Meet my class...

So why is journalism part of a project of exploring new directions in curriculum?

Because the nature of journalism is changing… few young people look at a newsletter and their average time spent watching TV is now 18 mins. I had some students in my class who were completely ignorant of the miners trapped underground at Beaconsfield despite the overwhelming media coverage. So what are they engaged with? Internet use and games are now where the action is. Why look at something static when you can be part of on-line communities chatting to your friends, writing comments and getting immediate feedback.


Meet one of my students… Trish. She is writing an article on drugs for our on-line magazine Jescador. She has decided to write about an experience of a friend who was given a hallucigenic drug without his knowledge. He turned up to her place scratching the walls and thinking spiders were out to get him. But she doesn’t seem to be working on the article – she is on chat yet again!!!

“ahem,” I say
“No, Sue, I am doing work – I am asking my ex-boyfriend who gave 2C-i to my friend what exactly the drug is and what the effects are – he should know he is a drug dealer.”

I take a deep breath and bite my tongue. She has been very depressed since she came into the class but has really perked up as a result of doing the article….so I don’t want to appear too judgmental. I am also balancing here the fact that this quite personal, yet very interesting and revealing article is going to go on our internal web site and the college doesn’t want to be seen to support drugs. How can this article inform the discussion about drug issues rather than just being self indulgent? Then there is the fact that she values information from “expert” friends, rather than those people that we would consider experts and despite my encouraging her to add some more objective research to her article, or to get another side (eg. a counsellor) she still writes it very much from a personal point of view. And then there is the fact that she herself has told me she takes ecstasy for partying and sees nothing wrong with going out with a drug dealer.

How might you respond now to Trish? Yes, this journalism class is the vehicle for many things… and I will talk about that another time, not least of all my own ethical development.

So where is media heading? The big newspapers worldwide are now on-line – and some see readers as participating in news coverage ... imagine instead of the 100 journalists employed by the company a resource of 20,000 potential journalists. So how do we adapt to a world of multiple perspectives, written from personal point of views? Is there still room for “reporting news”? What new standards might apply? How do we become more discerning in such a world, without choosing the easy option – to tune out? What skills do I need to be teaching in this thing called a “journalism class”? How can I encourage my students to not just be competent with this new technology (podcasts, photo-stories, blogs, polls, digital recording, creative commons), but to understand the issues of it – to develop their own standards and sense of discernment?

Why are these students here anyway? A soft option? A place to experiment? A place to have a voice, to make waves?

Yes, my students all have College blogs – they put stories, photostories, polls, podcasts and personal reflections on their blogs. They get comments from staff and students and through such immediate feedback they are learning… far more than if they were writing for a print magazine. When they get lots of hits they feel powerful and successful… when few people click onto their stories, they re-assess their headlines and opening paragraphs. How can they grab people's attention? Who are their readers and what do they want to read or listen to? How can they generate more interaction? Some are still terrified of writing anything but most are oblivious to the fact that they are now exposed to the world. And they have a regular audience of about 150 readers (20% of the college) who click onto their new stories every week.

One boy has his own personal blog which recently got its 10,000th hit.

My head is spinning… what about yours!

Hear the interview with the co-editor of the magazine.

powered by ODEO