More Newspapers

So the other day I went into school to go through my mail and do a few things and I get a package from the local newspaper (The Atlanta Journal Constitution - the AJC) about their news for kids program.  I have a few teachers that use this program with their classes, they (used to) get a class set of newspapers delivered on Monday and the teachers would use them in different ways. One 2nd grade teacher has a cocoa and news time once a week where she makes hot cocoa and the class reads the paper together and then they talk about it - cool idea.

WELL, she will have to change her plans this year because the AJC is no longer sending paper editions to schools for their news for kids program - this year it is all electronic!

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

As I said before, although I LOVE technology and the web, I LOVE me some newspaper - the kind that you sit with on a Sunday morning with your coffee on the back deck. The kind that gets your fingers black.  The kind you can cut things out of for future use (I still have the clippings of my letter to the editor of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, circa 1985, it was criticizing a review of the Ratt/Bon Jovi concert -  tangible evidence that I have loved Jon Bon Jovi since 1985 - scary, I know!)

I know that the paper newspaper is going the way of cassette tape players and vcr's - they are still around, but on their last hurrah - this makes me sad. The other challenge is, most schools do not have a classroom set of computers in their classroom. So, doing a "newspaper" lesson will require time in the computer lab OR having the teacher project the electronic version using a projector (which in my school we will be getting in each classroom by the end December).

As far as I know, we will still be getting a daily copy of the newspaper for the media center, but there isn't much you can do with a whole class and one copy of the paper.

If newspapers are an endangered species, what is next, magazines?  Books?

In related news in the demise of the printed word, Monica at Educating Alice has a link to a debate on whether the Internet is helping literacy or hurting it - a very interesting debate!