Teaching Journalism

Journalism educators may want to teach social media tools but often find it difficult given they are required to use clunky online systems for grading and communicating with students.

In a post published on Mediashift, a multimedia journalism educator Nathan Gibbs says, "These awkward systems don't inspire creativity, enrich collaboration, or instill a passion for experimentation -- all of which are required to survive and succeed in a rapidly changing media industry."

But Gibbs has some useful suggestions about the innovative ways some journalism professors are using social media tools in the classroom.  Not every tool is appropriate for every class, but, he says,  there are undoubtedly ways in which most instructors can find room for at least some of these ideas.

A Ryerson journalism instructor is teaching his students how to be mobile journalists with a little help from Motorola and Telus.

Last year, Wayne MacPhail found the students in his class had a mix of different devices. This year, however, they will now be able to use the same devices to post audio, video, images and text to the web.

In this piece on The Next Web, Tris Hussey also describes how the students will do their reporting from local coffee shops.