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Sun, Apr 26 2015 00:46:47

Teach-a-Thon: Journalism Interactive

Christian Bryant, anchor at KOMU and Digital Content Producer at Newsy, hosted the Teach-A-Thon Session, which included classroom tips on teaching digital journalism. Professors from 11 different universities presented their own creative strategies and tools for teaching digital journalism.

  2. Assistant professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut, Marie Shanahan, discussed a three-part process to visualizing information. First, she has her students create a lyrical word cloud of their favorite song through the app Tagxedo.Then, students map a story through Google Maps by plotting their hometown locations. Shanahan also utilizes the free online software Infogr.am and has students choose a University data set to illustrate through a graphic. She reminded the audience that visualization is more than just an attractive clickable. Context is crucial to storytelling, and must be included.
  4. Aaron Manfull of the Journalism Education Association didn’t have the first impression of Snapchat, but decided to take note of the emerging social media platform once the Washington Post caught on. Manfull spoke about how Snapchat is helpful for reaching younger age demographics that may not be reading their news in newspapers. Snapchat includes many creative storytelling techniques, allowing users to take a photo, video, add a caption as well as doodle. Many newsrooms use Snapchat stories for live coverage, and to showcase additional features behind published stories.
  6. Steven Johnson of University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications explained how you can use Brain Mapping as a tool for story framing. Neuroscience has shown how the prefrontal cortex maps out different areas of the brain and how our thoughts and connotations are connected. Johnson explained how you could use this method for pre-reporting and pre-writing by charting out all the ways the story can be told. You can make this visual through post it notes, colors and lines. This structures the connections of the brain.
  9. Other speakers included Juli James, professor at Arizona State University’s Center for Games & Impact who commented on the merging of learning game design and journalism. Erika Lee teaches web design at Indiana University and reminds her web design students the importance of failure. The University of Denver’s Andrew Matranga discussed the Open Book Classroom, a method that creates transparency and allows for collaboration among students. Leigh Wright and Melody Shemberger have students at Murray State University answer questions and interact on Twitter.
  15. Professors Ed Madison and Mark Blaine allowed their students at the University of Oregon to travel to Cuba, Alaska and Ghana and learn by immersing themselves in journalism. Mark Poepsel of Southern Illinois University discussed augmented and alternate reality and how this relates to our view of journalism.
  20. With a variety of different backgrounds, each speaker gave their own unique perspective towards teaching journalism in a world of emerging technologies.
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