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"Immersive journalism is picking up now in part because the necessary technology has gotten better, cheaper, and more portable. The smartphone's ability to stream high-definition video as well as its increasing popularity-58% of Americans had one as of January 2014, according to Pew Research-have further accelerated adoption. Add to that the more widespread use of interactive data visualizations and advances in wearable computing and the stage may be set for a more robust adoption of virtual reality. "It's not just the media coming to you," says Dan Pacheco, professor of journalism innovation at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. "You move into the media.""

Creating Your First VR Experience Practical tips for getting started in VR using freely available software and 3D assets. Prof. Dan Pacheco will draw upon material from his Virtual Reality Storytelling class at the S.I. Newhouse School to provide practical steps for creating interactive scenes in Unity3D that can be exported for web and the Oculus Rift. This will include demos and a deep-dive into Harvest of Change, the virtual reality journalism project he managed for The Des Moines Register and Gannett Digital, and some of the final projects from students in VR Storytelling. In addition, he will bring a 360° GoPro camera rig and stitching software to demonstrate how 360° videos can be produced and loaded onto the Samsung GearVR and into Unity3D VR environments.

Professor Pacheco is interviewed by a Swedish tech magazine about virtual reality journalism.

"Students in Pacheco's VR Storytelling course (http://vrstorytelling.org), most of whom have no 3D modeling experience, use Mixamo to easily and inexpensively add interactive characters to scenes that are viewed in Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets"

Professor Pacheco reports on his experience with an extended HoloLens demo at the E3 conference and provides ideas on how it could be used in journalism and media.

"Dan Pacheco compared the news industry to Hollywood. "In the golden age of movies, the studio controlled everything, hired all of the actors in a company-town model," said Pacheco, "Now everyone is a free agent." While the sources themselves remain a big deal (Time, WSJ, The New York Times), "the journalist is increasingly the brand," noted Pacheco.  Just look at the incredible following new personalities now have on Twitter, due to its uniquely popular open forum."

Newhouse currently teaches interactive data visualization, product management for journalists, and new technologies for new media as part of the pack, said chair in journalism innovation Dan Pacheco.

Prof. Pacheco was invited to present with Nonny de la Peña about Virtual Reality Journalism at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy.

"Dan Pacheco, professor of journalism innovation - 'It's important for us to disrupt ourselves. If we don't do it, others will.' "

Professor Pacheco was invited to speak on a panel about "Great Universities" in the future. You can see highlights from the panel on YouTube.

'For a couple of days in journalism circles, "Harvest of Change" was the hot trending topic. Never before had you been able to virtually step inside a story and be enveloped by 360-degree video and hyper-realistic 3D renderings of a landscape you could move inside of. And while the full effect was achieved through the Oculus headset, there were also 2D versions made for desktop computers, which let more people experience the story. You can find it at desmoinesregister.com/pages/interactives/harvest-of-change. The seeds of this "harvest" were planted when Dan Pacheco, chair of journalism innovation at the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University, met with Mitch Gelman, vice president of product at Gannett Digital. '

Prof. Pacheco was interviewed by CBS Interactive's TechRepublic about using virtuality for journalism in the story: "Immersive journalism: What virtual reality means for the future of storytelling and empathy-casting." The piece also referenced Pacheco's Virtual Reality Storytelling course and included a link to a 360 video of the SU football team by class member and football player Eric Jackson.

Prof. Pacheco co-authored the primer on virtual reality in this report on The State of Virtual Reality in Journalism for Gannett and the Knight Foundation.

"There's a virtual reality course being taught this semester in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications called Virtual Reality Storytelling. (Full disclosure: I am taking the course right now. It's awesome.) The course's professor, Dan Pacheco, says demand for the course is high, and for good reason in that it may set you apart in a job interview. "Just having a good understanding of [virtual reality], especially for students in communications who want to work within media is going to be very marketable," Pacheco said. "Every major media company right now is investing in virtual reality.""

Professor Pacheco has been added to the advisory board for StoryNEXT, a new annual conference focused on innovators in virtual reality storytelling.