX gives high-school newspapers and other publications the freedom to create their own look and the technology to make that look shine on any device.

About School Newspapers Online (SNO)
Founded by a scholastic newspaper adviser, SNO has been providing schools and organizations with affordable, user-friendly online publishing solutions since 2008. Their platform is ideal for those looking to create or enhance their online presence. Each customized website is built on the WordPress publishing platform and features mobile responsive design and a variety of tools enabling layout and font changes, video embedding and more. SNO brings the functionality and design possibilities of major newspaper sites to universities and schools across the nation at an affordable price.

To learn more about SNO please visit: www.schoolnewspapersonline.com