Claro

US journalism professor Mindy McAdams asked this question on Twitter yesterday (28/04/2013):

How is it okay that journalism students are able to graduate without ever taking a real statistics or mathematics class?

She was quoting from this post by Katie Zhu, who’s studying computer science and journalism at Northwestern University. Zhu has an equally good follow-up question:

Why is there not more room in the curriculum for computer science or statistics specialities?

… and a pointer:

the bigger issue is leveraging the existing resources (outside of the j-school) at universities to supplement journalism curriculums.

Any thoughts?

The OJ3 team had a brief but useful session today at the start of the new term. We’re still finalising the schedule (I’m waiting for colleagues to confirm dates) but we know what we’ll be covering. We’re holding:

• two sessions on multimedia
• two sessions on data journalism (including one with Tony Hirst from the Open University. (Follow Tony on Twitter.)
• a session on SEO, based on the Google SEO Starter Guide
• a session on usability/accessibility
• our usual mid-term presentation
• a law refresher
• and a session with Shaun Lawson, director of Lincoln Social Computing. (Follow LiSC on Twitter.)

Development paths
We also looked at development paths for the projects.

• The Spentertainment project team clarified their aims (for me, not them, I should say – I was focusing on the ‘spent’ bit, rather than on the ‘entertainment’ bit, but the team stressed both sides – a useful correction). They said the reviews and news are as important as the price comparison function, perhaps more so in some ways? They want to look at site design and functionality.
• The BORE team want to develop an app for smartphones and tablets. This will be a great exercise in commissioning and collaboration for the team (although they might have a go at building it it themselves – they’ve already roughed out a design.)
• Gaplincs are looking at pushing the entrepreneurial side of their project. They have some good merchandising ideas, and are planning to see the university’s student enterprise services to get some business advice. They’re also thinking of an app.

Reflective logs
These are all great ideas, and – crucially- will feed the logs as much as the projects.
We stressed at this meeting that we need to work hard on the logs this term. They’re 50 per cent of the mark, and so, logically, should get 50 per cent of the effort and attention.

Not a bad start?

LSJ colleagues will know I’m doing a survey of how we all use social media in our teaching. I thought I’d start this survey via my blog.

Just us
This survey isn’t about how students use social media themselves. I know that in my production modules, for example, they mostly use Facebook for project management, scheduling meetings, etc.

And they use Twitter for finding sources and stories. I imagine this is true across the school.

It’s really about our using social media as a teaching aid.

What are we talking about here?
I’d think we need a fairly broad range. I’d want to know how we use:

• Blogs
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google Drive (for writing and editing, collaboration, etc.)
• Social bookmarking services (Delicious, Diigo)
• Archive and read-later services (Evernote, Instapaper)
• Cloud servers (Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive)
• Multimedia services (YouTube, Soundcloud, Flickr)

And anything else you can think of that I’ve missed?

Owning up
And I’ll start off my admitting that, aside from blogging, I don’t use social media at all for teaching purposes. I don’t even tweet about my classes.

I already know I should be doing more, but I stuck to Blackboard this term.

This has obvious advantages for management and admin purposes (easy to contact students, set up groups, accept hand-ins, etc.).

But we all know its disadvantages: it’s not that intuitive, and while it’s fine for distributing basic documents (handbooks, etc.), it’s a bit clunky for things like sharing URLs, or quick notes.

Next term
I’m planning to set up Facebook groups for all my modules next term and next year, and to work more systematically with social bookmarking and archive services.

Any thoughts?
So … what’s everyone else doing, or planning to do?

The Guardian is on great form today. This piece laments the lack of ‘positive European journalism relating to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’.

I wonder why that is?

It couldn’t be the state-induced famines, could it? Or their electoral system?

The concentration camps don’t help either, I suppose. Nor do the executions.

Still, at least Pyongyang can count on the comrades at Guardian towers to redress the balance.

A piece in today’s Press Gazette carried this barbed (but entirely accurate) comment from New Statesman editor editor Jason Cowley on the Guardian’s … er … business model:

‘I could get 4m users a day if we were losing £40m a year and had 650 journalists.’

Yes. Exactly.

Here’s an interesting piece of investigative journalism (video) that investigates journalism.

In fact, it investigates Guardian journalism, or, at least, Guardian finances.

It’s got some good footage of the Guardian’s shiny new building.

Just the outside, though.

They wouldn’t allow any filming inside.

I reproduce below the intro to a blog post on the Guardian’s Joris Luyendijk banking blog:

A psychologist compares the ‘twisted minds’ of some executives to those of paedophiles he has tried to treat in the past

I’ve long regarded much of the Guardian as beyond parody. Its Comment is Free site in particular seems to be dedicated to testing to destruction the notion that anyone can publish anything on the internet.

But the above is more than beyond parody; it’s beneath contempt.

Today’s the day. The introductory session kicks off at 5:00 pm with all three team members – Jane Croft (PR), Gary Stevens (broadcast) and I. The lecture will run for an hour, followed by a thirty-minute break, then Jane’s lecture at 6:30.

Outline for introductory session
This is an outline of what I’ll be touching on during my intro.

You should all have had a copy of the course handbook by now, so you’ll know how the course will be running.

In my sessions, we’ll be looking at the history of the internet and at some of the underlying technology, ranging from HTML, to content management systems. (week two, session one).

• We’ll discuss the extent to which online journalists need to know about the technology. (week two, session one)
• We’ll look at content management systems, focusing on WordPress. (week two, session two)
• We’ll look at how online journalism differs from traditional journalism (writing styles, SEO, editorial models, multimedia, citizen journalism, social media, etc.). (week four, session one)

Other issues to discuss
I hope we can also discuss, however briefly, some other issues, such as:

• the economics of online journalism,  and how it is displacing traditional media
• accessibility
• privacy and media regulation.

I thought we might look at some UK models of online journalism as a starting point:

• The BBC – funded by a compulsory licence fee paid by “everyone in the UK who watches or records TV as it is broadcast”
• The Guardian, which is funded by the Scott Trust,
• and the Daily Mail, which is owned by Associated Newspapers Ltd, a commercial publisher

Pre-web
These are all journalism brands that predate the web, and I’d like us to contrast them with with web-based outlets, such as

• YouTube,  increasingly used as a broadcast outlet by professional and citizen journalists, and by commercial organisations
• Technorati, the blog search engine
• Digg, a social news web site, where readers decide which is the top story.

For next week
It would be helpful if you’ve thought about a topic for your blog posts by next week.