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Words of Wisdom: Chad A. Stevens on learning important multimedia skills Posted by Jessica Stuart, October 1st, 2009 No Comments » We're kicking off a new series on the blog, talking with educators and journalism students about the value of Journalism school and the multimedia skills students need to start their careers. There has been a lot of discussion lately on whether it's worth it to go to Journalism school, and whether students are learning the multimedia skills they need to be successful in a pretty rough market. As the school year gets back underway, we're getting more and more questions from students wondering what skills they need to acquire to land jobs. Obviously, there are no simple answers to these questions, but we hope to offer up some words of wisdom for students and others interested in the profession, especially during this time of transition. Chad2 We're going to kick it off with Chad A. Stevens- a former MediaStorm Producer, who is now an Assistant Professor at UNC Chapel Hill.

Words of Wisdom: Chad A. Stevens on learning important multimedia skills Posted by Jessica Stuart, October 1st, 2009 No Comments » We're kicking off a new series on the blog, talking with educators and journalism students about the value of Journalism school and the multimedia skills students need to start their careers. There has been a lot of discussion lately on whether it's worth it to go to Journalism school, and whether students are learning the multimedia skills they need to be successful in a pretty rough market. As the school year gets back underway, we're getting more and more questions from students wondering what skills they need to acquire to land jobs. Obviously, there are no simple answers to these questions, but we hope to offer up some words of wisdom for students and others interested in the profession, especially during this time of transition. Chad2 We're going to kick it off with Chad A. Stevens- a former MediaStorm Producer, who is now an Assistant Professor at UNC Chapel Hill.

How to Teach Yourself About Social Media When J-Schools Fail Roland Legrand by Roland Legrand, April 14, 2009 Tagged: communities of practice, connectivism, journalism school, learning, networked learning, social media Journalism is changing rapidly due to social media, and these changes can be bewildering as people wonder how to keep up. I recently gave a social media workshop for journalism students, and I soon realized that many students were still unaware of social media other than Facebook. They were shocked to hear about feed readers, blogs, or micro-blogging and asked how they could learn about all those developments. It seems that we should rethink not only journalism, but also journalism education: Tomorrow's journalists will need to take the initiative to teach themselves about rapidly changing technology. To that end, here are some ways that students can become their own teachers in regards to social media. Bewilderment

Some general comments on the "Twitter Experiment" by Monica Rankin (UT Dallas) There has been a lot of interest in the "Twitter Experiment" video posted by Kim Smith chronicling my U.S. History class at U.T. Dallas and our use of twitter in the classroom. I have fielded a number of inquiries from educators across the United States and even overseas who are interested in finding ways to use social networking in an educational setting. This write-up is intended as an informal summary of my use of twitter in the classroom. I hope it will help to clarify my experience and I welcome additional questions and commentary, particularly suggestions for how to improve this type of classroom interaction. The class: I used twitter in the basic U.S. History II survey course at U.T. Dallas in the spring 2009 semester. This is a "core" course requirement in the state of Texas. It generally enrolls students from all majors across campus. At the beginning of the semester, there were 90 students enrolled in my class. The class met in a large auditorium-style classroom on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11:30-12:20. I had one graduate student teaching assistant to help with grading and other administrative duties for the class.

Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. When I started requiring digital journalism students to learn how to use Twitter, I didn't have the list of journalistic uses for Twitter that I have compiled by now. So I logged onto the service and broadcast a request. "I have a classroom full of graduate students in journalism who don't know who to follow. Does anybody have a suggestion?" Within ten minutes, we had a list of journalists to follow, including one who was boarding Air Force One at that moment, joining the White House press corps accompanying the President to Africa.

Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. When I started requiring digital journalism students to learn how to use Twitter, I didn't have the list of journalistic uses for Twitter that I have compiled by now. So I logged onto the service and broadcast a request. "I have a classroom full of graduate students in journalism who don't know who to follow. Does anybody have a suggestion?" Within ten minutes, we had a list of journalists to follow, including one who was boarding Air Force One at that moment, joining the White House press corps accompanying the President to Africa.

"I asked the Polis Summer School students to finish their 12 day course by giving me a code for the road. Tell me, I said, what should be the guiding principles for journalism about people who are suffering or are from other countries. Here are the ideas from different groups of students for some ethical guidelines."

"Lessons from Perpignan: What We Learned at Video Camp For most of July we taught a videojournalism workshop in Perpignan, France, for eighteen American students. It was part of a study-abroad program co-sponsored by the Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia) and San Francisco State University. Here are a few tips we can pass along, based on common student errors and problems we encountered. "

In his second month as a professor at Arizona State University, Tim McGuire was standing in front of 13 students teaching "The Business of Journalism" when his inner voice interrupted. "You dummy," he recalls thinking, "you are teaching a history course." It was fall 2006, and he was talking about the production of a daily newspaper, but not about the parallel production of a 24-hour-a-day Web site. He was explaining the collapse of the print classified advertising market, but not the striking success of Google search advertisements. Skip to next paragraph Education Life Go to Special Section » The course, new to the curriculum, was in desperate need of a revision already. Mr. McGuire, a 23-year veteran of The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, was in need of a re-­education himself. "I knew what I knew until I realized there was an earthquake underfoot," he says. He immersed himself in Internet business models. He started a blog. The course was renamed "The Business and Future of Journalism." He quickly learned that today's journalism students don't enroll to hear, in Mr. McGuire's words, "old newspaper farts telling them that the business is doomed." "They know the model is broken," he says. "They think, We'll just have to fix it." And so he started this semester by outlining an intimidating theme for the course: "How do we pay for journalism?"

A New Website for a Changing World SocialDocumentary.net is a new website that features documentary photography from around the world-images and words that explore the human condition. Easily Create Documentary Websites About Critical Issues Facing Our World Today Professional and amateur photographers, journalists, NGOs, students-anyone with a story to tell and a collection of good photographs-can easily and affordably begin creating websites on SocialDocumentary.net. Global warming, international justice, post-conflict reconstruction, HIV/AIDS, or life in Afghanistan or suburban America are just a few of the themes that you can find on SocialDocumentary.net. The goal of this website is to make our lives richer and more informed about issues affecting us and our world today. Powerful photographs can also lead to meaningful change in the lives of ordinary people. SocialDocumentary. net provides tools for photographer to inform viewers how to take action-either by supporting NGOs doing work on the issues, or by engaging in direct political action. Not all documentary photographers are concerned with action. Many photographers featured on SocialDocumentary.net are concerned with subtleties of the human experience and exploring personal themes. Photographs on SocialDocumentary.net-whether of struggling farmers in Africa or of suburban teenagers in Philadelphia-offer a fresh way to look at the world and a greater understanding of humanity. The secondary goal is to create an online image bank of quality photographs documenting all aspects of the world created by an international collection of photographers. This will enable students, college professors, journalists, and anyone else to easily see any part of the world in quality digital imagery and gain valuable information about the subjects they are viewing. We encourage all photographers, everywhere, to use this site as a tool in their own image-making and documentary exploration. We also encourage n

Dr. Rankin, professor of History at UT Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. She had heard of Twitter... She collaborated with the UT Dallas, Arts and Technology - Emerging Media and Communications (EMAC) http://www.emac.utdallas.edu faculty and as a Graduate student in EMAC I assisted her in her experiment and documented it for a digital video class with Professor Dean Terry, @therefore, and a collaboration and content creation course with Dan Langendor, @dlangendorf.

Berkeley Journalism - Students - Projects portfolio

The Photographic Library Directory is a unique resource that provides a broad range of visual solutions to enhance the creative process. The categories listed include : * Stock Images from the leading stock photo libraries. * Fashion Photographers, fashion, advertising & editorial shoots. * International fashion image resources, trend or season fashions. * Stars & Celebrities, hollywood stars, entertaiment, music and film celebrity images. * Archive Collections, international collections of historic & social importance. * Free Photos, clip art collections & Illustrations. * Moving Images, stock film footage, newsreels & motion picture archives. * Photo Agencies, the leading photo & editorial agencies. * Fine Art, prints & poster art. * Libraries and Museums, historic world maps, manuscripts and atlases. * Documentary Photographers & photojournalist resources. * Student Galleries, creative minds from the Leading Art & Design centres of excellence.

This is not designed to be a course on the history of photography such as a resource to dip into. In addition to pen-portraits of many of the most important photographers of the period, it contains information on some of the most significant processes used during the early days of photography. The project was confined to the first eighty years or so, as this is often a convenient cut-off point in books and when dividing courses into a syllabus. To some extent this has been a frustration, in that there have been many important developments and many interesting photographers who practised during and subsequent to that date. It is hoped that a sequel will be forthcoming in due course. This work is intended to be of general interest, but it may also be a useful starting-off point for students preparing for courses which include brief study of the history of photography. The site will be revised regularly in the light of feedback and further study.

At PixelPress our intent is to encourage documentary photographers, writers, filmmakers, artists, human rights workers and students to explore the world in ways that take advantage of the new possibilities provided by digital media. We seek a new paradigm of journalism, one that encourages an active dialogue between the author and reader and, also, the subject. Our online magazine features projects that use a variety of linear and non-linear strategies, attempting to articulate visions of human possibility even while confirming human frailty. For us the digital revolution is a revolution in consciousness, not in commerce. We work with organizations such as Crimes of War, Human Rights Watch, World Health Organization and UNICEF to create Web sites that deal directly with contemporary issues in complex and innovative ways that circumvent media sensationalism and simplification. We also try to factor in ways that the viewer can help remedy social problems, rather than remain a spectator. Recently we completed a site focusing on how to end polio worldwide; another trying to aid an orphanage in Rwanda; one trying to reclaim the Brazilian forest; and a site featuring the images of photographers from the Vietnam War. And we also create books with photographers such as Machiel Botman, Kent Klich and Sebastião Salgado on social themes, as well as traveling exhibitions using both digital and conventional processes.

Sunday, March 19, 2006 Lighting 101 Intimidated by the idea of off-camera lighting? Don't be. We are pretty much starting from scratch, so no worries. The first posts will be about what kind of gear you will need to do the minimalist strobe thing. When we are done having our way with your wallet (remembering that light gives you far more bang-for-the-buck than does fast glass or the latest digital camera or 300/2.8) we'll move into basic technique. And after that, we'll keep it going with periodical essays and ideas on how to improve (or refresh) your lighting ability. When you've worked your way through the basics of designing your light kit and learning how to use it, make a point to browse some of the examples in the "On Assignment" section. Those will be updated constantly, too. So keep checking back. You will likely have some questions along the way. Sadly, it is not possible for me to take the time to personally answer all of the one-to-one lighting questions that pop up. So try to resist asking them in the comments section. The only people reading this behind you are the people who are, well, behind you. You will find the one-to-one knowledge bank you seek in the Strobist Group on Flickr. There, you can ask away and get the diversity of response that you need. These are the lighting grad students, so to speak. They know this stuff, and are very enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge.

Data visualization resources While I was shamelessly picking the brain of Matt Waite in recent weeks, he advised me that if I don't have more than three to five weeks to spend on "data" (sort of akin to what we used to call "computer-assisted reporting"), what I should focus on is teaching the students something about data visualization.

Photofusion is London's largest independent photography resource centre. We are unique for the breadth of our work and services, providing access to a full range of facilities including contemporary gallery space, darkrooms, studio, digital imaging training, picture library, agency and ongoing photo-art education programme for professional, student and amateur photographers. Situated in the vibrant heart of Brixton, Photofusion's photo-digital facilities continue to draw visitors into an exciting and rapidly changing area. As Brixton's most prestigious gallery space, our exhibitions alone are expected this year to attract 30,000 visitors. Founded in 1984 as the Photo Co-op, Photofusion has metamorphosed from a small collective of documentary photographers through a number of identities through successful fundraising campaigns, to become a leading resource for photographic artists. In recognition of this role, we receive regular funding from London Arts, and consolidate this grant with income from our commercial activities. Photofusion aims to promote a ladder of educational opportunity through courses, workshops and seminars. We are moving increasingly into the field of training for disenchanted young people who may have been alienated by formal education, and are working in collaboration with a number of community and arts organisations to help people access arts training and gain skills for the workplace. Photofusion's position as a leading photography resource necessitates a close relationship with the development of digital media in order to offer artists the best possible facilities for innovative arts production. Photofusion now offers expanded digital and darkroom facilities and improved disability access.

History of Photography is an international quarterly devoted to the history, practice and theory of photography. It intends to address all aspects of the medium, treating the processes, circulation, functions, and reception of photography in all its aspects, including documentary, popular and polemical work as well as fine art photography. The goal of the journal is to be inclusive and interdisciplinary in nature, welcoming all scholarly approaches, whether archival, historical, art historical, anthropological, sociological or theoretical. It is intended also to embrace world photography, ranging from Europe and the Americas to the Far East. The journal aims to provide a significant resource to diverse communities, including, but not limited to, academics, curators, independent scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students - indeed, anyone with a serious interest in the history and practice of the medium. The journal encourages submissions from young scholars, while also seeking to publish work by established authorities in the discipline. Over the past three decades History of Photography has become an indispensable source of documentary texts, new and original scholarly articles, novel interpretations, and original thinking in this field. History of Photography is a peer reviewed journal overseen by the Editor and supported by a board of scholars of international standing.

Academics and artists at London Metropolitan University worked with photographer Paul Trevor to make a selection of his images of East London digitally available to artists, students and researchers. The Collection includes 500 images (chosen from a total of 120,000) of the Spitalfields area from the 1970s to the 1990s, a period of rapid social and physical change. The Paul Trevor Collection is part of a larger archive project at London Metropolitan University, which will eventually include oral as well as visual narratives, that aims to represent aspects of the lives of local East End communities in their distinctive social, economic and political contexts. The process of producing this photographic dimension of the archive was lengthy and gave rise to challenging questions. What are the aesthetic, historical, and social dimensions of creating a photographic archive and how might these be related? Which factors contribute to the construction of a photographic archive as a relevant resource for public history and/or academic inquiry? How can aesthetic and social/political discourses work together to achieve this end?

Jessica Dimmock dove headlong freakin' into it. There she was, in 2004, all innocent and walkin' around, playing with her fancy new digital camera, still a student... then a chance meeting with the jail bound coke dealer, the door in the floor opened and into the rabbit hole she went. Into the darkness, into the-land-of-broken-childhood-dreams, into the pain, into the dead end, into the heroin-is-god parallel universe. The 9th Floor was waiting for her... and in she jumped. The apartment in NYC, 4 W. 22nd St, the place of the pain, the upside down world of the empty shell living… dead folks walking... it would become a second home of sorts for Jessica. There she was, in the fray. This was amazing for a photographer, right? Insane to have this opportunity of chance, a chance that would turn into a VIP pass to document the drug fueled descent, to document the decay, to have free reign in the world of dashed dreams... to make it, with open arms, to be accepted into this world of the barely living... amazing, wasn't it? Well, I guess that all depends on the way that you look at it… doesn't it. Let's hold our thoughts on that for a bit and let's get back to our story.