2014 Mini Workshop

Knight News Challenge Bridge Grants

Bringing the Knight News Challenge into Your Classroom (AEJMC Montréal Conference)

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Moderating/Presiding: Jennifer H. McGill, executive director, AEJMC

This mini-workshop, held Thursday, August 7, 2014, provided tools and tips for using Knight News Challenge products in your classroom. Click on links below.

Reporting from the Storm: Mobile Weather Reporting

Julie Jones | University of Oklahoma

Inside the @iPadJournos Newsroom: Mobile and Social Media Reporting in a Capstone Course

Jeanine Guidry and Marcus Messner | Virginia Commonwealth University

The Crooked River and Public Lab: Exploring Open Source Investigative Tools

Susan Zake | Kent State University

Using Mapping Apps to Tell Interactive Stories about Health Issues

Scott Parrott | University of Alabama

AzteCast: Developing a University-wide Website

Extras: 15 Tips for J-Educators: Building a Mobile App, Lessons Learned from AzteCast [PDF]

Amy Schmitz Weiss | San Diego State

Bridge Grants

2014-15 Project Winners

Knight News Challenge Bridge Grants

Feed Alabama

Using Knight-supported Ushahidi, a mapping tool.

Chip Brantley and Scott Parrott | University of Alabama

Incorporating Public Lab into JMC Classroom Environmental Reporting: Applying Open-Source Tools to the Crooked River Project

Using tools from the Knight-funded Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science.

Susan Kirkman Zake | Kent State University

Bridge Grants

2012-13 Project Winners

Knight News Challenge Bridge Grants

Using Spot.Us to Develop the Next Generation of Public Records Journalists

Craig Freeman | Louisiana State University (Spot.Us)

OpenBlock Campus technology with SeedSpeak

Kristin Gilger | Arizona State University (OpenBlock)

Telling the Story of Our Community: SGFwiki.org

Jonathan Groves | Drury University (LocalWiki)

Distributive Journalism – a project using DocumentCloud

Sarah Maben | Tarleton State University (DocumentCloud)

@iPadJournos: Preparing the Next Generation of Mobile Multimedia Reporters via Stroome

Marcus Messner | Virginia Commonwealth University (Stroome)

NewsCloud software/platform developed to develop and sustain an interactive Website for campus and surrounding community

Anthony Moretti | Robert Morris University (NewsCloud)

Houston Eats: An Online Platform Mapping the Rich Culture and History of Food in the Nation’s Most Diverse City

Temple Northup | University of Houston (DocumentCloud)

Bobcats@SXSW

Cindy Royal | Texas State University (Ushahidi)

Capstone Students Using Ushahidi and Mobile Media Toolkit to Train New Generation of Black Press

Ingrid Sturgis | Howard University (Ushahidi)

Bridge Grants

2011-12 Project Winners

Knight News Challenge Bridge Grants

Adopting Ushahidi for Crowdsourcing and Data Visualization: New paths for Event-mapping in Chile

This project will train journalism students into crowdsourcing and data visualization techniques and increase user engagement by adapting the Ushahidi platform into Km Cero, Chile’s most important non-profit, college-produced news web site. Run entirely by students and faculty members at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile’s School of Journalism, Km Cero strives to produce high-quality online journalism geared towards young people by employing innovative news formats and content. The Ushahidi platform, thus, would allow our news outlet to reach those goals by enabling citizens and journalists to report and map important news events that take place in Chile, including street protests, natural catastrophes and crime. We seek funding to train students in the use of Ushahidi, customize the platform into Km Cero, and develop new journalistic projects based on the this Knight News Challenge project.

Ingrid Bachmann and Sebastian Valenzuela | Universidad Catolica de Chile

Kansan.com High School News Feed

The proposed project will establish a high school news and advertising feed on Kansan.com, the University Daily Kansan (UDK) website. The news feed will use Printcasting and FeedBrewer, which were developed with Knight New Challenge funding. The feed will: Provide Kansan.com readers with niche local, youth-oriented coverage from around the state; Broaden high school journalists’ audience and exposure; Stimulate mentoring relationships between UDK student and professional staff, and high school journalism programs; Generate ad revenue for participating high school journalism programs; and Provide Kansan.com with valuable audience data.

Peter Bobkowski, Assistant Professor | University of Kansas

CityCircles Light Rail Job Classifieds

This intention of the student collaborative project is to create a hyperlocal model that will support the future sustainability of the CityCircles mobile app. Arizona State University students have often expressed to educators that they must find a job along the light rail due to transportation constraints. Phoenix is geographically spread out, which creates challenges for people dependent upon public transportation. Thus, an app that focuses on job classifieds along the light rail will serve as information service and a potential future revenue stream for CityCircles.

Serena Carpenter and Nancie Dodge, | Arizona State University

Reporting from the Storm

We will use Ushadidi’s software platform as the end distribution tool for students covering the Oklahoma 2012 tornado season. This is a classroom — centered initiative that has the potential to spread into Oklahoma’s communities, weather institutions, and mass media outlets. Three journalism courses will be involved: Advanced multimedia journalism, community journalism, and a special topics course on mobile reporting. However, the purpose of the grant will target the development, implementation, and pedagogical support needed to bring Ushadidi into the advanced multimedia class. Community journalism students will develop the sources among Oklahoma communities and the storm chaser network already established in the state. This will provide the foundation of crowdsourcing that will make this effort meaningful to Oklahoma citizens. The advanced multimedia class will bring this information into our news website Oklahoma Routes. The mobile reporting class will provide news reports throughout the semester that will be presented within the website using the Ushadidi software.

Julie Jones, Associate Professor and John Schmeltzer, Engleman/Livermore Professor in Community Journalism | University of Oklahoma

OpenBlock Campus

OpenBlock Campus will bring hyperlocal news resources to Kent State University college campus. The OpenBlock software will be adapted to the main campus of Kent State University. Because Kent State is a public university, we will obtain much data in addition to the local information seen on OpenBlock. We plan to develop scrapers unique to the campus, ones that can find news articles and blogs mentioning Kent State, as well as data linked to campus classrooms and offices, such as professor schedules, curriculum vitae and course evaluations.

Jacqueline Marino, Assistant Professor | Kent State University

In-depth Reporting of Methamphetamine Production and Abuse in Oklahoma

The School of Media and Strategic Communications at Oklahoma State University would like to allow students a new, in-depth reporting platform that should greatly enhance their learning experience. We would like to use DocumentCloud to help students produce a series of stories on Oklahoma’s longtime, growing problem with methamphetamine production and abuse. We plan to work in conjunction with Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit organization that does in-depth reporting. It has board members from across the state, and Jaclyn Cosgrove, one of its leading reporters, is a recent OSU graduate. OSU’s faculty also has strong ties to the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman, the state’s largest newspapers that also are involved with Oklahoma Watch.

Ray Murray, Associate Professor | Oklahoma State University

Telling Stories with Data: Life at a Hispanic Serving Institution

This project will develop a platform to support an ongoing course that focuses on data storytelling and visualizations based on the Knight-funded VIDI project. The initial project during its first semester would focus on the changing nature of the enrollment of Texas State University and it’s status as a Hispanic Serving Institution.

Cindy Royal, Associate Professor, and Jacie Yang, Assistant Professor | Texas State University

LarryvilleKU: Web and Mobile Application of OpenBlock to The Kansan

LarryvilleKU iTunes App | LarryvilleKU Google play Android App

This project utilizes OpenBlock, a hyper-local news and data platform developed through the Knight News Challenge. The purpose of this project is three-fold. First, the investigators propose to develop innovative ways of applying OpenBlock to The University Daily Kansan (the Kansan), a self-supporting, independent, student-run media operation at the University of Kansas. Second, the investigators aim to help other campus media that might be interested in incorporating OpenBlock to their sites by sharing via GitHub final computer code developed under this grant. Lastly, the investigators will develop a theoretical model identifying factors predictive of people’s participation in OpenBlock as well as an evaluation matrix to assess the application of OpenBlock to campus media. Thus the practical application of OpenBlock to the Kansan will generate scholarly papers on OpenBlock for campus media operations. This research team is well positioned to cover both practical and research aspects of the topic, as it includes a journalism professor whose research focuses on social and digital media and the General Manager and News Adviser, Sales and Marketing Adviser, and Web Editor of the Kansan.

Hyunjin Seo, Assistant Professor | The University of Kansas

Photojournalism and Social Engagement Tablet App

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (CoJMC) has just started a planning process to create a mobile tablet app to display its work, particularly its photojournalism. The college has an endowment to send students around the world to photograph the stories of people in need. The app will make these stories be more than photo stories; it will be information that prompts viewer action and engagement, using the capabilities of tablet applications. The app will be used to teach viewers about the problems of people in need around the world, and then help them engage with one another and with legislators who could help the people depicted. The app will enable the user to find Congressmen whose voting records show they want to help the people who are the subject of the photo stories. The online photo and story layouts will then be turned into an ebook and a premium print book.

Adam Wagler | University of Nebraska-Lincoln

@SDSU – Where’s the news?
Mobile Application for Mapping Civic and Public Service Issues on Campus and Beyond

AzteCast iTunes App | AzteCast Website

Tips for Educators from AzteCast — Here are some tips for making it work on your campus >>

The @SDSU (http://at.sdsu.edu) mobile news application is an innovative way of bringing civic and public service issues to a university campus and its surrounding neighborhoods. The application focuses on the importance of mapping the information of what is happening on campus to a specific geographic location. Specifically the information is focused on items that are important to a campus community (e.g. traffic, weather, crime, power outages, crises, violence, health pandemic, public safety, food safety, campus elections, campus events, etc.). The @SDSU mobile news application will be built off of the Knight News Challenge Ushahidi platform. The power of the Ushahidi platform is its ability to allow people to mobilize during a crisis using a mobile channel to provide information and map it to a specific area. The @SDSU mobile news application will use the Ushahidi platform to provide important information to students, faculty, staff and citizens living in nearby neighborhoods adjacent to the campus. Journalism students will use this tool for newsgathering and reporting of campus events but more importantly, use this as a tool to verify the information that is coming through the mobile application. A university safety committee (already in place) and journalism students will verify the information that is submitted into the system.

Amy Schmitz Weiss, Assistant Professor | San Diego State University

Bridge Grants

Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee

Enroll in Online Courses to Improve Teaching Skills

By Leslie-Jean Thornton
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Associate Professor
Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Arizona State University

(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, September 2014 issue)

Class had begun when I’d clicked the “play” arrow a while earlier. The professor, an esteemed and personable scholar at a top-tier university, was making a complex and considered argument about an intriguing subject. Her words, though, were slipping by. I stopped the video several times, went back a few sentences, replayed, then replayed again.

I took notes to focus my attention, but… No. Not happening. I had to figure something out before her points stood a chance of sticking, and it wasn’t an abstruse point that needed clarification. It was something painfully mundane, in fact. Was her blouse buttoned incorrectly? Was the collar poorly constructed or was it supposed to look that way? Maybe the crookedness was an optical illusion? Fortunately, I could pause and ponder: chalk one up for recorded pedagogy. But first I did the equivalent of passing a note in class: I took a screenshot of the professor and her odd blouse and sent it to a friend.

Although I’m a professor and happily so, last semester I completed four MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – as a student and I’m enrolled in three more. It’s safe to say I’m impressed and, perhaps, addicted. Much of what I’m learning, however, has less to do with mastering subjects than gaining insight into how I react as a student. By extension, I’m learning things to do and not do as a teacher. For starters, in my professor role, I’ve vowed never to wear puzzling clothes to class.

The anonymity of the MOOC plays to my dual-agenda advantage, freeing me to relate to the course simply as me, not as someone responsible for keeping up a public persona. In me-to-monitor sessions, unobserved, I am allowed degrees of focus that would be freaky in person. As a result, I can become intensely aware of my professors and the settings in which they are teaching. I’m free to acknowledge frustrations and distractions – to say “Argh!” out loud when needed. In the public forum “discussions” with fellow enrollees, a feature of many MOOCs, I can lurk as well as participate to get an idea of how the course is being received. Is my cohort on track or splintered into la-la land? I saw both, and I saw reasons for both.

I’ve gained a greater respect for students’ need for recognition. Over the years, as grading and feedback fatigue takes its toll, individual notice can recede – it takes concerted time and effort. As a MOOC student, I found myself yearning for attention, and that need awakened the professor side of me. If I had the choice now between making more assignments, thereby lessening the chance of feedback, or going for fewer and paying more attention, I’d go for the latter. I’m going to increase the number of “extra credit” assignments, too.

Here are some of the other top lessons I’ve learned from being in MOOCs:

Be highly aware of distractions. What’s written on the board or projected on the screen behind you? Are there hallway dramas visible from the class? Is the sun pouring in and hampering students’ ability to read your face as you speak? Is someone smacking gum? Don’t be so intent on your presentation that you allow such things to highjack or hamper your students’ progress.

Attention cycles matter. Timing matters. Emphasis matters. I was lucky to take a “bootcamp” in pedagogy when I began teaching at Arizona State. Ten years later, I remember what an instructor told us: after 45 minutes of listening nonstop to a lecture, learning goes in reverse. Alas, after one of my MOOCs, I truly believe. Take breaks. Diversify delivery. Emphasize points with something other than your voice – write on a board, hold something up, change where you stand. Take breaks, and encourage students to do the same. At home, plugged into my computer, I was nevertheless free to walk around while listening and set my own breaks. This helped me absorb the material. See what you can do to give your students absorption time, too.

Make-work assignments are deadly. Sure, they can reinforce a lesson point, but they build in resentment and demonstrate a lack of respect for the students’ time and effort. If a solid review of the material is necessary to bring a point or a skill home, or if simple practice is needed, at least say that. Better yet, try to incorporate that work into a meaningful assignment.

Once a bond breaks, it’s not easy to get it back. Attend to momentum. The best classes made me eager for the next ones by showing me I’d learned something and would soon be building on that knowledge. Connecting the classes is as important as connecting students to the classes. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to be super attentive to what I teach just before and just after Thanksgiving break this year. No need to lose them in the home stretch.

It pays to switch perspectives. I recommend enrolling in a MOOC or two; you don’t have to finish… and you might discover a newfound appreciation for useful handouts, accessible material and inspirational professors. Oh, yes – and you might find inspiration itself.

Teaching Corner

NNED Breaking News

Journalism Educators use Tragedy in Ferguson, Mo. as Teachable Moment to Commend the Press, Condemn Arrests of Journalists and Remind the Public of the First Amendment’s Power

CONTACT: PAULA POINDEXTER, Texas-Austin, 2013-14 President of AEJMC • August 27, 2014
As the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer moved from a crime scene in the middle of a Ferguson, Mo., street to a secret grand jury comprised of nine whites and three blacks who will determine if the police officer will stand trial, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) commends the press for performing its watchdog role, condemns the Ferguson, Mo., police for abusing the press’ First Amendment freedoms and reminds everyone, regardless of color, education, age, gender, status or political affiliation, that the First Amendment safeguards the press’ right to report and citizens’ right to access news they should know.

The fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson was one of the biggest stories of summer 2014, certainly in terms of sustained 24/7 news coverage and social media postings. Those who followed the news witnessed events as they unfolded, from images of Brown’s body lying for hours in the street to peaceful protests that erupted into violence and vandalism, to local police wearing gas masks and pointing assault weapons as they sat atop armored vehicles that one might expect to see in news reports about war-torn areas—not middle-America suburbia. And, among the many disturbing words and images from Ferguson were reports of police arresting, confining and threatening journalists for doing their jobs. After the first arrests of journalists from the Washington Post and Huffington Post, CNN’s media critic and host of “Reliable Sources” reported that Ferguson police had arrested 11 journalists.

When police officers in Ferguson arrested journalists, they were not just interfering with journalists’ First Amendment rights, they were also interfering with what the authors of The Elements of Journalism described as information citizens need to be “free and self-governing.”

Only because of journalists could the tragic events in a poor and mostly African American St. Louis suburb, population 21,000, command the attention of the nation, the president, and the attorney general. That’s the power of the First Amendment and why it should never be obstructed by law enforcement or other government officials. The First Amendment both protects journalists’ freedom to report and makes it possible for citizens to have access to news from multiple sources. Even when the news is about tragic events like the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the news is ultimately empowering because it is information citizens living in a democracy need to be “free and self-governing.”

For more information regarding this AEJMC Presidential Statement, please contact Paula Poindexter, President of AEJMC, at .

AEJMC (The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication) is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. The Association’s mission is to advance education, foster scholarly research, cultivate better professional practice and promote the free flow of communication. To find out more about AEJMC, visit www.AEJMC.org.

<<PACS

AEJMC 14 Keynote Address

Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee

Montreal: The Best Programming on Teaching at an AEJMC Conference

By Linda Aldoory
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Director, Horowitz Center for Health Literacy
Associate Professor, Behavioral & Community Health
School of Public Health
University of Maryland

(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, July 2014 issue)

When I was in graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, I started a newsletter for the graduate students in the College of Communication, and one of my first articles listed what I thought was the top five steps to better teaching. That was 1990, and I feel I have come full circle as I write this article describing what I think will be the top five teaching programs at AEJMC’s Conference this year in August in Montreal, Canada. Starting with number five…

(5) Pre-conference workshops! As custom dictates, the pre-conference options include several teaching topics, and this year, these collaborative workshops drill down into specific and current challenges. For example, a special workshop on Advertising Teaching by Sheri Broyles addresses the impact that technology and everyday culture has had on consumer buying behavior, and how to teach in order to “invite…interact…and engage” with consumers in today’s highly interactive and user generated online world. Another workshop is a “Teach-In” for school journalism educators and advisors. This will be an all-day event for secondary school and post-secondary journalism educators in the AEJMC conference host’s region. The workshop will be coordinated and hosted by the Scholastic Journalism Division, area professionals and professors from the host university (Concordia). Topics include student press freedom, diversity of story platforms and multimedia production. A unique pre-conference workshop will be focused on the effective use of adjuncts by journalism and mass communication programs to teach skills classes. Topics will include “how to guide adjuncts in syllabi development, grading and classroom management as well as how to hire, monitor and evaluate adjunct faculty to ensure high standards.”

(4) Wednesday’s highlighting of the “traditional” forms of communication! One panel called, “Using Television and Movies to Teach Students about Multicultural Connections and Diversity,” addresses race, gender, ethnicity and class issues in teaching. With television programming continually featuring stereotypes, the need to teach students about diversity and multiculturalism continues to grow. “Such instruction can be the catalyst for continued lifelong dialogue about discrimination, diversity and inclusion that hopefully will promote greater understanding,” according to panel organizers.

(3) Thursday’s cultural understandings for teaching race, gender, ethnicity and cultural diversity! For example, the panel titled, “International Engagement: Projects and Partnerships that Globalize Education,” will explore projects and strategic partnerships that allow educators to incorporate globalization and diversity that fosters cultural engagement. There will also be a special session honoring the 60th anniversary of “Brown v. Board of Education – Its Meaning: Yesterday, Today and in the Future.” According to planners, “While some have a very narrow definition of the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision, its reach is broad and not limited to K-12 schools. The decision overturned the Separate but Equal Doctrine established in 1896 by Plessy v. Ferguson, which by extension, makes Brown’s subtext justice and equality throughout the academy. This panel will explore the meaning of Brown, the status of African Americans in higher education, continued threats to Brown‘s essence and the future of AEJMC’s commitment to diversity.”

(2) Friday’s teaching innovations programming! The early morning session on “Teaching Innovations” reflects the framework for the day and showcases a panel of academic leaders who share their “inventive approaches to teaching journalism and mass communication in an age characterized by ever-changing technology, increasingly diverse classrooms and global publics.” A later session of the day, “A Year Through Glass: How We Used Google’s Newest Gadget in the Classroom,” features professors who were selected to test Google Glass during its beta phase.

And the Number One Choice in AEJMC Programming in Teaching…

(1) Teaching Plenary Session! Thursday, 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.   Are you one who resists or embraces online teaching? Regardless of your answer, online teaching is touted as the future of journalism and mass communication education, and this plenary offers understandings from national leadership and field experiences. The session, “The E-Learning Transformation: Promise and Challenge for Our Times,” features keynote speaker Larry Ragan, co-director for the Center for Online Innovation in Learning at Penn State University. Since 2008, Ragan has lead the design and development of Academic Outreach Faculty Development, which offers a range of professional development programming for World Campus and Penn State faculty preparing for online and continuing education teaching success. Ragan has also served as the co-director of the Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning, and as co-director and faculty of the EDUCAUSE Learning Technology Leadership program. The session will address issues such as increased access from students to the online classroom, systems that adapt to the learner, global enrollments, learning experiences delivered through mobile devices, defining the role of faculty in the blended and online classroom, controlling the development and delivery costs, and quality. Following Ragan’s remarks are panelists from the field—Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Rosental Alves and James Hamilton—who will offer lessons learned and best practices for online learning within journalism and mass communication.

<<Teaching Corner