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The Byron Nelson High School newspaper The Paw Print has taken off this year and found themselves in the clouds, or rather, THE cloud. By utilizing Google Docs and Google Drive this year in the classroom they have streamlined their writing and editing process and allowed for better management of their newspaper. Their teacher, Tammy Litchfield, has pushed the students to adjust to using this digital method of data sharing and editing. "The best thing is the immediacy of it," says Tammy. "Editing is instant, feedback is instant, and everything is expedited. We can get things done quickly and in real time."

Oliver, one of the newspaper's co-editors in chief, breaks down the process the students use when creating a new article. "First, the author types his story into a Google Doc which is shared with the editors and teacher. The copy editor then suggests grammatical and formatting corrections in the doc by making comments or highlighting errors. The author is notified by the document that it has been edited, so they fix any errors after discussing them with the copy editor. Then they notify the editor in chief that it is ready for review.  The editor adds content comments and addition edits and collaborates with the author to finalize the article. Once this process is complete the doc is then accessed by the design editor who places the finished article into its proper place using Adobe InDesign." The teacher can go in at any point during this process and interact in the same way, using Google Drive's comment system to leave suggestions and notify contributors.  As Oliver said, "It's way better than using email, the comments in docs are amazing and have really streamlined our process.  We can edit and work in real time. It's really a step forward to go fully online and better facilitate the process."

Not only has Google Drive revolutionized the newspaper's creation process, but it is also helping to facilitate their plans for having a fully online print version of the newspaper next year. Sarah, the section editor, just finished designing and creating the new Paw Print website that will host the online version of the paper next year. "The online version will be checked more than print and give us the opportunity to stay on top of the news," said Sarah.  Thomas, the Social Media Director, says that the online version "will sync with our Twitter account, @thePawPrintBNHS, so we can tweet out new stories as they are added."

The newspaper team here at Byron Nelson High School envisions a more interactive and modern type of paper, one that will be highly visible to students, teachers, and parents alike.  They have made some huge leaps forward in taking the paper to the next level digitally, and those improvements will continue into next year. With the Paw Print now in the cloud, the sky's the limit on how far they can go.