On October 27 students in News Journalism and Yearbook visited the University of Iowa for the IHSPA Fall Conference. This conference focuses on two aspects of journalism: Yearbook and Newspaper.

The Iowa High School Press Association’s mission is to encourage interest in journalism and secondary school publications.

This year’s fall conference includes multiple speakers, discussing topics such as “Experimentation in Student Media,” “Dunk the Deadlines,” and “You’re a Failure! (And That’s A Good Thing, Too…).”

The National Yearbook Adviser of the Year, Sarah Nichols, presented “Experimentation in Student Media.” According to the IHSPA website, in this session, “we’ll look at the questions students should be asking as they strive to produce reader-relevant media, operate in a competitive market and prepare for the 21st-century workforce.”

Nichols was awarded Adviser of the Year in 2011.  According to Journalism Education Association, “All the books Sarah has advised at Whitney High School have received Pacemaker awards from the National Scholastic Press Association and Gold Crown Awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Both awards are the highest the organizations give.”

Nichols was also the keynote speaker, starting the day off at 8:45. She gave student journalists goals for the day: ask “Why?,” consider “What if?,” try something new. One of her major points was to ask yourself one simple question: “Is it done, or is it great?” According to Nichols, this is something we all need to think about on a daily basis. She also discussed failure, and said, “It’s not really a failure, it’s a short-term road block.”

The first session I visited was You’re a Failure! (And That’s a Good Thing, Too…) presented by Brian Steffen, the Chairman of Journalism at Simpson College. Steffen had five reasons that failing is perfectly okay. The reasons include a lot of successful people have failed, you will learn and grow, failure teaches you resilience, toughens and prepares us, failure helps us change our direction. Multiple famous people including Jim Carrey, Katy Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Walt Disney, Jay-Z, Bill Gates, J.K. Rowling and many, many more failed often before they achieved greatness. Just because we fail once, does not mean our whole life is a failure. On the topic of resilience, Steffen pointed out that when we are 30, most of us will have jobs that haven’t even been invented yet at companies that do not yet exist. Failure teaches us how to evolve, and that’s a good thing.

My second session was “Best Practices for the Web,” presented by Jason Wallested, the co-founder of SNO sites, which is the platform we use for our site. One major point he discussed was social media platforms. Shocking to some, Facebook is the most engaging social media platform for SNO sites. The second most engaging site is Twitter. Wallested also discussed what makes a website great – which includes The ‘Quick Glance” Test. Elements of this test include no empty areas, photos on every story and Favicons.

My third session was by David Scrivner, a photojournalist based out of Iowa City, who presented “Smart Phone Photography.” During this breakout session. Scrivner discussed apps and tools to use to enhance your smartphone photography. He graduated from The University of Iowa with a B.A. in American Studies and a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications.

Scrivner is currently a Staff Photographer at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. According to his resume, his job is to “Photograph, caption and transmit spot news, sports and feature photos for print and online; capture and edit video to be displayed locally and for the Des Moines Register; coordinate with editors and producers in Des Moines for news and sports coverage in eastern Iowa; manage the paper’s monthly news, sports and photo freelance budgets.”

Scrivner listed nine apps that he has used or currently uses to enhance his photography: Histomatic, Instagram, Boomerang, Hyperlapse, VSCO, Snapseed, Photoshop, Fliterstorm, Composition Cam, Union, Diana and Tangent. After discussing the use of these apps, he showed a stunning example of a photographer that uses his phone. Pete Souza, the photographer for the White House uses Instagram to publish his photos of President Barack Obama.

Three students participated in On The Spot contests, including Alexsia Rosodo for the writing portion, Emma Riker for photography and Abbey Hanson for photography. These students wrote and took pictures at the conference and two, Riker and Hanson, placed in the finalist category for their contests.

Students spent the day learning and discussing topics, using social media and backchanneling with the social media hashtag #IHSPA16.