Greenslate inspires teachers

Wow! 2008 Reynolds Institute Fellow Christopher Greenslate was very inspiring. To think that the Reynolds Institute was his first exposure to journalism. From his presentation, it sounds like he built his school's program from practically nothing.

We must all start with a vision. I loved the questions he had us ask ourselves to determine what our vision is.

1. Our journalism program will be...

2. Our publication/ website will set out...

3. After being on our staff, students will...

4. I will know that we have reached our goals when...

I find myself constantly looking at our program daily, but not looking at the big picture. I hope by answering these questions I will be able to create a better map to success.

Leona O'Neal

George County High School

Lucedale, Miss.

Six weeks until Wednesday

The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State in Phoenix was home for amost 12 hours a day for the past 2 weeks to 34 journalism teachers from around the country. (Photo by Jodie Schommer)

As the week winds down, the temperatures ramp up. The 2010 ASNE Reynolds Institute Fellows prepare to say farewell to new found colleagues and the beautiful Arizona State Campus. (Photo by Jodie Schommer)

Well all, have you figured out the theme of the titles of my blogs yet this week? I have learned so much and it has all come together and clarity has hit. I have a clear direction after the presenters of today and yesterday. Alan Weintraut's various web sites lit a fire under me. (Too bad his emails went into my spam folder-thanks for resending).

Five things, implement 5 things every year and think about the changes in your publication in three years. Wow! Unbelieveable. This whole week has been amazing.

I always start every class with a 5-8 minute warm up. I use a variety of "fun" things. Try out www.freerice.com -it's a great interactive way to learn vocabulary AND companies donate rice to the hungry of the world.

I did 2 new things today-sent a picture over my phone and made a link in this blog. I'm riding the learning curve up and the ride is great.

Jodie Schommer
Lakeside Lutheran High School
Lake Mills, WI

Students thrive in team atmosphere

Jason Manning, (pictured at right) director of ASU's student media had the task of explaining to the Reynolds Institute Fellows just where storytelling is headed.

He gave us a look into the future and urged us to think strategically about change. We understand the way news is now delivered and speculated about how that might change in the future.

We had an insider's view of the News21 program as Manning serves as its managing editor. What an amazing experience for the students involved.

Jason explained that one aspect of the program which helped immensely was the teamwork of the students involved. As he observed each pair of students working on a project he said their skills were complementary which helped each team to balance each other.

Because the students traveled to do much of their reporting, being with a partner helped both mentally and emotionally. It's no wonder that the trend in many professional newsrooms is moving toward teams of journalists working in tandem.

Julie Albertson

Roncalli High School

Indianapolis, Ind.

Reynolds Institute Movie Night

It was great to everyone's video tonight. It was interesting to see how we all handled the same topic-- Arizona Heat.

It was definitely a learning experience to be critiqued by an instructor, as well as our peers. Going through each video and seeing what was wrong was a humbling experience.

I don't see me adding a complete video production component to my journalism program, but I would like to at least one video project to begin with. Maybe a project that promotes our school or community and then maybe I could use it to my advantage to add a larger component at a later day.

Leona O'Neal

George County High School

Lucedale, Miss.

Assignment: Cover the baseball game

34 Reynolds Institute Fellows enjoy an exciting baseball game at Chase Field in Phoenix, AZ. Photo by Nicki Yokota

We had to do it. Given tickets to attend the Diamondbacks vs Yankees baseball game, who could say no? After all, we've spent an entire week and a half learning the craft of journalism. And what better way to put everything together than at America's sport.

Seriously, thank you, Cronkite School, for allowing us this opportunity. For some, it was our first time attending a major league baseball game! How lucky are we to not only be able to attend but in style. All you can eat. Really? And eat we did. I can't remember the last time I had hot dogs + pop corn + peanuts + lemonade + ice cream all in one evening.

It was a great way to wind down after yet another intense day as we realize our "real" article deadline is coming up. Tomorrow will be the last great push to get everything uploaded, work on the layout, do final edits and then publish the website.

 Jamie Ray, I really did enjoy myself!


Nicki Yokota
St. Margaret's Episcopal School
San Juan Capistrano, CA

Take me out to the ballgame

What a great time we had tonight. After a day of deadlines, it was good to get away and enjoy some fun.
I am not a baseball fan, but the atmosphere of the crowd and sounds fills your attention to where it was easy to relax and let loose. The all-you-can eat seats did help as well.
Thanks to the Anita, Steve and the Reynolds Institute for everything. This was a great learning experience, and I am ready to begin a new year more excited than ever before.

Leona O'Neal
George County High
Lucedale, Miss.

Color wheel continued

Here is the website for the color wheel in case you want to read up on it. I too found this information very useful and the presentation on Exploring Social Media presented by Carol Schwalbe this morning very informative. I'm still not sure how to best incorporate social media into my instruction, but the sessions today, as well as my research, have encouraged me to consider some of the possibilities.

Kim Vinh mentioned ways that Twitter and Facebook could be useful for high school journalists, and I'm curious what others of you think about incorporating social media into your classrooms.

Jamalee Moret
Alhambra High School
Phoenix

The color wheel of social media

The are several different forms of soical media.

The spectrum of colors in this demonstration represent the many different social networks.

Some of which are:

• Blogger
• Twitter
• Facebook
• My Space

Here is a cheat sheet to help you navigate the social media world.

I am still learning how to navigate them myself. Photo by Bracinda Blum of Carol Schwalbe, Associate Professor of the Walter Conkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication talking to the ASNE Reynolds Institution participants today about social media.

What do you think about using social media as a way of communication?

Bracinda Blum
Woodbine High School
Woodbine, Iowa

A case for Twitter

I wanted to offer an argument for Twitter as a valuable tool for journalists, as many today seemed unconvinced of its worth. As the Twouble with Twitter video said, there are clearly a lot of people tweeting about mundane details of their day: what they ate, how hot it is, blah blah blah. I was definitely unconvinced by Twitter at first as well. But as a tool to show students how many are paying attention to important events, I've been very surprised and have found ways for my journalists to use Twitter.

How this came about: I was multitasking while watching the most recent State of the Union, and with Twitter open, I noticed that the number of comments on the speech was out of control: over 300 comments were being posted (I suppose I should say “tweeted”) a minute. Three hundred comments a minute! By the end of the speech, there were hundreds of thousands of comments. Many were funny, some were unnecessary, but several were very insightful. A lot linked to reports or articles about events or data mentioned – stuff I would want to look up on my own – much like Jason Manning’s demonstration of the "one screen" News 21 Initiative news packages. Even some congressmen in attendance were tweeting (which raised controversy), and it was interesting to read their real-time reactions.

The next day at school, I asked my students if they had watched. At least ten of them said they did only because they started seeing everyone on Facebook and Twitter posting about it. A few didn’t even know it was on until checking Facebook; the others said they felt like they should turn on the tv since so many people were talking about it.

In short, checking Facebook led my students to watching the State of the Union. Not bad, I thought. This could be useful after all.

Now my students spend the first day of our production cycle coming up with story ideas. One resource they check is Twitter. Which hashtags are popular, and then local and interesting to us? What major events are people talking about?

Len Downie Jr. told us to “not condemn the silly things on Facebook. Use it for the important things.” The same goes for Twitter.

Right now I follow my favorite writers, professors, and political figures. I delete people who don't give me anything useful. You don’t need to post anything yourself if you don’t want—I definitely don’t try to add to the nonsense. But I check it frequently and encourage my students to as well.

Just don’t call me a tweep.

Kim Vinh
Sequoia High School
Redwood City, Calif.

Some more links:

A journalist’s guide to Twitter

Six ways to make Twitter useful

Twitter for journalism

Manning the Way into the future of Journalism

To end our ninth day we looked to the future with Jason Manning, ASU Student Media Director. He was really big on looking into strategies to direct the use of technology tactics. One thing that directs our media consumption habits is the segmenting of media so that we "only consume what we like."
In order to counter this situation we need to develop greater media literacy so we can become critical consumers. This will allow consumers to decide if they need to hunt around for better or different news. That information is being shared and exchanged on social networks with then react with media sources. The pace of exchange is speeding up, said Manning.
Social media channels used to be verboten in legacy news organizations, but they are fully accepted now.
We then really headed into the future: 3-D web, holograms, programs finding you on the web, and the need for teaching social media to our students to make good decisions.

JH Appel
Chaparral HS
Chaparral, NM

History Through Your Eyes

Rick Rodriguez said that he blames the media for instances like SB1070 "because it's part of the news media's role to educate people about the natives," meaning of course, all of the natives of our country.

I appreciated his perspective about how either the "news media was unprepared; they missed the story, the unrest, or they just didn't care." It became clearer when he went into his own story about how he became interested in journalism and the importance of diversity. Diversity is not just about color, but different perspectives presented in different ways.

He spoke of how people look to the news "to affirm their own views." That is perhaps why there is such an issue with diversity - when the news is presented from a different, fresh, more accurate perspective, people won't always hear what they want to hear; they'll probably be getting more of the truth...as much as it hurts sometimes, said Jenese.



Jenese Giles
Northeast High School
Oakland Park, Fla.

Conversations we never want to have

As educators, we try very hard not to have conversations with our administrators. Usually it not a good thing if we are called to the principal's office. If we are called in, what do we do?

Some administrators are incompetent, not supportive, lack communication skills and not compassionate.

"You can visit pity city, but you can't live there," Kristin Gilger, associate dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications, said to a group of high school teachers.

Gilger gave the 2010 Reynolds Institute teachers some helpful tips on how to conduct

themselves while talking to their bosses. She reminded the teachers that they have to pick their battles, but if the time comes, they need to know how to handle the situation.

Tips

1. Be prepared

2. Assess your own emotional state

3. Empathy is important

4. Use "I" words instead of "You" words.

5. People are not persuaded by facts.

6. Acknowledge their perspective/ demonstrate that you understand.

The groups of journalism teachers then put her advise to practice by conducting mock conversations with a partner. One person being the teacher and the other being the principal.

Although the time spent in the mock conversations was entertaining, the teachers understood where each person was coming from.

Leona O'Neal

George County High School

Lucedale, Miss

Elaine's to do list

1. School newspaper on-line

2. Poll everywhere

3. Survey monkey

4. Prezi

5. Google docs

6. Newseum

7. collegehumor.com

8. Social medai cheat sheet

Just the short list of all the things I plan to take back and incorporate.

Elaine Williams

Carl F. Shuler H.S.

Cleveland, OH

Twifferic twession twoday!

The two sessions this morning were all about technology and how to use it not only in the classroom but for your own personal use, which was nice to discover.

Polleverywhere.com is a neat resource Alan had to share this morning and something I would like to use in the classroom. My only reservation is that we do have a pretty strict cellphone policy so that would need to be addressed first.

(Pictured above: Carol Schwalbe, Associate Professor at Cronkite School of Journalism, delivering social media session to Reynolds Institute participants)

Some of my favorite resources were Prezi, Channel One News, and Google Docs. After the session, I went on Google Docs and set up a site for my school email and played around with some of the templates and calendars available; very user friendly and well organized.

Carol Schwalbe, Associate Professor here at The Cronkite School opened the world of social media, specifically Twitter. I never knew this whole Twitter vocabulary existed until today and I thought it was neat to know and talk about.

What I enjoyed most from Schwalbe's session was really the discussion of WHY we blog. I never seriously considered that blogging really can improve writing and editing skills, use of html code, commenting and collaboration and most importantly, audience interaction.

Knowing your audience and finding your voice is possible through blogging; something I have been trying to get my students to find for years! Blogging would be great practice AND real world applicable.

So many teachers, young and old, tend to brush social media under the rug and pretend it does not exist but it is here and if teachers fail to recognize the emergence of social media, they will inevitably lose the engagement of their students and worse, do a disservice to their students who need to learn real world writing skills and communication outlets.

Alyssa Carnley

Harrison High School

Kennesaw, GA

Our stories are due

I haven't been this anxious about an assignment in a long time. The majority of us have been frantically gathering data, conducting interviews and editing these stories for over a week now. Yesterday's editing session confirmed my lack of journalistic writing style. I have a lot to learn and little time to learn it. At least I have all the resources I could ever want to help me teach my newspaper class.

Malika Caruthers

Metro Tech High School

Phoenix, Ariz.

Tweet, Tweet...

Feeling a little overwhelmed right now. Carol Schwalbe, Associate Professor at the Cronkite School (left), gave a comprehensive overview of all the social media options we have at our fingertips, and I have to say that that I’m feeling swamped by all the possibilities out there. While she was speaking, I googled (Googled?) “social media cheat sheet” and in one link I viewed, more than half of the programs listed were brand new to me. Yikes. I’d better get busy and start investigating and experimenting. I’ve already signed up for Delicious (thanks, Meghan, for that nudge!), an organizational tool I’d heard about before but tucked away into that deep bin where good ideas sometimes go…and never emerge.

About Twitter – I’m still not sold on its benefits. Schwalbe calls is a powerful “listening tool,” but I’m not sure I want to hear all that all the time. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m willing to be convinced. I think I’m going to check out TweetDeck (because it seems like a good visual tool to keep me sane over this new thing…) and try to follow a few people, like John Stewart, Nicholas Kristoff (NY Times columnist) and Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald). Now to come up with a cute Tweet name…

Leslie Wolfe-Cundiff

Centennial H.S.

Roswell, Ga.

Deadline stress

It has been a long time since I have been under this much stress. Even in college, creative writing majors are not usually required to produce a piece in less than a day.
This caused everyone stress, but it has been good to feel that pressure and get me writing again.
Even though I'm apprehensive about the upcoming edits, I am excited that I'm writing again. And there is a feeling of accomplishment at putting together a piece that is researched and well thought out and will be published!

Meghan Brannon-Reese
Houston, TX

Serious Swag

I am not a huge sports fan, but I have been looking forward to the game this evening ever since I was accepted to the program. I am surprised that there won't be some lesson on sport journalism. Speaking with others the feeling of overload is mutual and the game this evening will be a nice break. The hats given to us are awesome! Reno is the home of the D-Backs' triple-A team the Aces. So, though I love my new hat, I will be wearing my Aces one.
As a teacher, we rarely get many benefits, so the experience these past two weeks have been astonishing: the information has been extremely pertinent and applicable, the accommodations impeccable, the fellowship humbling.

Ryan Ludwig
Spanish Springs H.S.
Sparks/Reno, Nev

Social Media Cheat Sheet

Here is the social media cheat sheet requested by Bracinda. It is from a marketing point of view, but it seems to be pretty informative and useful for several different areas. Here is a link to the site: cheat sheet site

Kim Isbell

Humboldt High School

Humboldt, Kan.

No Excuses

Christopher Greenslate's presentation on Putting All This to Work was exactly the reason I wanted to participate in the Institute. The information he provided was a step-by-step roadmap to improve our journalism programs regardless of whatever circumstance we face in our schools. The lists he had us create for our program's vision, our priorities, some obstacles and how to address those obstacles were focused and detailed enough to make our dreams a reality. Most of all, I know I can achieve my goals because the answers were generated by me and not suggestions made by someone else.

I am inspired, once I return home, to continue to work on this map and detail out my plans for implementing enough change so that when school opens, I am ready to lead my staff to a whole new level of writing and production. It's exciting and challenging but, because of this presentation, entirely doable. 

Nicki Yokota
St. Margaret's Episcopal School
San Juan Capistrano

A visit to Pity City

Kristin Gilger, Associate Dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, leads students in a discussion about issues that they might face with administration and how to best deal with difficult situations.

"You can visit Pity City, but you can't live there."

This quote from Kristin Gilger was funny and very true. She said it right before Reynolds fellows were given five minutes to vent about administration concerns they have.

I intend to use this technique in my classroom. There are times when students just need to vent or even talk about what happened over the weekend. I don't believe in name-calling, but students need to have a safe place to talk about their frustrations so they can get past the anger and move on to more constructive conversations.

In the past I have used this sort of technique when getting back from a break such as Spring Break. Students are excited to talk about their adventures so I give them five minutes while I take care of attendance to talk about it, but when the five minutes is up, business must go on.

Kim Isbell

Humboldt High School

Humboldt, Kan.

Rodriguez: Diversity need not always reference race

A common thread for many of the presenters and teachers at the Reynolds Institute is that many communication professionals got their start in journalism by working on the high school newspaper.

Rick Rodriguez, former editor-in-chief of the Sacramento Bee, is no exception to that rule. In fact, he said his high school years were so formative that they continue to inform his job now, working with the Southwest Borderlands Initiative.

He especially enjoyed his journalism teachers diligence and ability to reach out to students who show potential.

"Art Gallago was a task master," Rodriguez said. "But he really cared for his students."

Rodriguez is now modeling that role of task master and talked about how he had to push one of his best students to actually get out to the border between Arizona and Mexico and see for herself what his happening.

"When she came back," he said. "She came back weeping."

For me, diversity coverage in our publications is probably the diciest, most rewarding aspect of my classroom. It is never easy to push kids out the door, hoping they will come back with quotes and information from somebody they have never met before.

Image of Rick Rodriguez courtesy of Nicki Yokota.

Nate Thompson
Montezuma-Cortez High School
Corte, Colo.

High stakes

Give critiques in front of everyone, Brian Snyder said. It raises the bar and makes students really listen to feedback. I have to agree.

I loved the honest and sometimes brutal criticism Brian gave. He wasn’t mincing words: “this is wacky,” “this doesn’t do anything for me.” Yet he still found something well-executed to acknowledge in each video. I needed to hear the feedback on multiple videos, not just my own, to develop a good sense of what works and what doesn’t. And while I thought our video was decent when we turned it in, I know from seeing other ones that I still have a lot to work on. Hearing feedback on just one student or group’s assignment just isn’t enough. Doing the public showing and critique raised the bar from good to great – and I want my students to get to great.

But there’s one other piece in this lesson that made us all want to keep trying: the opportunity to go back and practice new techniques, revise and redo, and resubmit. Without that chance to go back, this method doesn’t work.

My students said that journalism was the first class where it mattered that they did their work. As an English teacher, I know I’m too often of letting assignments fall into the black hole of my grading pile for weeks, and students have complained that they don’t even know if their other teachers are reading their work. In journalism, they have to get three peers to edit, and then put their work out to the world (since high school is, after all, the whole world, right?).

Publishing work (or showing video) definitely raises the stakes for students, and as I think about the upcoming school year, I’m going to plan on making sure all of my classes, not just journalism, have that same forum to show work and receive critiques, and then to go back, revise, and resubmit.

Kim Vinh
Sequoia High School
Redwood City, Calif.

Pressure's on but they're still smiling

What, us worry?? It's just a deadline!! Tuesday afternooon proved to be crunch time for ASNE teachers to put their skills to the test. Successfully meeting the 6 p.m. production deadline meant having a clear goal, using the tools and relying on great teamwork. Clarence, Sam and Bracinda aren't letting the pressure get to them!

Power of feedback

With our first draft behind us, I was really thankful yesterday for the time carved out in the schedule to discuss our stories with our mentors.
Robin Phillips, Reynolds Center's Web Managing Editor,gave each of us feedback.

However, she did not offer general, ambiguous comments or suggestions. Her feedback was immediate and specific. As a writer, I became aware of over-used patterns and areas where I needed to offer more information to my reader. We discussed not only the flow and organization of the piece, but even touched on word choice and AP style.

I am reminded that when I work with my students there is no value in making the edits and returning the paper for corrections. Conversations need to be had. Feedback needs to be specific. And, it must be offered in a timely manner.
Thanks to Robin for giving of her time.

Jamie Ray
Vista Ridge High School
Cedar Park, Texas