San Jose State offers cutting edge class on Web 2.0: Journalism and New Media. Robert Scoble to guest speak

It’s back to school time, and the world of journalism is rapidly changing driven by New Media, Web 2.0, and citizen journalism. Realizing that there is a need to keep up or be left behind in this changing landscape, San Jose State is offering a brand new class in the School of Journalism & Mass Communications called Journalism and New Media (JMC 163) taught by Steve Sloan and Cynthia McCune. 

In JMC 163, the students will learn not only the “How-tos” of New Media but the “Whys”. Steve Sloan points out, “It’s important that the students not only understand how to create a blog and podcast, but understand why New Media is important and how it is affecting the world around them.” 

Students will learn about blogging, podcasting, video blogging, RSS, content management systems, basic HTML, Virtual Worlds like Second Life, Search, Online Advertising/PR, Internet Law, and even mobile devices. It’s good to also understand how people will be experiencing all this goodly new media. The sofware the students will be learning on will include Adobe Creative Suite, Apple iLife apps, and open source tools like Audacity, and WordPress. The class will also have a blog of its own where students will be posting their “assignments”. It will be fascinating to follow this blog as the students learn more and more. 

Each class will have a guest speaker who is a New Media professional. This way the students can also get “real” life advice and input from people actually in the trenches. Yours truly was the first guest speaker, and I spoke on Introduction to blogging and 3 ways blogging can help journalism students in their careers. It was a pleasure to speak at the class, and I am excited that all the students who showed up really do get that they need to get up to speed on New Media. They are already one step ahead in their careers. 

The students in JMC 163 will get a special treat. Robert Scoble, of Podtech and Alumni of SJSU School of Journalism, will be a guest speaker in class on September 12. These lucky kids will get face time with this A-list “multi” skilled new media aficionado. Interesting tidbit, JMC 163 teacher Steve Sloan was at one time Scoble’s boss, so inquiring minds can learn more about how Robert was when he was in the youth of his career. 

Scoble has pointed out on his blog, Scobleizer, the importance of journalists being “multi” skilled.

"The skills journalists will need in the future are going to be a lot more varied than just churning out good text. The better journalists are going to understand how to do that, create illustrations (or at least rough drawings that an artist will be able to take and fill out), capture audio, photos, and video, and edit all that together to tell a compelling story on the Web."

Robert also mentions what he would do if he was a journalism student today: 

"If I were a student I’d be in this class. Why? Because it would help me expand my portfolio that I could show employers. There are VERY FEW journalism jobs available (we keep hearing about newspapers that are laying off journalists) so if you want to be considered for one of those jobs you have to have a better portfolio than the next person. Especially if you want to work online (TechCrunch, Om Malik, and Huffington Post are all hiring)."

Lastly, one of the most interesting aspects of JMC 163 is that the required books for this class are not standard journalism books, but business/thought books, “The Cluetrain Manifesto” by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger, available free on the Internet, and “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. 

The class is still open to those interested, and it is not just for those looking to go into journalism. In the first class, there were also students majoring in advertising, political science, music, and business. Again, it’s the end of the traditional media world as we know it, and those who understand that will educate themselves quickly.