We have two different tracts of discussion… Content producers and content managers. You can also pitch in using the #realworldlunch hashtag.

CONTENT PRODUCERS:

CONTENT MANAGERS:

We have a team of students who are helping cover today’s events and they even put together a blog: http://realworldlunch.wordpress.com

By the way – if you’re curious about what I’m teaching in my class, here’s what this week’s focus is on: Building your name brand online.

A couple of months ago, I had a chance to present to my fellow faculty and staff at the Missouri School of Journalism to talk about how I use social media inside and outside the classroom. Here’s a look at my slides:

I’ve found great success in using my classroom as a social experimental space. I also use it as a way to stay in contact with my current and former students. In the classroom, I encourage tweeting with the #jenclass hashtag. It gives my students a chance to share live notes with each other. Yes, there are times where the note taking turns into a completely off topic side conversation, but I follow the hashtag and can call the students out if they lose focus. I also use CoverItLive sometimes to let students practice the skill of live blogging. It’s a skill that is only done well if you practice. It’s tough to practice if you don’t have reasons to live blog!

I also make it clear to my students that it’s easier to reach me via social networks than leaving a voicemail. My class hashtag extends beyond class discussion. Current and former students share links and ideas throughout each week. (Right now the stream is quiet since I’m not teaching a class, just managing the newsroom at KOMU.)

I recommended experimenting with your comfort zone to the faculty and staff who attended my session. One person commented how I’m much braver than he is as a teacher. I said I’m lucky to have flexible students who are hungry to learn in this space. Each semester is different for me. I never teach my class the same way, so every semester I learn something that worked and something that didn’t work. Luckily, I ask for input throughout the semester and most of the time my students feel comfortable telling me when they feel they understand what’s going on and when they feel lost!

I loved having a chance to share some of my higher ed ideas to my peers. It’s something I don’t get to do often enough. It’s funny how so many of us are doing really great things, but we’re so busy working hard we don’t take enough time to share.

I’m lucky – that’s what a mom friend told me yesterday during a snow day while we watched our kids tear up my house. I had to ponder that after I had waken up at four in the morning AGAIN so I could help my newsroom manage school closings after a particularly deep dump of snow in the area. But I had to think about it. The core of journalism is to inform the community. I have the opportunity to wake up at ungodly hours and drive through dangerously deep snow so I can make sure others don’t do what I do. I get to inform my community about the things that are most important to them. At the same time I get to show future journalists how you get the job done.

Working in a newsroom is a blessing and a curse. So is the job of a journalism professor. My friend told me she thought I was lucky because I am a professor. She explained it’s because I have something to show with my job. I do have a lot to show for it. I have hundreds of former students doing amazing things in the industry and beyond. But lately I’ve made sure my focus as a professor is expanded. The things I teach my students are useful for anyone. A teacher in Palo Alto, California has a similar perspective and is teaching her high schoolers the power of journalism. NPR-affiliate KQED’s MindShift blog spoke to Esther Wojcicki about her teaching philosophy. She thinks teaching journalism skills to all high school students will help them become more media literate and understand how to create digital media. She helped launch a site called 21stcentury. The site is rich with information that could be useful for anyone looking to enhance their knowledge base.

I think it’s incredible how many freshmen arrive in college with little to no experience in digital media. Their parents blocked them from using social media and other digital publishing tools during high school in fear they would make bad choices. That fear is not isolated to high school parents. My college students tell me their parents are constantly emailing them links to worst case scenarios. The message: “Don’t use new social media tools. It might hurt you.”  The fear of making a mistake is holding back so many people. I attribute that fear to a lack of digital media literacy. If more people saw the strengths of these new communication tools, I honestly think community connections and conversations can only get better.

Universities are inside a comfortable bubble where you can push the envelope. My job gives me an unusual opportunity to work in a practicing newsroom and teach. After years in “normal” newsrooms, the added university link has afforded me so many opportunities to explore, make mistakes and learn so much about the changes in the journalism industry. Those changes also translate into changes in how communities communicate and share. Why not expand the university bubble and bring the entire community into that zone of comfort? The lessons I am teaching should spread into the community.

When I first taught journalism, I required my students to volunteer during the semester to prove to them that it’s important to connect with the community and not just work in the newsroom. You can’t be a good journalist if you don’t physically connect with your community. I feel the same way about universities – especially journalism schools. We have powerful knowledge that can only help an ever expanding community need.

I’m taking action. I really believe my university connection has afforded me knowledge that’s worth spreading. A portion of my capstone students will help me connect the lessons learned in my Advanced Internet Applications class and sharing them with our community. One team will create how-to videos and guides for our newsroom’s audience so they can feel more comfortable using social media tools and basic digital publishing platforms. Another team will help the new Social Media Club chapter that I’m helping found in our community. Through the club, my students will help develop educational community events. I even have a team learning how to create a social media-based fundraising event for a local family resource center as part of Twestvial Local 2011. I want to break down those walls of fear and help many more people understand why this changing world is worth jumping into – not blocking.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if these ideas expanded into the fabric of an entire university community?

I am lucky.

Alumni have a chance to join in on the live blog below to share advice and thoughts as well. (Heck, if you’re a professional who wants to join in even if you aren’t alumni, your input is welcome as well.)

The event starts at noon Central Time and ends at 2:00 p.m. Have fun!

This year is the seventh time I’ve taken advantage of the Homecoming event and invited as many people as possible to meet current students so they can share lessons learned in the “real world.” Last year, I even had a couple of students live blog the event so alumni could participate even if they couldn’t attend the event.

This year, I’m pondering on another idea… What if journalists (mostly alumni) shared their thoughts even in advance of our big Friday lunch bonanza so more lessons learned can go to our current students (and even others in the industry – we’re all looking to learn as we move along with our careers). So… if you’re on Twitter, use the hashtag #journotips and share the lessons you’ve learned in your career. If you have a chance to attend my lunch, warning – ESPN GameDay has taken over my lunch location, so I’m working on a new one as soon as possible.

I usually start things off like a cheerleader. Super excited. Super energetic. I was never a cheerleader in school… but I’ve had the energy to do something like that. Somehow my energy reached more than one student today. I actually had the class interacting with my questions. I had students raising their hand to add more input. I made a couple of jokes that had some people actually respond with a chuckle. Some students chatted with me after the class.

It was awesome.

I’m energized from the experience. I’m not sure why. But I had to share because it’s little moments like these that make me extra happy to have the chance to introduce and share the world of journalism that I love.

I often speak to classes about ways to build your personal brand… and I consider blogs as the core of that brand building process. A blog is a space to share your brain, your interests or at least examples of your professional work. The more you post and share and collaborate, the easier it is for search engines to find our who you are and what you’re all about.

Today I spoke to a group that is assigned to post weekly blogs. It’s a task I enouraged a few years ago. Students early in the Missouri School of Journalism should try to think about web-based writing early on in their journalism career. I’m glad it was added. About a year from now, the students in today’s class who start blogging will end up taking my class. That means I end up reading what these young bloggers write. After a few semesters of reading these old blog posts, I realized I need to better explain blog tone. That’s what I tried to do in class today.

What is blog tone?
What I mean is I think there’s a difference between a “dear diary” tone and a conversational tone. I’ve found many new bloggers who are given an assignment to use a blog tool start off sounding a bit giggly and nervous. Often the blog posts talk about fun with friends, student life and comments that sound similar to “Oh my gosh! I just reported my first shift in the newsroom.” I challenged the students today to try to think about their tone as a professional from the start. They can be conversational: “My newsroom shift included the challenge of traveling two hours into our viewing area to shoot a package, get back and turn it within an hour and a half. It was exhausting but I’m proud of the final result.”

The only way to learn about the difference between diary and conversational is tricky. So I told the class that this is a great time to jump into blogging. For most students in the classroom, there’s at least a year before they head into the “real world.” They can learn a conversational tone with enough time to practice, get input and then jump in feet first into the less officialy, but just as important ways of delivering news, information, thoughts and experiences.

By the way, if you’re curious about how I’m trying to tackle student fear of failure, feel free to visit my new blog post on PBS’s MediaShift blog.

[Photo courtesy of Adikos via Flickr.]

First, if I am reading a Website that I think has good content, I save a link to Delicious. This is a site that helps you save links and add searchable tags. My full Delicious page is: http://www.delicious.com/jenleereeves
If you are curious about what I’ve read and saved about Twitter, you can go to http://www.delicious.com/jenleereeves/twitter
I have tagged things under dozens and dozens of different tags.

I also have a quick saving process in Twitter. If I see something I’d like to go back and read again later, I often favorite items. You can check out my favorites (mind you, I favorite things beyond journalism – I also tend to favorite mommy-related topics): http://www.twitter.com/jenleereeves/favorites

There are all kinds of other ways to share… How do you like to share links and conversations?

—————————————————

I’m going to share some brainstorming I’m doing as I prepare for the upcoming semester.

I’ve decided to make a shift in my class. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sure my students understand the basics of many types of software – a lot of them being part of the Adobe Creative Suite. As the semesters go by, most students “get” Photoshop, sort of understand Illustrator and struggle with the basics of Flash. I demand they learn a blog tool, a blog writing style and build their own online portfolio website.

My long term goal with my class is to send my students out into the journalism world with a thought process that instantly thinks about the many ways you can tell a story and share with your audience. If there’s a very visual story, I want them to default to shooting video and images with their phones and sharing it on Twitter and/or Facebook while also using their professional grade cameras to share the story on the air and more edited versions online. I want them to want to send a short web story via email to the newsroom so there’s enough information to post as soon as the information is confirmed. I want them to feel comfortable writing for the web and telling a story outside the standard broadcast package. I want my students to think in a flexible manner. I’m starting to think I need to spend more time on that flexible thought process and less on the software.

One of my colleagues started using lynda.com to train students on software and I decided that I’d give that a try as well. This coming semester, I’m asking my students to take part in five different courses on the site that focus on Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. The one thing I have decided on is how I will gauge their learning experience with the website training.

I am not a fan of babysitting my students – I want them to learn and get everything they can from my class, but I understand each person has different expectations and needs from their education. I want each person to at least walk away knowing there are many tools that can help enhance and improve their journalistic adventures. Not every person will leave with a thorough understanding of all of those tools. But I want them to think about it and ask for help if they have a great idea on how to tell a story.  I do need to find ways to assess how each student benefits (or doesn’t benefit) from using lynda.com. Any ideas are welcome!!

BTW – I’m adding the new Twitter “Tweet Button” to this post for the fun of it (and to see how it looks)
Tweet