Hello from Kansas!

Hi everyone! My name is Laura Schwinn and I am from a small city in east-central Kansas called Emporia--home of famous newspaper editor William Allen White. We're located pretty much halfway between Kansas City and Wichita (if any of you know where those are). I teach journalism at the high school I attended and just finished my 8th year of teaching--one year in a rural high school in north central Kansas and the rest at Emporia High School. I currently teach two introduction to journalism classes and advise the yearbook, newspaper and photojournalism staffs. Our newspaper has been printing since 1910 and our yearbook since 1911 (so we will be celebrating our 100th volume of the yearbook this year!)

I'm looking forward to meeting all of you and gaining so much knowledge at this institute that I can bring back to share with my students. Areas I would like to focus some of my efforts include:

1. Grading - I seem to always struggle with this. I'm still in search of a system that works well for me and give students quality feedback which will help them grow as journalists.

2. On-line Publication - We took a small step this year with doing some web content, but I would love to continue to expand this so we can provide our student body with more access to what is going on at EHS.

3. Design - I would like to really spend some time working more with inDesign. I know the basics of the program fairly well, but I would like to see what all is possible and learn how to better instruct my students on the design aspect of journalism.

4. Just more "stuff" - the textbook I currently have for my introduction courses is the journalism book that I used 15 years ago when I was a freshman in high school. I'm looking forward to all of the knowledge, activities, etc., that I will be able to bring back to use with my students.

I can't believe the institute begins in less than 2 weeks. I can't wait to get to Phoenix and meet everyone.

Laura Schwinn
Emporia High School
Emporia, Kan.