Three classes prepare for the end, and the building tension is all around us

Screen grab from blog of WSU Digital PJ student Brice Bossavie. Feature assignment.

Photo by Intro to PJ student Kyle Brown. Sports assignment.

    The end is near.

  This means less laughs and more stress. A few students dropped out, while others are stepping up. Final projects and exams loom. Deadlines are finite. It is a tense time for the students, and for us instructors, as well.

   But it’s also an exciting time because the end produces results. Most of the students began the semester with a blank social media slate, but will leave with active blogs, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Their blogs will showcase everything they have learned for the past three months.

   In this blog post I’ll recap how the semester went:

Intro to Photojournalism | Owens Community College

     This is a small but mighty class.

  Not only are they doing their regular homework assignments, they are also student staffers on the Owens Outlook online student newspaper.

   All of them are required to provide photos with captions for the newspaper. And, for the first time since I’ve been teaching this course, they are also tasked with shooting video for the weekly Campus Pulse.  A few of the students even write stories.

   But it’s the final project that will test their mettle. We, as a team, are collectively producing a 32-page magazine on a single issue: a photo story on the residents and staff of Sunshine Communities in Maumee, Ohio. Because most of the students are mostly commercial photography majors, shooting the project was the easy part.

   The hard part will be designing the magazine in the next three weeks, and it’s daunting. They will design the pages using Photoshop, and upload the PDF files to Issuu. Each student has three pages to fill.

   Considering this is the first time to try this, we have to start from scratch. No templates. But I’ve always loved a challenge!

   Here a few of the issues we are tackling:

·      Choose a front page photo, and design the flag

·      Choose font types, sizes and colors

·      Design the index and masthead page

·   Determine who has what pages. Each student is responsible for designing their own pages, which will include an essay on their experience. 

   We’ll publish the inaugural issue on their blogs in three weeks, so stay tuned.

   Now is a good time to reveal that this is the last Intro to Photojournalism class. Beginning in the fall, the class will be called Visual Storytelling, and it’ll run every spring and fall, instead of just once a year. It’ll be a required course for the new broadcast technology major.

   The premise will remain the same, with journalism as a primary component, but I’ll add podcasting and video storytelling to the curriculum.

Digital Photojournalism | Wayne State University

Photo by WSU Digital PJ student Rob Streit. Features assignment.

   This class is triple the size of Owens, so it’s not realistic to do a team final photo project like Owens did.

    Instead, they are responsible for shooting their own photo story. The students are also required to record an interview and capture live ambient sound as an added storytelling element.

   They are currently learning Audacity to edit their audio, and will produce their final project in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014.  The projects will be uploaded onto the course’s YouTube account, and on their individual blogs.

   Most of the students are print journalism and broadcast majors, so this is a course that could, and probably will, be beneficial to them someday. These days it’s not a matter of if, but when, they will be taking their own images.

Teaching Multimedia | Kent State University

   This is a distance-learning course for high school journalism teachers and advisers from around the country. Most of the students are English teachers with no background or experience in journalism.

   Can you imagine? One day they’re teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, and then all of a sudden they are advisers to the yearbook, the student newspaper, and teaching journalism courses. It happens all the time, and as long as schools do not commit to journalism programs, it'll continue happening.

   Fortunately, these grad students have the Journalism Education program at Kent State (which I’m a graduate of), and are simultaneously learning about the journalism field, as well as how to teach it.

   In this course they are learning about multimedia, which includes photography, infographics (maps, surveys, polls and timelines) and video storytelling.
   And this semester I’ve added two new lessons: podcasting and creating a Camtasia Studio tutorial. Judging from their essays, I'm confident they liked podcasting, especially if they regularly listen to NPR.
   As far as the Camtasia Studio tutorial goes, I'm also confident they'll value that, too. In fact, I plan on spending many summer mornings creating Camtasia Studio tutorials on moderately difficult tasks, like Audacity and Premiere. It'll save time in the classroom, in the end, and who doesn't value that?

Screen grab of podcast produced by Teaching MM student Mark Davidson. Interview podcast assignment.

   ----------------------

   So, this sums up the spring 2016 semester, so far. I told every student on Day One that my classes are designed to prepare them for ‘the real world,’ and to have a tangible portfolio of work in the end. Mission almost accomplished.

(To view the blogs of students in any of the three classes, go to the designated blog list pages at the top of this blog.)

'Dang, this year flew by!' and other recapping thoughts

      This statement can literally be cut and pasted onto this blog every year about this time:

“Dang, this year flew by!”

       Indeed, it has. Here’s a quick recap for the Fall 2013 semester:

   Intro to PJ students Damion, Parth, Nicole and Yusta work on their team photo story last week. (Photos by Lori King)

Owens Community College

·         There weren’t too many changes for the Intro to Photojournalism course. Students still created Twitter and Blogger accounts, and they reported from their campus beats.

   They are currently working on their team photo story on Wood Lane Industries in Bowling Green. Their Soundslides story will be posted on this blog next week.

   A popular student request is that there is a Part 2 to this Intro to PJ course. This is a request that would take a lot of thought, and I've pondered it myself. I would like to incorporate video to tell longer photo stories, and allow them to earn grades for being an Owens Outlook newspaper staff photographer.

   I am considering writing a grant request for video cameras that students would use for the advanced storytelling course. Hey, some dreams do come true!

B&W 1 students at a horse barn for a portrait assignment shoot.

·      The Black & White 1 course in Findlay ended up being a very small class, with only three students making it to the end. A B&W course is not scheduled at all in Findlay next semester.

   I fear for the future of photography in Findlay. In fact, I fear for the future of Black and White photography, period. Teaching the theory, history and practical experience of Black and White photography is a debatable practice in the 21^st Century.

        The first Owens Outlook newspaper staff meeting this semester.                     

   What do students gain from the old fashioned art of processing and printing film and prints in a wet darkroom? They learn first hand the roots of photography. But more importantly, they get to experience the magic of patience. To take a photo with a bare-bones camera; advance each frame with a crank lever; to know in your gut what reciprocity means; to rely on your knowledge because you don’t know what you got until it’s processed in a tin can; to see a print come alive before your very eyes... Yes, this is magic!

·      As the new adviser for the Owens Outlook newspaper, we, as a staff, have accomplished a few major tasks, including creating a staff policy manual and identifying big problems we are diligently working to fix.

   I want to thank Student Life director Chris G. for sending myself, as well as the two top editors ( Josh Widanka and Cathy Zeltner) to the College Media Association Fall conference in New Orleans in October.

   Going to the conference was a game changer. We came back with very valuable information that will help us fix our problems. Here’s what we are currently working on:

1.    Getting our own office space

2.  Creating the News Academy training program for every student staff member each semester

3.   Changing to a more visually appealing, user-friendly website

4.   Found a printer for when we are ready to go back to a hard copy newspaper

5.   Developing a business plan that will include a student ad staff that will sell ads. Ad revenue will allow payment to the student staff!

Kent State University

·      Last but not least is the Kent State University online course, Teaching Multimedia.

   The students in this course are high school teachers from across the country. They either teach journalism courses or advise student media and/or yearbook staffs.

   This is an intensive, skills-based course that teaches them about DSLR cameras, audio capture and editing, and how to shoot and produce video stories. Because technology is changing so rapidly, it's crucial that our teachers are keeping up with it so they can better teach, or at least relate, to their students.
   When I took over the course this semester, it was already designed by former instructor Susan Zake, who was hired as Kent State University's newest professor, thus she didn't feel she would have the time to teach it anymore.  That said, if I teach it again (and I hope I do), I plan to tweak it just a tiny bit next Fall. I'm thinking about adding blogging and DX code creation to the syllabus. But at this point, who knows what the hot new trend will be in a year...

      So, we are near the end and then it will all begin again next year.

Intro to PJ blog to include KSU's Teaching Multimedia class

   This blog was created for Intro to Photojournalism students in 2011. It is a great social media tool for documenting course objectives and highlighting student achievements.
   But that's about to change.
   Beginning Aug. 26 this blog will be shared with students from my Teaching Multimedia course at Kent State University. The Teaching MM course is an online graduate-level class for high school English and journalism teachers/advisers across the nation who want to learn more about using basic multimedia tools in their classrooms and with their student journalism publications. This will be my first time to teach that course.
   I actually was a student in that class in 2009. It's where I learned how to blog and tweet. Needless to say that class fundamentally changed how I communicate with students. In fact, my primary blog, Lori King's Blog, was one of my homework assignments! Teaching MM students will also learn how to capture and edit audio, produce a Soundslides project and shoot a video story.
   I will also be sharing the @intro2pj Twitter account with that class, as well.
   I'm confident students (and myself) in both courses will benefit by learning from one another.