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Interactive video by mobile — user-prompted interviews? January 23, 2008

Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : News, Online, blogging, video , add a comment

Is this the next step for video interviews recorded using a mobile phone? Not only live streaming to a website, but questions from viewers coming through on the same mobile for the interviewer to ask…

That’s how (video)blogger Robert Scoble has been operating at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to the BBC’s Tim Weber, who saw questions coming in as he was interviewed:

within half a minute Robert had live on his screen a reader’s query about the BBC’s video-on-demand policy. Robert asked me the question straight away, and as we continued talking about the mobile phone industry and video on the web, more BBC-related queries piled up.

Using a course blog to encourage critical reflection by students — HEA annual conference July 3, 2007

Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : Academic, HEA, Online, Research, blogging, elearning, journalism education, student experience , add a comment

hea-logo.gifMore on this theme — notes from my session at the Higher Education Academy annual conference in Harrogate are available here (PDF file).

If you’re reading this post without having seen anything previously about the project, you might find it useful to read the following outline (the abstract for my conference session). Then the notes from my presentation will probably make more sense. Either way, please add a comment to let me know what you make of the project — click on ‘add a comment’ above (under the title for this post) or, if you’re looking at this post on its own, use the comment box beneath it.

To encourage students on a postgraduate journalism programme to engage with their own learning, they were asked to contribute to a blog on three main themes: their own experiences as journalists; published articles/broadcasts etc, particularly to highlight what they were learning and putting in to practice; and contemporary developments in journalism.

The guidelines and assessment criteria explicitly encouraged students to reflect critically in their posts to the blog; to ‘add value’; and to make connections, particularly with their own experience, assignments and ideas.

This session will discuss the main findings of an evaluation of the blog, using an analysis of students’ contributions (more than 400) drawing on the literature of reflective journals and e-learning, and the results of a questionnaire to gauge students’ experience of using the blog as learners. Initial findings suggest the initiative has highlighted valuable potential for reflective learning, with some recommendations for improving its future application.

Readers who have read my previous post (and notes) on this project, based on my WJEC session, will note similarities! It’s mainly a shift of emphasis for the different participants: journalism educators at WJEC; lecturers from across disciplines, with a serious interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning at the HEA.

Using a blog to encourage critical reflection June 26, 2007

Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : Academic, Education, Online, Research, WJEC, blogging, elearning, journalism education, student experience , 5comments

This is the theme of my presentation to a Best Practices in Teaching workshop at the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC).

The project has involved using a blog not for students to publish their journalistic work but for them to reflect on their practical journalism — primarily as a tool for enhancing their learning.

Notes from my presentation are available as a PDF here — intended particularly for those at the WJEC teaching workshop. I’d be particularly interested in having your comments, whether you came to the WJEC session or not — please add them below.

Convergence in journalism (education) June 11, 2007

Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : AJE, Online, blogging, convergence, journalism education, video , 1 comment so far

Journalism educators met in Cornwall last week, amid sun, sea and… convergence. Newspapers developing online; teaching video; student-led journalism projects across print, broadcast and online media; blogging and social networks in journalism education — it was all there at the Association for Journalism Education seminar at University College Falmouth last week.

Plenty of interesting stuff — and it’s helped focus my thoughts, particularly about blogging and the use of video online. More posts about such things to come this week, including more on my blogging project, about which I spoke at the AJE seminar.

Meanwhile, here’s the line-up that we had at Falmouth:
• Teaching using new media: Blogging as a tool for critical reflection - Jonathan Hewett, City University
• Teaching convergence – a project at Westminster. Geoffrey Davies, Westminster University
• A video project – Andy Dickinson, University of Central Lancashire, Preston
• Newspapers online: Changing values, changing practices, changing staff – Chris Rushton, Sunderland University
• Convergence in the classroom Andy Price, Teesside University
• Convergence, where is it going and what should we be telling students? David Holmes and team on a project at Sheffield University
• New directions: where is journalism going? Jim Hall and the team at Falmouth University College