At The College of New Jersey, we’ve taken a fairly unique approach that has led to some projects that I’d like to highlight. I summarized that approach a while back on the discussion board:

At the College of New Jersey, we have been building an online journalism focus organically over the last 10 years. It started when my magazine writing students and I collaborated with faculty and students in the Art department to create an online news magazine, unbound (http://www.tcnj.edu/~unbound) in 1996.

Using such experiences as the unbound collaboration as a foundation, in the last four years, we have built an Interactive Multimedia Major which has professional writing courses that are cross-listed with our journalism major. That program has developed an intense focus on videogame design that has led to an expanded research interest in specialized software and hardware for interactive storytelling.

This past summer, faculty and students in our IMM and Computer Science programs conducted summer research projects on technologies and techniques for innovative content manaagement systems, storytelling, and user-controlled content generation. All of this has helped to create student interest in multiple facets online journalism, not just content creation and production.

I’m teaching Interactive Journalism this semester, a class that is cross-listed in both our journalism and interactive multimedia (IMM) majors. Of the 28 students in the class, about half are journalism majors and the other half are IMM or computer science majors. Everyone will be expected to acquire a basic understanding of both the elements of newsgathering, and the core technologies of online journalism production. The students will produce individual and group reporting projects that will be published via a new content management system for unbound created by our computer science students this past summer.

You can see the beta version of unbound running on the new CMS here.

So here are some particularly strong final projects that emerged from the class:

• WKIM News
  Brandon Lee, Kevin Shields, Jim Silverman

  A look at the local impact of the pet food recall. The project includes a overview, video interviews with a local veterinarian and a pet food vendor, and a timeline of the crisis presented as cartoons with audio narration.

• Putting a Face on the Effects of Higher Education Funding Cuts in New Jersey

  Tom Dunford, Daniel Eckhardt, Jake Remaly, Eve Roytshteyn

  This flash website examines the impact of state budget cuts on TCNJ. It incldes a game about the budget cuts, text, audio interviews, and public statements from the College’s president, a member of student government, a graduate assistant and a faculty member who is active in the local union. There is also a flash game, a slide show and video from a recent statehouse protest.

• Media and Gangs

  Joe Garavente, Nigel Plaza

  This site explores the theory that portrayals of violence in the media are contributing to increased gang violence. The report is an interactive video that summarizes existing research,includes an interview with a Newark, New Jersey gang member, an email interview from a controversial rapper and media activist, and a discussion board.

• Liberia’s Angel: The Story of MacDella Cooper

  Genevieve Faust, Tammy Tibbetts

  This site tells the inspiring tale of a young woman who escaped the Liberian civil war at the age of 13, lived as a refugee for three years, came to the US made her mark in the fashion industry, and who now, at 30, runs a foundation that supports several day care centers and orphanages in Liberia. The flash website includes profile, photo gallery, timeline of Liberian history, a map of her escape route and audio clips in which MacDella describes particularly dramatic moments in her story.

I am interested in your thoughts.

I admit to not spending a lot of time at every single site, but I was disappointed to not find any photo slide shows. These are my favorite part of visiting news sites like the Washington Post, the NYtimes online, and even my own local paper.

A while back, I tried using another free online tool called voicethread. It allows you to create photoslide shows AND add your own audio to each photo. These can then easily be posted to blogger or whatever website you like.

Is that why the students didn’t use the photoslide shows? Because what’s a series of streaming photos without a personal caption or words for each one? Maybe this would also feel more relevant to those interested in tv or radio journalism?

I am a new member of OJR, and I will be glad to talk with you all.

Fist my comment to the post: I think that online publishing gives many opportunities for students to do “exercises”, expecially in one field: they can try to have a first contact with what can be called “public”, for example trying to moderate some reactions to a post. In the blogs I think that the young publisher get in contact of what can be called “responsibility” for what he writes. Obviously real journalism is a different thing, but the dinamics look, surprisingly, similar.

Second: I introduce myself. My name’s Giuliano, 23 years old. I work as a journalist in a small/medium media company in Lugano (switzerland), I work with local news and I like very much to cover the stories of common people. At the same time, I am finishing a PHD in Media management at the University of Lugano.
My reasearch topic is: “How changes the work of journalists going from paper to online news production?”.
Discussing with you on these topic, I also hope to get some inputs for my work, and to enjoy myself, as I do working for and studyng media.

Looking formward to talk with you again and share some idea, I greet you all. See you

Giuliano Gasperi.