Case Study: LifeLabs Learning

Weekly Newsletter, Content Curation: School Newspapers Online/SNO Sites

THE SAME OLD CENSORSHIP, THE BEST YEARBOOK PHOTO, AND POLITICALLY CORRECT COMEDY: THIS WEEK’S FRESH POWDER REPORT

Stuck in a censorship loop:

The Playwickian student paper at Neshaminy High School, PA recently endured censorship from school administration after staff members made the decision to omit the name of their school’s mascot – the Redskins – from the paper. School leadership gave direct orders to the editors of the publication to use the full name in reference to an article covering a talent competition called “Mr. Redskin.” This is not the first time censorship of this nature has happened at Neshaminy – the school’s new policy is to give administration the final say when it comes to approving or denying stories that run in the paper as a response to past circumstances of similar nature. Even though administration specified the mascot name must be used in the article, the staff chose to publish the article with the mascot’s name redacted – only to have school leaders remove the article from the Playwickian’s website immediately. Attorney advocate Adam Goldstein with the Student Law Press Center claims that this is an unconstitutional act perpetrated by Neshaminy’s administration, and could potentially lead to a lawsuit in federal court.

Government gets involved in discrimination policy:

The Obama administration has issued a directive dictating that every public school district nationwide must allow transgender students to use the bathrooms they decide best align with their gender identity and expression. This declaration is signed by Justice and Education department officials, and will explain what schools can do to ensure that their students will be protected from discrimination. Schools that do not abide by this administration’s new decree could face lawsuits, or even a loss of federal aid.

The best-looking picture in the yearbook:

A seventh-grade student in Louisiana with muscular dystrophy has two pictures in his middle school yearbook – one picture for him, and one picture for his beloved service dog, Presley. Presley accompanies Seph to school everyday, and yearbook adviser Sonya Hogg couldn’t imagine leaving such a significant member of the student body out of the yearbook. Presley, a 6-year-old golden doodle, is trained to help Seph by doing things such as switching lights on and off, fetch shoes or clothes, and run for help if Seph falls and is unable to get up. Hogg describes Presley as “another very quiet student,” and believed it just made sense to include the dog in the yearbook because he’s a part of the school.

College publication comedy vs. political correctness:

This past year alone, at least two college publications have faced disciplinary action after publishing “humor” pieces that were deemed offensive; at UCSD, funding for all student publications was cut after one of those publications released an article mocking students requesting safe spaces on campus, and contained racial slurs. Michigan Technical University’s student newspaper, the Daily Bull, published a satirical piece titled “Sexually Harassed Man Pretty Okay with Situation,” and contained an offensive list meant to explain how to tell if women are “interested” in men, including items such as “she only screams a little.” The Bull was placed on probation for two years and funding for the publication is being withheld. College campuses are shining examples of free speech – but when “free speech” is used as an excuse to cross comedic boundaries and offend, rather than spread useful and relevant information to the masses, has it gone too far? Is that truly utilizing freedom of speech? Most papers have adopted political correctness policies of some sort in order to avoid this kind of offensive comedy, though some comedies and writers believe any type of restriction – no matter how necessary – is still an infringement of their first amendment rights.

These things also happened this week:

Wondering what the best way to get out of a speeding ticket is? Get cast as the lead in a television show with cliffhangers, apparently.

In a national test of technology and engineering literacy administered by the government in 2014, girls outranked boys when it came to proficiency scores.

Scientists are trialing psychedelic drugs as a means to treat depression – groovy.

Marketing Letter, Direct Mailer: School Newspapers Online/SNO Sites

Greetings, journalism adviser!

We’re SNO Sites and we think you’re pretty swell. Honestly. Overseeing a school journalism program is tough. If you’re like most advisers we know (and we know quite a few), your job is a constant juggling act. You’re managing deadlines, wrangling editors, and delegating stories. You’re lecturing, grading, and trying to teach your students that Wikipedia isn’t a “source.” And you’re likely doing all this on the budget of a lemonade stand.

What we’re trying to say is that we appreciate you. And that’s why we’re inviting you to learn more about SNO at the NSPA/JEA High School Journalism Convention in Denver this year.

Oh yeah, we’ll be there. In fact, it’s our favorite time of the year. The SNO team is made up of more than just tech geeks; we’re current journalism advisers, educators, writers, and news junkies. Since 2008, SNO has provided affordable online publishing, hosting, and support for school news programs worldwide. Our clients range from junior highs to prestigious universities. Many of their publications are winning national journalism awards--and we don’t want to brag, but we like to think we’re a small part of their success. We take care of the technology, allowing news staffs to focus on the stuff that matters: the journalism.

Long story short, here’s what we have to offer:

FLEX: versatile, intuitive, WordPress-based websites. We’ll set you up with a site that’s totally adaptable to your school’s needs. Our sites are so easy to use; you’ll be publishing in no time. There’s no complicated code to learn. You can add pictures, format text, insert pull quotes, embed media and more--all with a few mouse clicks. Ready to publish a story? Hit the “publish” button. Seriously. That’s it. Plus, we think our sites are pretty dang good-looking. But if you don’t agree, the design and layout are 100% customizable.

FLOW: all-in-one newsroom management system. Think of FLOW as the whiteboard of your dreams. Without a concrete news cycle, it can be tough to keep track of what each student is working on. And how do you handle grading when everyone’s got a different deadline, a different project? FLOW lets you assign stories and tasks, view student progress, and implement a fair-but-flexible grading system. Students see only the tasks that apply to them, while you oversee everything like the benevolent news guru you are.

Unlimited, bottomless support. Seriously: chat us, email us, or send us a singing telegram. We’ll always respond within four business hours. We’ll protect your site from spam, viruses, and poltergeists. And with 99.9% server uptime, you’ll never have to worry about your site going down when you need it the most.

We make it easy for you to try it out before you make any decisions; visit our website at www.snosites.com, take a totally free (commitment-wise and financially) test drive, or sign up for a live demo! Better yet, do all three. Even better, stop by our booth in Denver and check out our sites in person. Shower us with your questions, hit us with your concerns. Or just say hello, and get to know us. We look forward to meeting you!

Technical Report, Direct Mailer: School Newspapers Online/SNO Sites

It’s time to talk tech.

But please, don’t let that deter you from reading the content of this e-mail. Before you close out of this screen in anticipation of boredom and big words that mean absolutely nothing to you, remember, we are talking about the lifeblood of your sites here!

What’s so great about our hosting, you ask? Here’s what you need to know:

Servers. We’ve got ‘em. And they’re good.

Each of our servers has their own IP address, which means you won’t have to worry about your site ever being blacklisted for sharing and IP address with some other potentially less-than-reputable website. You may think that’s not something you need to worry about – and with us, it’s not. We don’t share our IP addresses and servers like some of the discount hosting sites do. Your IP is blacklist-free.

Green is for go, all of the time.

We have our own dedicated RAM, which basically means that you never have to worry about too much traffic slowing your site down. Our RAM can handle it. In fact, with our new hosting company, you should be noticing that your sites are loading even faster than before.

Like Switzerland.

Our servers use carrier neutral data lines, which means that you don’t have to worry about one of those major data carriers swooping in and shutting you down. We’re neutral, so all of the different carriers have lines coming in and out.

Our firewalls aren’t messing around.

We really have you covered. The most common type of virtual attack happens when a server is flooded with too many requests and, as a result, shuts down. We have firewalls in place that detect and mitigate these kinds of attacks. Our firewalls are so effective, in fact, some of our own clients have experienced them first hand. If there are too many failed login attempts on the same site, our firewalls get concerned for your site’s well-being and shut you out. Don’t worry, though; we have a solution if that ever happens to you! We can whitelist forgetful students so they won’t cause any more shutouts. And, in the rare event that your site does get hacked, we will fix it. Seriously, you don’t have to worry about a thing. We are constantly monitoring our servers, and if your site ever goes down, we’ll probably know about it before you do. We’ll even go and update your WordPress if you forget, though we really appreciate it when you do that yourself – it keeps your site safe!

See? That wasn’t so bad! Hopefully know you have at least a bare-bones understanding of all the ways we try and keep you up and running, and protected. And you can trust us, because we love this stuff!

Anyway, you get the idea; we focus on the technical mumbo-jumbo, you focus on teaching journalism. Everybody wins.

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