Ask Mike

In this special WYPN crossover episode, host Mike Taylor teams up with Jim Jordan, of Yearbook Chat with Jim, to talk about leveling up your yearbook! They bring in yearbook experts do discuss the possibilities and ways yearbook staffs can make improvements. They also speak to advisers and staffs about the ways they want to Level Up their yearbooks for 2020!

Get some help achieving your goals. Enter the Walsworth Yearbooks Level Up contest at walsworthyearbooks.com/level-up and you could win a visit from Mike and Jim!

Creating a yearbook is fun, but most staffs can't accomplish that without the funds raised from sales!

In this episode, host Mike Taylor speaks to students at several different schools about how they sell and market their yearbooks. 

Find Ask Mike on Twitter, @yrbkmiketaylor and don't forget to use #AskMike. 

Host Mike Taylor spends a lot of time traveling from yearbook workshop to yearbook workshop all over the United States. At two recent workshops, one in California and one in Florida, he was especially impressed with the editors at Saugus High School and Freedom High School. So he interviewed them!

These students already have impressive yearbook careers. They shared their experiences and their expectations for their 2020 yearbook. 

Ask Mike is back and ready to talk about yearbooks! Host Mike Taylor, CJE, kicks off season three with interviews done at the summer yearbook workshop in El Paso, Texas. 

In this episode, Mike interviews a great group of students about their yearbook hopes, dreams and fears for the 2020 school year. 

What makes a great theme? In this episode Mike Taylor, CJE, answers the questions and walks you through how to find a great theme for your 2020 book.

Taylor explains his theme-finding exercise that’s broken down into seven-minute increments. You can get a powerpoint presentation with even more inspiration. Just ask him! Email Mike at [email protected] or find him on Twitter, @yrbkmiketaylor.

Plus, Mike explains what “What’s the T?” really means (check it out at the 34 minute mark).

Recorded live at the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Anaheim on April 26, 2019. Host Mike Taylor's session from the conference floor. 

Featuring 12 "micro-interviews" with yearbook advisers and staffs, Mike asked the all-important question, "How has journalism helped you?"

Some yearbook staffs impress year after year, despite staff changes or a new adviser. So how do they do it?

Mike Taylor answers the question in this episode! He sat down with staff members from three Florida schools that are frequent award winners: Hagerty, J.W. Mitchell and Palm Harbor University High School.

The eight yearbook editors in this podcast share their methods for creating excellent yearbooks and ensuring next year’s will be even better, even if they won’t be there any more because they graduated!

Looking for something to do with your students after your yearbook is complete? Consider creating a podcast! In this episode, host Mike Taylor and Samantha Jo Berry, the publications adviser at Bridgeland High School in Houston, Texas, discuss the ins and outs of podcasting.

That's right, it's a podcast about podcasting!

Podcasts hold enormous educational value for students. They teach important skills like listening and storytelling. Plus, they're fun to create and don't actually require any special equipment!

Mike and Sam walk through the ins and outs of podcasting, and why they're a great project for journalism students.

Four years ago, the yearbook program at Williamsville North High School in Williamsville, New York, was fine. They weren’t creating award-winning or journalistic yearbooks, but their yearbook club was creating image-based books that the community liked well enough. However, that wasn’t good enough for adviser Erin DeVantier. Once her eyes were opened to the possibilities journalistic yearbooks offer, she brought on English teacher Kate Curcio to kick their yearbook program into high gear.

It worked. Their second-ever journalistic yearbook is a CSPA Crown finalist. Erin, Kate, and this year’s EIC Serena Leatherbarrow shared their experience turning their yearbook around with Ask Mike host Mike Taylor, CJE.

Season Two of Ask Mike kicks off with a bang! Host Mike Taylor, CJE, discusses the importance of Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) and the services they offer with Executive Director Ed Sullivan.

Mike and Ed cover the benefits of being a CSPA member, the difference between their critiques and contests, and dive into the details of the upcoming annual Spring Convention.

You can learn more about CSPA at cspa.columbia.edu. You can find Mike on Twitter @yrbkmiketaylor. Ask him a question using the hashtag #AskMike.