Moodle and margaritas? Blackboard and beer? Journalism teachers may be joking about beverage pairings as they prepare to teach online for a while, but they’re also facing challenges posed by the need for “virtual instruction” due to the coronavirus.
Most universities already have a platform they can use for realtime lectures. For those that don’t, Skype and Zoom are alternatives but their free services cap the number of people who can participate or the length of the online meeting.
A bigger concern is how to handle broadcast reporting and producing classes. What can students actually do if they can’t check out equipment, use lab-based editing software, or congregate in the control room?
Modify assignments
“For my producing class, I’m having students use old stories (which I’ll paste on YouTube) along with breaking news from mainstream and university sources to build and write newscasts, but not produce them,” said Laura Smith, who teaches at the University of South Carolina. She joined a conversation about online teaching launched on the AEJMC listserv by VCU’s Tim Bajkiewicz and gave us the go-ahead to share suggestions.
Smith is asking her reporting students to cover what’s happening on campus and in their personal lives, dealing with coronavirus-related restrictions. “Obviously, these are stories we would normally not tell. But, under the circumstances, I think those would be viable options.”
Use free tools
Smartphones are the most obvious tool of choice for broadcast reporting classes that can’t meet in person, since most students own one and know how to capture video. For editing, Apple users have iMovie built in, and while it has far fewer features than students may be used to, it can do the job. For Android users, Kelly Kaufhold of Texas State University suggests FillmoraGo, a free download from Google Play.
“They are both really easy drag-and-drop editors that will import files from your camera roll, so you can shoot, first, with your phone just like you would with a regular video camera, then import the files, trim, reorder–even add text and adjust speed,” he said. “You can export the finished video back to camera roll or directly to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.”
Dylan McLemore at the University of Central Arkansas says if students want to edit on a laptop, there are some open source editors available. “For video, I’ve played around with Shotcut and OpenShot. For audio, Audacity is the best option.” All work on Windows, Mac or Linux systems.
Kim Fox of the American University in Cairo added these options: Davinci Resolve for video (a free download) and CleanFeed for audio, “because there is no need to download software.” And she highlighted this BEA resource for teaching media virtually.
Share lesson plans
Laura Smith already teaches her students to use Audacity. Here’s her detailed Audacity Basics tip sheet.
Smith’s colleague, Kirstin Pellizzaro, assigns students to produce content for Instagram. Here’s her Instagram Story Project, plus a PowerPoint presentation on Instagram for Journalists. Pellizzaro also shared the first module from her Social Media and Mobile Journalism course that includes useful links to tutorials on video and audio.
Fox shared her audio diaries assignment. “It’s designed around having students document their lives (oral history) using their mobile devices; like Snapchat for audio.”
Rick Dunham, who teaches global business journalism in China, was out of the country when the virus hit and couldn’t get back. He took everything online and then shared 10 tips for online teaching.
Watch the pros
Student journalists aren’t the only ones dealing with these new limitations. Many professional journalists are also working from home. Ariana Lake, a reporter at KXLY-TV in Spokane, Washington, was her newsroom’s guinea pig, and shared what she learned with her audience. Her online post goes into more depth than the video.
If you have suggestions for journalism teachers or journalists in the field trying to work remotely, please share them in the comments. We may all have to practice “social distancing” but I feel like it’s more important than ever to support each other through this.
[THIS POST WAS UPDATED ON MARCH 17, 2020]
