Class Schedule

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Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12

Spring 2008

STUDENTS TAKING THIS CLASS PLEASE NOTE:

Below is our schedule for the semester.

Be sure to read About This Course and Required Work to make sure you understand the structure of assignments and grading.

Click here for the list of text books and websites from which many readings will be assigned.

Class notes for each week’s lecture and lab will be published on the class blog shortly before lecture time. They will also be linked on this schedule, and you can always find them in the class notes archive.

Assignments for each week will also be published on the class blog each Monday night. Like the class notes, they will also be linked on this schedule and you can also find them in the assignments archive.

The course pace and content outlined on the schedule below may be adjusted in order to accommodate student skill levels. So please refer to the online version as the definitive schedule – not a print-out from the beginning of the semester!

We also have a Calendar on which the assignment due dates and course meeting times are made very clear.


Week 1: Jan. 14

Working on the web

LECTURE: Meet the instruction team. Go over syllabus, schedule, and requirements.
Why web skills are important for ALL journalists. Basic things you need to understand about how the Web works.

LAB: Intro to Firefox, the browser we will use in class. Set up student blogs on Uniblogs.org.

Week 2: Jan. 21

Essential web tools for today’s journalists.

LECTURE: How Google works, what you find in Google searches, what you don’t and why. How your blog or website relates to the rest of the web. What is RSS and how to use it. What all of this means for you as a creator and searcher of online information.

LAB: Set up Google Reader and subscribe to feeds of your classmates’ blogs. Advanced blogging and research techniques.


Week 3: Jan. 28

Digital photography, Part 1 (*BRING YOUR CAMERAS TO CLASS!*)

LECTURE: Guest speaker, photographer Siuki Yip, on principles of good photography. (Work of 2-3 volunteers will be evaluated.)
LAB: Getting your photos online, using photo-sharing sites like Flickr, tagging.


Week 4: Feb. 4

Digital photography, Part 2.

LECTURE: Guest photographer Ting-li Wang will evaluate student photos. If there’s time after the lab, Rebecca will discuss copyright issues.

LAB:How to resize, crop, and adjust your photos in Photoshop. Upload photos to your blog and wrap your descriptive text around them.

== CHINESE NEW YEAR BREAK ==


Week 5: Feb. 18

Wikis: How they work and how to use them

LECTURE/LAB: 1. Use the class wiki to brainstorm about our soundslides projects and final reporting projects about Hong Kong’s environment and organize coverage teams. 2. How Wikipedia works and how to contribute to it.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON YOUR SOUNDSLIDES PROJECTS: From now on you can begin working with your coverage team to plan your Soundslides project due Monday April 7th.


Week 6: Feb 25

Online Audio

LECTURE/LAB: How to record good sound; basic editing with Audacity, uploading audio onto blogs. With guest instructor Joyce Wong, who will do a show and tell of some of her recent work at the end of class.

  • Week 6 Lecture Notes & In-Class Work
  • Assignment 6 – Interview a classmate about his or her final project, edit it to a 2-3 minute segment, and put it online with the picture of your interviewee and a one-paragraph introduction to the interview.

== READING WEEK ==


Week 7 March 10

Website Mechanics

LECTURE/LAB: How to create a very simple web page using Dreamweaver. Using FTP to transfer files onto the web. FTP your webpage to your HKU web account.

No new assignment. Complete work on Assignment 6 (due next week) and make sure you are working with your coverage team to collect photos and record a narrative that you will use to make your Soundslides project.

(DON’T FORGET: Assignment 5 due this morning at 10am)


Week 8: March 17

Multimedia: Audio-visual Slideshows

LECTURE: How audio-visual slideshows are used on news websites to tell stories.

LAB: How to create a Soundslides project, FTP it onto the Web, and embed it into your blogs.

(DON’T FORGET: Assignment 6 due this morning at 10am)

== EASTER BREAK ==


Week 9: March 31

Using a Content Management System (CMS)

LECTURE/LAB: What is a CMS. How to use Joomla!, the open source CMS that we use for Hong Kong Stories.


Week 10: April 7

Creative web storytelling

LECTURE/LAB: Basic introduction to other features you may want to use in your stories such as charts, graphs, maps, etc.

(DON’T FORGET: Soundslides project due this morning at 10am, embedded into your blogs.)


Week 11: April 14

Learn about Internet security and circumvention; work on HKStories.

LECTURE: Things that every journalist needs to know about Internet privacy, censorship and circumvention. In particular, see this guide to working from Mainland China – but it is really relevant anywhere.
LAB: Embed your completed Soundslides projects into Joomla. Joomla refresher and final project work.


Week 12: April 21

Final project completion

NOTE: Instructor will be absent due to medical leave.
LAB: Ben and Steve will assist everybody in working on final projects. Come to class with the materials you’ve gathered so far which you plan to use in your story. Start creating the skeleton draft of your story during class.

(NOTE: HKStories drafts are due according to the amended schedule on the wiki. Final versions due one week later.)