Like teachers, our challenge is competing for attention
It's an old saw that journalists are people who aren't good at math, didn't want to take it in college. Add foreign language to the list, at least when I was groping about for a major.
I'll admit I still cringe a bit inwardly when I see a reporter pumped about a story about kids getting "pumped" about math, according to the Barrington Middle School teacher teaching the online program unveiled in Friday's editions by staff writer Madhu Krishnamurthy. Apparently, some kids still cringe a bit at the prospect of math class, so it can be a challenge to get all but the math geeks fully involved.
As one might expect, the program launched by the Khan Academy, is big on YouTube videos and games, but generated enough of a buzz that more than 45,000 students in the Chicago area are participating in the program, called LearnStorm. It's supposed to supplement math class, but Madhu talked to a Fenton High School teacher who's so impressed he made it his curriculum.
"It was as if someone flipped a switch," said Peter Carzoli, who has about 250 students in the program. The 20-year teacher told Madhu traditional books and lecturing just weren't cutting it, at least not across the board. The visuals and other aspects of the program, a nine-week-long "challenge" in which students collect points not just for being math-profficient but also for trying hard, are not unlike that of a video game, Carzoli said.
And not unlike all our reporters, Madhu has a wide array of stories to pursue. She covers our two biggest school districts and the state board of education, and admits she has "an inner geek" that drew her to this story. She knew of the Khan Academy years ago, from watching a presentation by academy founder Sal Khan and bankroller Bill Gates. She passed it along to her nieces and nephews, who use the site to practice math.
"I knew that educators rave about this resource, and found some enthusiastic suburban teachers to talk about it," Madhu said.
It dawned on me, though, that our presentation of a math story - and many of our stories - is not unlike what the Khan Academy is doing to get students stoked about math. It's a new challenge to us to find ways to get readers interested, especially in this digital age, in stories about math and other topics. (Next week I'll be writing about the importance of good penmanship.)
Seriously, gone are the days when we simply craft a story in a way that will draw in readers. And may I say, on a topic such as math, that's no mean feat. Photos continue to be part of the deal, but now it's more than taking a shot of the enthusiastic teacher in her classroom. Staff photographer Mark Welsh not only took shots of seventh-grade teacher Meagan Stass at work, he also video recorded Meagan explaining the program and incorporated enthusiastic student Ally Butirro into the video.
We now do some fairly intricate testing of what headlines draw online readers. After the story initially posted, we changed around some headlines, added keywords to pique the interest of people surfing the web. In fact, we have a consultant helping us learn ways to get better at our Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, as those in the know call it. For the uninitiated or disinterested, that's the art of getting your stuff to pop up near the top when a surfer Googles, say, "math" (unlikely) or "Khan Academy" (much better, though it's questionable how many people are looking for this in the first place. And so it goes).
There's more. Madhu also found a couple YouTube videos used in the math challenge and attached them to the online version of her story.
And as they say in the late-night infomercials, there's even more! Madhu talked about her story on the Daily Herald's regular Thursday night interview on WBBM Newsradio 780 AM and 105.9 FM.
Go to their website, chicago.cbslocal.com/audio/daily-herald-interview/ and give a listen. She doesn't sound geeky at all.
jdavis@dailyherald.com