J198 Multimedia Reporting

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Personal Evaluation

I went into this course with the desire to learn about blogging and web design, as well as to improve my knowledge of video and social networking. After producing a documentary - a style of video production that I was previously unfamiliar with - and developing a website for the final project, I would say that I accomplished my goals. I would have liked to have done more with HTML and the website design in general, but it was a good first attempt.

I also learned how to produce blogs and became very comfortable with the conversational style that they are written in. I learned more about how to use twitter not just for personal use, but as a way to drive traffic to your blog or website and increase media awareness.

In the coming months, I would like to continue to use my twitter account. Admittedly, I've gone through phases this semester, but still I hope I manage to steadily post something about once a week. Also, I would like to continue blogging (though not under this blog, of course). Because I am going abroad next semester, I would like to create a blog about my experience both for my future reference and as a way for my friends and family to keep up with what I amd doing.

Overall, I think I did well in this course. I put in a lot of effort, learned a lot, and plan on continuing using what I have learned in the future.

Course Materials

The materials used for the J198 Multimedia Reporting course were relatively unhelpful in learning the skills. The handouts that we received in class taught us everything that we needed to know, and practicing them through lab assignments reinforced these skills. The books that we had to buy at the beginning of the year were only opened a few times and just reiterated information given in class.

I would therefore recommend that there be no texts for this course, but put the required texts from this semester on hold at the library or in the journalism library in Coppee. This way, students can seek additional help if they need it, but not all students are required to purchase and store these textbooks that received very little attention all semester.

Course Evaluation

This semester in J198 we covered a lot of ground. We learned the skills necessary to produce multimedia content, as well as the best ways to promote it through social networking and SEO.

What I liked best about this course was how loosely structured it was. We had a lot of free time to work on labs, could add extra time when projects took us a long time, could bump up other projects when we finished them quickly, etc. With this kind of work, it is essential to have this flexibility.

The most frustrating part of this course was the teamwork. It would be nice if, especially at the beginning, we had more individual projects. This would help everyone develop the essential skills, as opposed to some people taking the back seat and not learning the skills necessary for later in the course. It would also help with the final group project, as each member would have all the skills and tasks could be delegated in a more fair, random manner.

Overall, this course was amazing. It gave us skills essential for the growing journalism industry in a way that gave us freedom and flexibility. I would highly recommend it to future students