Convergence journalism 1A

Whenever people start reminiscing over the good old days in education, I wonder if they realize what's going on in some outstanding classrooms today.

Here's a short biography of the Teacher of the Year, who is a high school journalism instructor. Before you look at the Web site for this high school newspaper, remember back to what your school paper looked like and gain an appreciation for the challenges facing today's students and teachers.

"While earning his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa, Alan Weintraut served as communications director for Project Renewal, an inner-city children's advocacy group in Davenport, Iowa. After working in communications with a Washington, D.C. labor union, Weintraut started a journalism and film program at Annandale High School in Northern Virginia. Since 1994, he has advised The A-Blast student newspaper and the Signal video yearbook. Weintraut's students follow the convergence journalism model, creating web pages, podcasts, newspapers, streaming video and multimedia DVDs in a fully loaded publications lab."