Access Blog
Crossing the 195,000 Milestone. We Want Your Story
We just got closer to our 200,000 user milestone/celebration with the registration of our 195,000 user today, Sept. 22, 2011. This note is just a handy way to ask you, all users, to tell NewsU has we've helped. Did you teach you something? Did we help you get a better job? Or even just a job? Did we make it easier for you to get an "A" in class? Share your stories at our Share Your Stories page. We have prizes to give away, such as training passes, free Webinars and more. Top prize: an iPad. Share and win.
Digital Course Packs Launch. New Tool to Help Teachers Use NewsU
As we work with our academic partners, we find new ways to help teachers in the classroom. And that means we also help students with their journalism education.
Our latest tool is something we are calling a "Digital Course Pack." Working with University of South Florida journalism professor Wayne Garcia, we created an assessment package for a series of self-directed courses. Garcia is using three different Digital Course Packs in three different classes this semester. The course packs are assigned, much like a textbook, and they count for 15 percent of a student's grade.
We see Digital Course Packs as an online supplement to in-class meetings and traditional texts. And while educators have always had the ability to use our self-directed modules as part of their teaching, Digital Course Packs provide additional critical features: tracking and assessments.
We assess the student's learning via multiple-choice quizzes and track other information such as time spent and number of log-ons. To keep track of all of this information we created a new feature on NewsU, the Instructor Dashboard. Here's a view of a student's activity on the dashboard.
We Launch Our 200K Countdown and Stories Project
[From our e-mail newsletter]
From the beginning, we've counted on you to shape Poynter's News University. Your participation and feedback have made NewsU what it is today -- one of the world's most innovative journalism e-learning sites.
As we get ready to welcome our 200,000th registered user, we're counting on you once again: to tell your NewsU story. We want to know how NewsU has made you a better journalist, a better teacher, a better student or even a better news consumer.
Your Story Counts. Why? Because it helps us demonstrates the scope and impact of NewsU's offerings.
NewsU is Getting Ready for School with J101 Project
We have lined up our partners – Missouri State University, Florida Atlantic University and, the latest, California State University, Fullerton. We announced Cal State this week.
We have lined our courses – 16 weeks of readings, assignments and discussions based on more than two dozen self-directed modules.
We have lined up our faculty – 15 Poynter faculty and associates who will lead a live, interactive session weekly.
Help Us Build New Courses: Previews of 'Web Design' and 'Understanding Audiences'
We're always working on something new at Poynter's NewsU, but we don't want to work alone. So we're asking your help as we shape a couple of new courses about audiences: Functional Web Design for Today’s News Audiences and Understanding Audiences. We've developed these preview editions so you can share your ideas and training needs.
You Tell Us What Webinars You Want, We Give You 50% Discount. Sweet!
We have had such fun with our first Webinar series the Poynter Writing Webinars that we thought about doing more topics. To figure out things, we are conducting another survey to help us get a sense of which topics matter to you and what Webinars we could do within these potential series.
Honoring World Press Freedom Day
Poynter's NewsU is joining with journalists and other press organizations around the world to commemorate May 3 as World Press Freedom Day.
100th Webinar Update: What Was Your Favorite Idea? [There are gifts!]
Whether Wednesday's Webinar was your first or your 100th, thanks again for signing up for 100 Ideas to Make Your Journalism Better. The replay, with all the audio and video, is now available. You can watch as many times as you want to catch all the great ideas to make your journalism better.
Not only do we love training, we love sharing our training with others. Here's where you can help.
Training Ideas Related to Mideast Turmoil
With the turmoil in Egypt and elsewhere, we want to remind the Poynter News University community and others, who might being covering aspects of this story, that we have a couple of free and very helpful training modules.
Reporting Global Issues Locally. Learn how to report global issues on a local level that is relevant to your hometown audience - even without a travel budget.
Poynter News University International Goes Live. How Cool is That?!
We've talked about this for a while. We picked our new server technology because it could do this. Finally, we have gone public with the first of our Poynter News University International efforts.
NewsU International is a partnership between The Poynter Institute and the International Center for Journalists. Together we'll customize NewsU's interactive, self-directed modules so that they are culturally and professionally relevant for international users.
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