How students are using the blogs
Students report in both classes that the news blogs are engaging them more with news. Most report they're having fun with the exercise and that it's helping them write as well as read the news. So in that respect, all is well. We did have a student complain that the blogs weren't helping her writing -- that she was just learning about how to gather information. I told her I didn't think that was a problem at all. In fact, that's exactly the skill these introductory news blogs can develop. The student also complained that it was difficult to find stories reported in more than one news outlet. To find stories she could compare, she said, she had to look for ones that weren't as interesting to her. Also, some students noted that if both local newspapers carried a story, often it was the same AP report. My response to the student's complaint about having to go outside her interest area? Great. That's the goal of this assignment. What good is it to read only news that interests you? How do you expand your interests? And my response to the complaint that local papers are frequently running wire stories on important stories? Welcome to journalistic consolidation. It's a reality. Students are seeing it. And so, we have another unanticipated benefit.
Some students are merely summarizing news coverage in their blogs. But at times, we get engaged students who note -- and are surprised by -- interesting gaps in coverage. Check out one student's blog of local coverage about the recent cartoon-promotion scare on the East Coast. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/lapp0025/3121news/ . As a teaching tool for engaging students with news, I coudn't be happier with these kinds of observations. It's the basis for the critical thinking they need as journalists.
See the comments sections for notes from the other instructors and TAs about how students are using the blogs.
Comments
For our section's blog assignment, I ask students to identify a challenge in covering a news event and then compare how two media outlets handled that challenge.
When a student does a good job, I try to spend a couple of minutes at the beginning of lecture clicking through their blog on the big projector screen. In addition to giving a pat on the back, I'm using the student-bloggers as scouts to find intriguing news stories of the moment that can generate discussion in class on the learning topics at hand.
Some examples I have shown in class so far:
A student compared the L.A. Times' and New York Times' early coverage of the allegedly obsessive and murderous shuttle astronaut. Hilary examined how the papers dealt with the challenge of not implying the astronaut's guilt: Link
Another student compared coverage of the Jan. 25 riots in Beirut. Kyle was looking in particular at how the reporters captured detail and color under highly stressful circumstances. He included excerpts of the reporters' vivid writing: Link
And Melinda looked at Joe Biden's "clean" gaffe about Barack Obama as a study in partial quotations and the perils of bad word choice: Link
I imagined initially that the blogs would be a continuation of the "live" discussion in class: I hoped that students would read each others' blogs and post comments. That sort of cross-talk has not happened on its own: Some students are having difficulty keeping up with the requirement to post on their own blogs. I am thinking about creating an inducement to encourage cross-talk.
Posted by: Dan Bernard | February 7, 2007 10:53 PM
Some of the students have used clever wallpaper and given their blogs real character. They've done this purely on their own initiative. Here's one showing real flair.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/heli0021/3101news/
Here's another.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/wedd0010/3101news/
Can I say I have a favorite? OK, this one is my favorite.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/plant049/3101news/
Posted by: John Hoff | February 8, 2007 6:17 AM