Redaktionen - in English

- an internetbased editorial platform for schools

10:44 - 30. jul. 2009 | Louise Abildgaard Grøn

In October 2007 Ekstra Bladet launched a new educational tool. Redaktionen is an internet-based editorial platform where schools produce their own newspaper - totally free of charge. It is the only product of this kind in the world.

Presenting Redaktionen

Today most schools produce newspapers in class – using a variety of software. With this new revolutionizing platform from Ekstra Bladet, the students learning process is supported and helps students follow a professional process and produce professional results.

In Redaktionen students develop their writing and editing skills in a very flexible way. The students work in editorial groups, allocate tasks and responsibilities, plan, make mind maps, take notes, send in photos from the field and are guided by professionals from the newspaper n videoclips and interactive assistants. All adds authenticity and engagement to the classroom education and ensures students meet appropriate curricular goals.

Finally, they layout their newspapers online and experience increasing pressure as deadline draws near. 2-3 days after deadline Ekstra Bladet delivers 1000 colour prints of the paper – directly at the school.

The platform is structured around 9 phases which lead the pupils through a professional production process. In addition the platform contains a section targeted teachers as well as an administrative interface for Ekstra Bladet.

The students decide the contents of the paper. They may dig deep into local issues or deal with European or international politics. By distributing as many as 1000 copies the class will be able to introduce and discuss agenda-setting topics of importance to the local community. With this project Ekstra Bladet aims at demonstrating the continued importance of the newspaper in the media landscape.

To ensure Redaktionen meets the national standards for Danish and Social Studies, it has been developed in cooperation with Danish School of Education.

Branding Ekstra Bladet

Redaktionen is also a strategic branding project targeting future media consumers. The target is to establish Ekstra Bladet as the favourite news provider – now and in the future. Therefore it has been essential to visualize the tie between Redaktionen and Ekstra Bladet. We have done this by placing our logo and using our own newspaper design for all newspapers produced in Redaktionen, by clearly making Ekstra Bladet the sender on all campaign-materials and by using actual pictures of employees and offices at Ekstra Bladet.

Results

Since the launch of Redaktionen in October 2007 more than 1000 papers have been produced. This amounts to more than 1,000,000 newspapers distributed among children, teachers and parents – and in some cases the newspapers have even been distributed to the general public in cities across the country.

Ekstra Bladet established a subsite – ekstrabladet.dk/skole – containing information about all activities relevant to schools. Activity on this subsite has increased by approx. 350 % since the launch of Redaktionen (compared to the same period one year earlier). The number of unique visitors has increased by 200 % to more than 15.000 in the first two months after the launch.

On several occasions student-produced newspapers have succeeded in setting the agenda in their local community. For example a school in the small city of Assens published a story on a dangerous intersection close to the school. The students distributed their newspaper free of charge in the city in the afternoon. As a result a regional newspaper – Fyns Stiftstidende - pursued the story in their weekend edition.

Finally Redaktionen has received outstanding reviews from the users.

- 100 % find the program very good or good.

- 91 % of the teachers that have used Redaktionen are very satisfied or satisfied with the educational level of the product.

- 80 % of the teachers find Redaktionen much better than other newspaper projects.