We want your topics for our nationwide lesson
January 30, 2009 in internships
After one video essay, 10 applicants, 245 votes and one tough decision, the first CICM intern is logged in and blogging! #
Hello readers. I’m Lauren Rabaino and I can’t wait to get started. A few things you should know about me: I’m the online and multimedia editor for mustangdaily.net, the student newspaper at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I’m a journalism sophomore with a concentration in “print” journalism– although I like to consider myself (unofficially) a “new media” concentration. I love the web and design and sharing what I know. #
Enough about me. Let’s get to business. #
I see my time with CICM as an opportunity to represent the student voice amidst this changing industry. I have plenty of tutorials up my sleeve to help you improve your news sites and restructure staff. #
But this isn’t all about what I can do. I want to know what you can do. #
The first large-scale, community-based project that I cannot complete without you: #
The Nationwide Classroom #
Once every few weeks, we are holding “nationwide lesson” which includes a full-blown tutorial and live Q&A on topics like shooting video, making flash graphics, training staff, and whatever other suggestions you have. (I’ll announce the exact date of our first lesson soon). #
I expect everyone who is willing to learn can use our tutorials as a newsroom resource. #
The challenge: #
- Take our tutorial to your newspaper staff (or if you don’t work for a publication, absorb it on your own).
- Use what you learn to create a project, and when you’re done, post it to our comments.
- We’ll feature projects that make best use of our tutorial.
The key is that it’s powered by you. I am simply the voice and the aggregator. #
If you have ideas for what our first lesson should be, input on how my plan can be improved, or suggestions for how the tutorials should be conducted, please let us know in the comments, on Twitter, or in an e-mail [cicmintern (at) gmail (dot) com]. #
And, as always, please spread the word. #
Follow
@cicmintern
on
Twitter #
Congrats on the site, Lauren. Seems like this would be a good service for professionals as well… we're all "students" as media continues to evolve!
Great!A few of my ideas:FlashVideo editingSoundslidesTwitter*Effective* bloggingComputer-assisted reportingUsing RSS (and Yahoo Pipes) to mine story ideas
Great, Suzanne! I appreciate your input, really helpful. Most of the things you listed were definitely on my list too, plus a few that I didn't think of. I'm thinking start simple, get bigger. I like the thought of combining the RSS lesson with computer-assisted reporting.Keep those ideas comin'!
Awesome. Everyone should take Lauren up on her tutorial. I've learned so much from this multimedia expert — You will too! Thanks for your hard work Lauren. Waiting to see the tutorial!!!
I'd propose "Understanding News Online and Writing for the Web" as the first topic. This would have a basic overview of how news can be reported effectively one, including how writing for the Web is different than writing for print, how to effectively use links, etc. This may sound really simple to us, but there are so many students in college media who don't even know such basics. Once you cover these fundamentals, you'll have a good foundation to build off of for blogging, RSS, audio, video, Flash and other topics.Best of luck with the internship!
From the e-mail, Thomas Hollander suggests: "I'd love to learn more about After Effects to build motion graphics for TV. That's probably one of my few weak spots right now that I really need to strengthen, and I know a lot of people are the same way."Great suggestion, @joeybaker and I were just discussing this yesterday too.
Outstanding initiative, Lauren! In addition to the suggestions already made, I'll add to the list (in no particular order): Audacity, podcasting, crowdsourcing, graphic design and effective page layout, SEO, Facebook apps, mobile content distribution, and boosting user participation.Definitely second Greg's suggestion to lay the basic foundation first and build from there.I'm looking forward to seeing this take off. The AW team here at UMass will be sure to follow along closely and contribute where we can.
[...] In addition to interviews with media professionals and discussions with students, I have tutorials in mind which will be part of my “Nationwide Classroom.” [...]
I think helping students learn new skills is the obvious top priority. But I also think that if we spell out the practical benefits of whatever skill we're talking about, they're more likely to WANT to learn the skill. (And isn't that half the battle?)So what about including a testimonial of sorts from a student or recent grad about why Skill X or Skill Y is useful?As in: "Here's how you set up a Google Reader and use it to cover your beat. … Now here's an anecdote from Student A about how he found this story idea from his RSS feeds. Now here's Student B talking about how she got her last internship because she could talk about how she uses RSS feeds to own her beat, etc. etc."You could ask for testimonials via Twitter or a form on the CICM site.
I think helping students learn new skills is the obvious top priority.
But I also think that if we spell out the practical benefits of whatever skill we're talking about, they're more likely to WANT to learn the skill. (And isn't that half the battle?)
So what about including a testimonial of sorts from a student or recent grad about why Skill X or Skill Y is useful?
As in: "Here's how you set up a Google Reader and use it to cover your beat. … Now here's an anecdote from Student A about how he found this story idea from his RSS feeds. Now here's Student B talking about how she got her last internship because she could talk about how she uses RSS feeds to own her beat, etc. etc."
You could ask for testimonials via Twitter or a form on the CICM site.
Great point! I'll get searching for people with testimonials to share, maybe do an interview/podcast of sorts and post it along with each tutorial.
Great point! I'll get searching for people with testimonials to share, maybe do an interview/podcast of sorts and post it along with each tutorial.
I think helping students learn new skills is the obvious top priority.
But I also think that if we spell out the practical benefits of whatever skill we're talking about, they're more likely to WANT to learn the skill. (And isn't that half the battle?)
So what about including a testimonial of sorts from a student or recent grad about why Skill X or Skill Y is useful?
As in: “Here's how you set up a Google Reader and use it to cover your beat. … Now here's an anecdote from Student A about how he found this story idea from his RSS feeds. Now here's Student B talking about how she got her last internship because she could talk about how she uses RSS feeds to own her beat, etc. etc.”
You could ask for testimonials via Twitter or a form on the CICM site.
Great point! I'll get searching for people with testimonials to share, maybe do an interview/podcast of sorts and post it along with each tutorial.