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category archive listing Category Archives: education

Dale Willman on radio in Indonesia

May 10, 2008 – 10:23 am

Dale Willman

Borobudur, a Buddhist temple on the island of Java.

For a change of pace, here’s an audio podcast. My good friend and environmental journalism colleague Dale Willman just got back from a three-week trip to Indonesia where he was training radio journalists there how to do an environmental radio show — and just how to [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Audio Show, culture, environment, experience, interviews, media evolution, mobile, podcasts, world | Comments (0)

Overhauling J-School Completely

April 16, 2008 – 3:04 pm

Sscornelius, via Flickr (CC license)

Maybe what journalism education really needs is to start over from a new foundation.

Well, there’s been a ton of great discussion lately on the theme of what kind of education and preparation today’s journalists really need, given the changing landscape of opportunities they’re facing. (Thanks to Mindy McAdams, James Ball, Paul [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Arranging Ideas, business, careers, collaboration, journalism, media evolution | Comments (9)

Newsrooms hemorrhage more jobs than ever

April 14, 2008 – 10:36 am

Further to my earlier point that preparing today’s j-school students (undergrad and grad) mainly to work within mainstream news orgs does them an increasingly grave disservice, Rick Edmonds noted on Poynter.org today:
2,400 Newsroom Jobs Lost: Biggest Dip in 30 Years
WASHINGTON — After years of mildly reassuring numbers tracking the size of newspaper newsroom staffs, the [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in business, careers, journalism, research, statistics | Comments (1)

New J-Skills: What to Measure?

April 10, 2008 – 10:02 am

Berbercarpet, via Flickr (CC license)

Journalism sudents need the right tools — and skills — for the kinds of careers and opportunities they’re really going to be making for themselves.

Picking up on my post yesterday, Univ. of Florida journalism professor Mindy McAdams challenged me (and her other readers) to translate my quick list of what j-schools [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Content Style & Business, General, Labels and Metadata, PR & marketing, Resources, Strategy, Wikis, blogs, business, careers, collaboration, community, content management, contributed content, conversational media, creativity, credibility, critical thinking, culture, distribution, experience, forums, innovation, journalism, media evolution, mindset, mobile, networking, news, processes, projects, research, search, services, skills, social media, traffic, transparency, world | Comments (15)

Journalism remains a smart career, despite shrinking newsrooms

April 9, 2008 – 9:53 am

Yan Arief, via Flickr (CC license)

Journalism skills work well outside the newsroom, too — maybe even better.

One of my BlogHer friends, Elana Centor, just wrote me to pose an interesting question. She asked: Is journalism a smart career path in 2008?
I’m just one of many people she asked, so I can’t wait to see her [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in business, careers, generations, journalism, mindset, problems | Comments (7)

J-Schools: Don’t waste precious time on Dreamweaver!

January 24, 2008 – 12:40 pm

Axel Rouvin, via Flickr (CC license)

Dreamweaver class for journalists? Might as well be…

A colleague is teaching an interactive storytelling course at a big-name and very, very expensive journalism school. I asked him which tool they’ll use to build the class project, a webzine (really a package of online feature stories, it sounds like, not a [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in journalism, tools | Comments (6)

Tutorials (and marketing) should NOT be boring!

October 25, 2007 – 9:29 am

If I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now: CommonCraft’s video tutorials ROCK! This is a company whose “product is explanation.” They have a distinctive style that is uniquely charming and effective because they capitalize on making it look low-tech with paper cut-outs. Don’t let that fool you, they really know what they’re [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Learning Online, fun stuff, tutorials, video | Comments (1)

Skin in the media game: Smart investing in the attention economy

October 15, 2007 – 12:22 pm

Ian Ransley, via Flickr (CC license)

Do you treat online media like a spectator sport, or do you really have skin in this game?

Recently, my Poynter colleague Roy Peter Clark caused a stir with his article Your Duty To Read the Paper. There, he wrote:
“I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in business, creativity, experience, journalism, media evolution, media literacy, mobile, skills, social media | Comments (2)

One Laptop Per Child: Why Media Folks Should Care

September 27, 2007 – 8:28 am

Laptop.org

Don’t know what to do with a computer that looks like this? Don’t worry — you’re not the target market.

Lately I’ve been learning more about, and getting quite intrigued by, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. Yesterday I listened to an IT Conversations podcast talk by Michael Evans, VP of corporate development for Redhat, [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in collaboration, culture, future, problems, projects, skills, society, world | Comments (4)

Teaching Online Skills: Journalism Prof Wants Ideas

August 23, 2007 – 12:41 pm

ej.msu.edu

MSU prof Dave Poulson wants to lead his students into the murky waters of online media.

(NOTE: I’m cross-posting this from Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits, since I thought Contentious readers might find it interesting as well.)
Today I received an intriguing query from my colleague Dave Poulson, associate director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan [...]

By Amy Gahran | Also posted in Conversations, Feeds (RSS), Wikis, blogs, conversational media, culture, distribution, journalism, media literacy, skills, tips, tools, writing | Comments (1)