Jen Lee Reeves » Flash

Deep thoughts

Jen Reeves — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 06:51:52 +0000

I’m constantly swamped. It is so easy to do my job all the time that I actually tend to do my job all the time. I communicate with students over email, over instant message, over text message. I also can keep track of the komu.com site over my cellphone by visiting the site’s mobile site or just visiting the page from my phone’s web browser.

With all of this interaction, I still don’t feel like I’m teaching enough. Is that crazy? It’s because there is SO much to talk about and SO much to learn.

This past week I spent the week teaching small workshops on Flash with students. In most cases I worked with three people at a time. The best I can do is open their eyes to the basic functions of the software. If they want to know more, I encourage them to go to campus training sessions or visit places like lynda.com. A successful training session is opening their minds enough that they can “communicate in Flash.” That type of knowledge gives each person the ability to come up with an idea that would help online users learn about a topic. Then they can work with a Flash expert who would be able to understand the journalist’s instructions and ideas. Communicating in Flash means my journalists can envision good Flash journalism by working with an Action Script expert.

It’s hard to accept that I can’t teach everything that is worth teaching. I’m still learning to accept that.

I’m about to go on a trip to meet with some tech “players.” I hope to brain dump some of my ideas and see if they want to play with me. Ever since I started working with Apple on podcasting, I discovered how higher ed and the high tech corporate world can build some pretty fantastic relationships. Then I get to add in a professional newsroom environment where those products can be put to work in a real world setting where we think about profits. It’s a really exciting opportunity to offer. I haven’t been able to play with as many “toys” as I have hoped, but it’s fun to offer a professional and higher ed perspective at the same time. I hope I’ll come back with some cool projects in my future.

So much to catch up on

Jen Reeves — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:55:17 +0000

I am currently teaching more than double the number of students I’m used to teaching. It’s a challenge to make sure they get the same kind of attention that a smaller class would get from me. The reason I increased the size was twofold: 1) More broadcast journalism students should get the chance to think outside the box and share news and information in non-traditional ways and 2) I have two websites that need upkeep – my news website and the election website that I’ve been trying my damnedest to get up and running to the level it should be.

So far, I have some very committed students. They want to learn, they want to succeed and they’ve really picked up on the job pretty well. I also have a group of reports and editors who are a part of the journalism school’s convergence sequence. These reporters and editors are trained earlier in their journalism experience to think outside the box. They have helped put together some very nice, clean informational graphics.

A year ago I preached the need for video. People love video. I think that still holds true. The trick is, viewer-generated video has more demand than video from a newscast. At this point, a news website is expected to have its newscast content online. But now I am seeing other expectations. As a visual medium, broadcasters need to think of every possible way to tell the story. Flash-animated infographics are a part of that expectation.

I have not figured out an effective work flow that will help a broadcast newsroom produce in-house topical infographics. I haven’t even figured out effective work flow to keep my entire web staff communicating with each other. The graphic that you see here was worked on all evening by one person and when it was time to add it to the website, a number of people working on my news site had no idea of its existence. When my web staff doesn’t know about it, how the heck can it get properly teased on the air? I’ve found additional material that is placed online does not get as many eyes on it (or clicks) unless it is promoted on the air: Broadcast needs online and online needs broadcast.

Challenge for journalists and educators

Jen Reeves — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 05:12:59 +0000

There’s this debate in journalism classrooms: How much time do you spend training students on software and how much time do you spend teaching about the actual thought process and skill of being a journalist. In the industry, the challenge is how can you afford the tech know-how without finding journalists who already know the software.

Honestly, I think it’s a mess.

Some of my students really get the software and they’re going to snag AMAZING jobs. But the average student shouldn’t be expected to understand the nitty gritty of CSS and Action Script 2.0 and 3.0. I think most students should understand what technology can do. If they understand the potential, then they can team up with someone who knows the tech side of things and communicate his or her need. Even better… If I show them the basics, they they can take the initiative to learn more outside of class.

Right now, I teach the basics of Flash to my students so they understand its potential. If I understood Flex and had a basic understanding of that, I’d do the same with it. I think students who can think on a multi-layer, interactive level can think about delivering news differently. Once you know how to deliver news differently, you start to realize that life doesn’t have to be linear anymore. There are new ways to present, explain and share. Until now, journalism had a starting and ending point. Now it can be up to the online user to decide what they want to learn. They can stay as long or as short as they’d like. They can come back and learn more if they want. They can choose to ignore all of it or expand their research beyond what one website has to offer.

It’s a new world. Not everyone is going to take advantage of it all. I hope I can at least offer the gift of understanding what’s out there to my students.