The SKyline View

Shooting at Skyline College

We had a shooting at Skyline College two weeks ago. Thankfully, no one died and it wasn't a random Virginia Tech type of thing. It provided a powerful learning experience (of course one we'd have preferred to do without!) for staff and for me. I was very proud of my students for keeping their web site updated throughout that first night and for producing a package for readers: a story on the news event (continually updated), a student reaction story, a map, a timeline and a slideshow. Check it out at theskylineview.com.

Lost my Tweet

So, I've really been struggling with how to use my Twitter account. I often think about posting to Twitter, but I haven't determined who my audience is (students? potential students? friends? colleagues?) and what my purpose is (recruitment? dialogue? information?). Even my Twitter name reflects this lack of clarity; I've listed just my last name. Of course, these are not problems limited to Twitter. They are classic writing problems. You can't write until you know why you are writing and to whom.

Showing My Class How to Blog

Hey, Class! Blogging is easy.

Is Twitter Relevant?

A friend of mine signed up for Twitter this week after hearing me go on about it. Her first response, so far, is that she doesn't get it. I understand; that was my first response, too. What relevance could Twitter have in my life beyond "I'm on line at Starbucks; anyone want to meet me here?"

But as so many of us experienced during the Mumbai attacks, Twitter can suddenly and surprisingly become very relevant--even more so than TV--during times of crisis or significant news events. The immediacy and intimacy of the medium are striking. In fact, I found myself primarily tracking Mumbai on Twitter, and I now follow at least two of the Indians that covered the attacks so well, including the NYTimes-discussed Arun Shanbhag.

Now, days after the Mumbai attacks, I find myself combing through the Mumbai Twitter posts, and I've noticed I've logged onto my own Twitter account more than previously. But the experience lacks the satisfaction (if I can call it that during so horrible an event) it had when I was following Mumbai events. I'm seeking something more. And I'm not finding it.

So, what I've discovered--though this may change later--is that while Twitter is a significant tool for major events, as far as tracking regular life, well, meet me at Starbucks and we'll talk about it.

Using Sprout

I've just assigned my advanced newswriting students their multimedia project. Rich Cameron shared with us his Sproutbuilder assignment and I've modified it slightly to better suit my particular course. I'm looking forward to seeing what the students do with it, but I'm also welcoming a second opportunity to play around with it myself. Lately, I've been much more focused on Twitter to the expense of other tools, including our wiki site.

All A-Tweeter at the 2008 JACC NorCal Conference

The JACC NorCal 2008 conference that I helped plan took place this past weekend at San Jose State University. Since our cool speakers, Cindy McCune and Steve Sloan, were going to hit the audience hard with all the new technology that are predictors of where journalism might venture (already is), I wanted to experiment with having several JACC reporters tweet the conference.

It turned out great. Transcripts of the feed are now posted on our JACC site. Reading them really made me aware of how useful this tool is.