School is in Session

The schools are changing as well.

As a result of the evolving journalism field, journalism schools have adapted their curriculum to better prepare their students for the professional world.

Picking up new technological skills are becoming more common in the classroom. Using social media as a way to share pictures of the night before or update your friends on what you are doing has transformed into a valuable tool for teachers to help their students get their name out there.

In researching last week, I came across a great article-"10 Ways Journalism Schools are Teaching Social Media"- that reinforces this point about schools making the necessary adjustments to better equip their students with the necessary skills to keep up with the changing field of journalism. Although being published nearly two years ago, the article detailed the top 10 ways that journalism schools are involving social media in their class.

1. Promotion of Content
This step is crucial for any journalist to get their name out to an audience and maybe even a potential employer. Social media allows for quick posting of stories for everyone to see. Every time you write an academic or professional article, make sure that it is seen. A blog allows you to get your stories on the internet, and you can then promote them through the use of Twitter or Facebook.

At Columbia University, they are now offering a social media skills course to help expand on what you already know.

2. Interviews
The article references a case at the University of North Carolina where a professor teaches his students how to interview subjects of a story using social media. Skype, which allows you to have a real time face-to-face chat on a computer allows for a more personal touch with your interview subject. Saves on travel time and produces a more intimate setting rather than just e-mail.

3. Gathering of Information
Journalism teachers are now more encouraging of their students to use social media as a way to get information quick. As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, though, the necessary background checking that has always been a part of journalism especially applies to everything you take from a social media site.

4. Acquiring Sources
Students are now being taught to use social media as a way to acquire sources. The article speaks about a social media site such as FriendFeed, where you can subscribe to a number of feeds from friends to get information, to ask questions of people to be potential sources for a story.

5. Publishing with Social Tools
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism taught students how to create a site that would help them learn how to publish material using social media tools such as WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. This is a way for students to learn what the appropriate tool is for what type of information-Twitter for quick updates, Facebook for articles, Flickr for pictures, etc.

6. Blogging
At the University of Wisconsin at Madison Journalism School, students learned how to use an application called CoveritLive. This tool allows for people to embed a live-running blog on a site so that they could post information quickly and have real-time conversations with their audience. This certainly appeals to the immediacy the audience is looking for. There is no waiting around for someone to answer a question.

7. Relevant Content
Journalism teachers are emphasizing the correct use of social media. They do not want to see their students not just put up unimportant messages that only apply to themselves. Their students should be posting content that is relevant and important to society. Joining certain groups that share these ideas can help a student network.

8. Brand
Students are taught to use social media in a way that establishes who they will be as a writer. Being a member of a group can help the student reach out to experts in the field for advice.

9. Ethics
As I have written about before, the same ethics that apply to you as a real-world journalist apply to you in the digital world as well. Teachers are making sure to drill this point home to their students. Teachers are also making sure to inform students to be careful of what groups they are joining. If a journalist joins a group, that can be seen as a potential bias towards that group by some.

10. Use all of them
Students are being encouraged to experiment with all the social media so they know how to use it, and are able to become familiar with the applications. Potential employers maybe will be making sure that journalists know to properly use these tools before hiring them.

Future journalism students should see this as a need to embrace the social technology that is all around them. Constantly experimenting with different ways to use social media could possibly give you a leg up on your competition.

There are so many ways to be creative with social media for current journalism students. They can possibly use a project they did in school that involved social media and show it to a potential employer as proof of their ability to correctly use the technology.

References
Lavrusik, V. (2009, June 19). 10 ways journalism schools are teaching social media. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/06/19/teaching-social-media/