This fall marks my fifth year of teaching online and multimedia journalism courses to undergrads. Each semester, I overhaul and revamp my courses to try to keep them as fresh and up to date as I can. Here are a few new things for this year:
1. Focus on state of the industry
I’ve concluded that my students need a better understanding of what is going on in newsrooms and publications and where the news industry might be headed. I’ve added the website Nieman Journalism Lab: Pushing to the Future of Journalism as one of the primary texts for my class and the starting point for class discussions.
2. Going mobile
With a small grant from the Instructional Technology department at my university, I’ll be working to integrate smartphones and tablets into our journalism curriculum. Students will study best practices for creating news content for a variety of mobile devices, use smartphones for reporting assignments, and experiment with mobile reporting hardware and news apps. At the end of the project, we will create a mobile journalism field guide for our student reporters.
3. More video
Video skills are increasingly required for many entry-level jobs and even internships. This year, I’m using Kenneth Kobre’s new Videojournalism textbook for my multimedia workshop. Also members of my class will be assigned to work in teams with broadcast journalism students from an On-Camera Field Reporting class.
4. More entrepreneurial
Inspired by my recent research project on the entrepreneurial experiences of the founders of Technically Media, my students will be trying out new revenue models for student publications and marketing their work to other news organizations.