Paperless High School Newspapers!

The kids are alright.

They get it. They fundamentally understand this paperless thing. That's not to say they understand what to do with it any more than any of us do. But, for the most part, if you are under the age of 18, you pretty much 'get' the paperless thing.

We're talking about high schools full of kids who've never bought a CD, let alone an LP or cassette. We're talking about kids who get their movies, games, and entertainment via a browser. We're talking about kids who have no idea what a card catalog is and for whom the 'address' of a publication naturally implies its url.

So, why would we think they'd have any problem going online when it comes to that most storied of high school publications: the student newspaper?

Our kids here at school have just gone to an online edition. And immediately, the buzz around here has been about the RSS feed, subscriptions beyond the immediate school community, and the future of editorial and opinion blogs.

This is all good stuff. High schoolers are online; so why shouldn't high school life be online? For so long we heard nothing but fretful trepidation when it came to student behavior online (as though ignoring it would make it go away). Now, students are creating content and publishing and building audiences on their own terms on the Web.

And that's the way it should be.

Especially with a student newspaper. Because you don't join the newspaper to learn about newspapers; you join the newspaper to make newspapers (the learning is inherent in the doing).

Furthermore, now that the paper is online, it's the kids themselves who are going to prove their worth. They are going to be the ones who demonstrate to all of us what it means to be a digital citizen. No one has to mediate for them; no one has to tell us what kids think.

They are doing it themselves.

They get it.

And in an age when the pro newspapers are still trying to figure out what's going on, it's great to see kids who already get it.