More talk about new media classes

Steve Sloan has posted the second half of the Pizzacast, a discussion about a New Media class to be offered next semester in SJSU’s J-School.

I’m going to stand by my idea that this class should be a training ground for Online Editors going on to student media, in the way that the 133 Copy Editing & Design class trains the print editors.

That means students need to learn a drop of html and css (which playing with a blog template will help teach them), a bit of audio and video editing (which producing a podcast and video podcast will take care of), and some experience setting up and running a content management system.

That last part, of course, requires some content. My suggestions? A bit of integration with other classes in the department. Edit and post articles written by students in the 61, 132, and 134 journalism classes. Post video produced by broadcasting students. In later semesters, when there’s some sort of class that teaches coding and design for online news, post the Flash animations, slideshows, and graphics.

One more thing – keep the class open to public relations and advertising majors. They need these tools, too.