October 27-30, 2026
SC EdTech 2026
Myrtle Beach, SC -- Myrtle Beach Convention Center
Journalism curriculum
The journalism class and the publication are the same class.
Most yearbook tools hand an adviser a binder that lives beside the work. Homeroom puts the lessons inside the software: a short lesson appears on the exact screen a student is on — the editor, the photo screen, the caption box, the newsroom board — so the lesson and the real work are the same action. It is the edge that wins a first-time, time-strapped adviser, and it is honest about which standards it meets.
Aligning to a standard is not the same as a credential or automatic course credit — and we say so, so a school never over-claims in a board meeting.
Live today
Every card in this section is built and running. It is the part an adviser can teach on this semester — not a roadmap, not a demo reel.
34 lessons that teach on the page
Thirty-four lessons ship today. Each one waits on the exact screen where the skill is used — the caption box, the photo tray, the story pitch, the layout grid — and surfaces only when a student is doing that work, so the lesson and the real assignment are one action. A lesson runs two or three short screens: the journalism principle in plain language, a worked example pulled from real student publications, and one decision the student makes before it closes. No side tab, no separate login, no binder to lose. Shipped
A standards alignment report
One report shows how each lesson matches journalism, English, career, technology, and media-literacy standards plus the school’s own state standards — across 51 states and areas. Each row names the lesson, the standard code, the exact wording the standard uses, and a short rationale for why the lesson teaches toward it. Every code links to its public source document, so an administrator can check the claim during a curriculum review rather than take it on faith. Shipped
Honest matching: align is not certify
Every lesson carries a few conservative national standard codes it demonstrably teaches toward, each with a written rationale — and the product is explicit that a match is not a credential, a contest rating, or automatic course credit. We show the evidence a review asks for; we never claim to grant what a district, a state, or an awarding body grants. Shipped
Grades that post back to your gradebook
As a student finishes a lesson, completion is recorded per student and per lesson, walled by the single-school student-privacy rules and summed for the adviser into a section view they can read and adjust — then grades post back automatically to the gradebooks schools already use, so nothing is re-keyed by hand. The adviser keeps the final say on the grade. Shipped
Homeroom authors its own lessons and tags them to a multi-organization standards registry. We do not reproduce a membership group’s copyrighted, members-only lesson text — we mirror the structure the field already trusts and do the alignment work an adviser would otherwise do by hand.
What one lesson looks like on the page
Because the lesson lives on the screen where the work happens, it stays short and specific — the opposite of a chapter a student reads once and forgets. The first time a staffer opens the caption box, a three-screen lesson opens with it:
- The principle, in plain language. What a caption is for, and the two things a good one always answers — who is in the frame, and why the moment mattered.
- A worked example. A weak caption and a strong one side by side, drawn from real student publications, with the single edit that moved one to the other.
- One decision. The student writes the caption in front of them before the lesson closes — the practice is the assignment, not a quiz bolted on afterward.
The same multi-level lesson engine groups those lessons into units and scopes each one to the student’s level, so a first-year staffer and a third-year editor working the same spread are not handed the same screen. That engine is live today; the full deep-content unit library that loads onto it is still coming, and we name it as coming below.
The artifact a curriculum review actually asks for
Scholastic journalism has no single national standard with the force of the core English standards, so legitimacy is assembled by crosswalk — and Homeroom does the crosswalk for you. An adviser who picks their state gets an administrator-ready alignment report that reads, in plain terms, “this lesson satisfies this national standard, this English-language standard, and your state’s standard” — with every code checkable against the public source. That report is the document a department chair or a school board can sign off on, generated from the real, tested state of the lessons rather than a marketing claim.
The report crosswalks against the standards families a department chair recognizes:
ELA— the English language-arts and literacy standards your state adopted: writing, revision, speaking and listening, and judging the credibility of a source.CTE— career and technical education pathways in media, communications, and audio-visual production.Ed-tech— the educational-technology standards for digital citizenship, responsible use, and publishing to a real audience.Media literacy— standards for evaluating, verifying, and producing media, where your state names them.Journalism— the scholastic-journalism and communications standards specific to your state.
Align is not certify. A match is a documented, checkable claim that a lesson teaches toward a public standard. It is not a credential, not accreditation, not a contest rating, and not automatic course credit — those belong to your district, your state, and the bodies that award them. We hand a curriculum committee the evidence it asks for and stop exactly there.
How completion reaches your gradebook
The roster is the one your school already keeps — brought in by the district’s single sign-on or a standard student-information-system import, so there is no second list to maintain. From there the loop is short:
- Each lesson a student finishes is recorded per student and per lesson as they work.
- That record is walled by the same single-school privacy rules as the rest of the student record — a staffer, a co-adviser at another building, or a studio rep never sees a section that is not theirs.
- Completion is summed into a section view the adviser can read, weight, and adjust.
- Scores post back to the gradebook the school already runs, so nothing is re-keyed by hand.
Completion is evidence the work was done, not a grade handed down over the adviser’s head. The adviser sets the weight and keeps the final say — the same reason we are careful to say a standards match is not automatic course credit.
Coming — the deeper course
The lesson engine and the alignment report are live; the full multi-level course loads onto them next. We name these as coming, never as available.
The deep-content units
Full units in reporting and news-gathering, interviewing, writing and news style, journalism ethics and sourcing, press law and student rights, design, and photojournalism — each written as the source of record, with its own readings, examples, and a short assessment, and being loaded onto the live engine as lesson cards one unit at a time. Coming
Three levels in one course
One curriculum in three forms — a scaffolded middle-school course that assumes no prior newsroom, a full high-school pathway, and an advanced honors form for the second- and third-year editors who already run the staff. Same standards spine, three depths, so a small program and a five-section powerhouse are each taught in the right voice. Coming
Year-long pacing plans
A ready-to-teach, week-by-week plan for a full school year at each level, with the real production calendar built in — the fall deadline, the winter spread, the spring distribution — so the lessons and the publication schedule move together. A first-time adviser can open it in August and teach through May without building the map themselves. Coming
On the conventions calendar
Upcoming conventions and conferences
The next confirmed dates for EdTech & Curriculum programs, taken directly from each organization’s official page -- nothing invented or carried forward from a prior year.
January 26-29, 2027
FETC 2027
Orlando, FL -- Orange County Convention Center
January 31 - February 3, 2027
TCEA 2027 Convention & Exposition
San Antonio, TX -- Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center
We’re honest about what’s shipped
The teach-as-you-build coach with 34 live lessons, the standards alignment report across 51 states and areas, the honest align-is-not-certify stance, the multi-level lesson engine, and grade passback are live today. The full deep-content units, the three-levels-in-one course, and the year-long pacing plans are coming — we will not call them shipped until they are.