Most – nearly all – journalists will never have to do HTML markup, let alone template design, during their entire working lives. They will, however, need to know how to operate a CMS, crop images for the web etc, from the minute they set foot in a newsroom.

The tiny minority of journalists who do need to know web design or development skills need a far deeper level of understanding than an brief introduction to Dreamweaver can offer.

Thanks for the other information, it’s very useful.

I don’t think you’re being overly pessimistic about part 2), I suggested it because I think there are lots of people doing fuck all, despite having grandiose ambitions, and they should take stock of that. That said, it’ll only be the ones actually doing anything who’ll take part in LSJ bloggers, I’d assume.

TV in year one we would upload the video to Youtube and link it up to some copy etc on wordpress. From the sounds of it though they don’t in year two because of copyright issues.

And if that is a lecture Bernie regularly rolls out then I am glad I don’t do online. It was just ramblings about the bleeding obvious or very technical stuff that wasn’t explained because it wasn’t that important.

Combining ease with interest should be the goal, and so we should target things that they are passionate about — what do you want to do, and why? — could give us better results.

I’m also worried that we may have to be more authoritarian about things, as people did not get involved to say how they wanted LSJ bloggers to run, and so if we’re firm but predictable about things — we’re writing about this topic this week, have your posts in by then, etc. — people may feel that they can easily “slot in” to the process.

Discussing this as just one aspect of how online journalism is taught at Lincoln is essential, as they’re fundamentally the same thing. And, as with blogging, much of the teaching is broken as well. This is even more of a concern as they seek to include an online aspect in many of the modules.

As Dave brings up, Gary Stevens is doing some good work, with an appropriate approach to online. Unfortunately, Gary’s work isn’t affecting what others are doing. In my third-year print news module we are required to “fill out a web page” during the newsday, with a Dreamweaver template provided. (I’ll be writing up that farce in more detail in a moment.)

I’ve asked on Twitter for this year’s online module handbook, but from what I’ve already been told it sounds very similar to what I did last year. If so, they’re still tackling online journalism from the wrong direction — in the module groups were required to build a website, and fill it with (static) content about a particular subject. Students were taught basic HTML and (sort of) how to use Dreamweaver to build a site. You were able to use other approaches, but Dreamweaver was the only one that was taught.

Charlotte — That sounds very much like a lecture Bernie gave in the “Research, Investigation, and Ethics” module, except he focused on using the Internet for research.

Jonathan — If it’s a similar arrangement to my experience, one semester will be “online”, the other will be photography. Let’s say that I wasn’t a fan, but it got me out of doing radio and television in my second year.

Although it’s totally lamentable that we can’t dive straight in to topics like hyperlocal, starting off with “lightweight journalism-related topics” as you describe them, is probably the best course of action.

We should get students to start writing, so that once they’re hooked we can move on to some heavier discussions.

So, alongside Andy’s suggestion, perhaps a topic based around an ideal job after graduation? What would be interesting to see, and should be asked within the topic, is: 1) Do you still want to work as a journalist, or something similar? and 2) How will you get to your ideal job/what do you have to do to achieve this goal?

What do you reckon, mate?