Poly Senior Propels School Paper into Smartphone Era



Connor McKnight, a senior at Polytechnic School who edits the school newspaper’s digital editions, has moved the Poly PawPrint into the smartphone era by developing an Apple-approved iPhone app,  one of only very few high school newspaper apps in the country available for download through iTunes.

McKnight acknowledged it was “strenuous, there are so many lines and lines of code” – but said the effort has paid off. The free app has been downloaded over 300 times, in countries as far away as Australia and Saudi Arabia.  He also developed an app for the Android market.

McKnight says that when Pawprint Editors-in-Chief Hayden Betts and Anna Wohl decided to up the game this year by reworking the graphics in print, he stepped in to help with the online and mobile editions.

Backed by computer-saavy freshman Ezra Rawitsch (who takes over next year after McKnight graduates), McKnight rebuilt the online version (http://polypawprint.com/Site/Home.html ) and started the arduous task of coding the mobile apps.

He quickly encountered a huge frustration:  lines and lines of coding would produce a vacant screen result if, somewhere in the formula, a single mistake had crept in.  But he persisted, and his results were approved by Apple.

Around the first of the year, he launched an improved version.

“The updates’s much slicker, you can now look at photostreams, sports photos, portraits,” he said. “Now we have it so that a student can send tips and photos.”

As the first semester unfolded, the new layouts in both print and online increased the role of the newspaper on Poly’s Upper School campus, McKnight said. “Almost one quarter of the high school has some sort of involvement” with the newspaper,  he said late last year.

McKnight has applied to the University of Southern California School of Journalism, among other college picks. He says he loves both journalism and politics and the idea of writing as a political columnist sounds ideal.

He won’t forget his years working on the Pawprint, especially the programming he completed this year.

“It’s one of those things that we were able to elevate this year, and it’s incredible,” he told Pasadena Now.

 

 

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