New Media Workshop Excites More Than It Scares

By Jeanne Acton | Thursday, August 26, 2010 7:12 PM

This summer I went back to the classroom. Not as a teacher, but as a student. I attended the TAJE/ILPC New Media Workshop. For three days, former professional journalist Andrea Lorenz filled my brain with all things new media.


The workshop was amazing. Andrea taught me and 18 other classmates how to set up a website, how to make audio slide shows, how to edit podcasts, how to edit video and more. It was a lot, but Andrea organized everything in such a way that my simple brain could wrap itself around all of the new information.

Plus, she gave us so much supporting materials, that even if I forgot everything I learned in those three days, I could relearn it through the information she gave us.

It was an exciting three days, but I did not go into the workshop super excited. I have a dirty little secret — change scares me. Transitioning from Pagemaker to InDesign was a very painful process for me.

That’s how I started this workshop, scared and a little wary of all of this new fangled stuff. But I knew, as the director of ILPC, I had an obligation to learn where journalism was going – even if I wasn’t particularly excited about it.

So Rhonda Moore, the TAJE executive director, and I created this workshop. We hired Andrea and sent the word out.

Unlike most of the workshops we host, we knew we needed to be participants also. On Monday, Aug. 2, I showed up to McCallum High school ready to host the workshop and ready to learn new media, kind of.

As Andrea started teaching, my eyes grew bigger and a smile snuck across my face. This stuff was cool – I mean really cool. I jumped on the blog bandwagon a few months ago, but I didn’t spend much time making my blog very cool or very user friendly. In matter of minutes, Andrea fixed that problem.

She also fixed my attitude. New media wasn’t that scary. It wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t that out-of-reach. And best of all, it wasn’t that expensive.
Those three days were the best professional development days of my entire teaching and administrating career. I no longer feel like I am behind the pack in new media. I may not be leading the way, but I certainly am in the race.

I know many journalism teachers are wary of new media. We don’t want to say good-bye to print journalism (and I don’t think we will completely), and we don’t have time to learn completely new skills.

But we have to. Our students will be unprepared for college and the workforce if we don’t broaden ourselves and jump into this new media.
The beautiful thing is, the jump is not too difficult. If I did it, anyone can do it.

Over the summer, UIL redesigned its website, including the Leaguer. This year, we will add podcasts, audio slideshows, video and more to the online Leaguer.

I admit I am a little nervous. This is new to me, but I am going to push that fear and nervousness down because I know the Leaguer will be a better publication if we add these elements.

Several journalism advisers across the state have made the jump and are publishing journalistically-sound, impressive online newspapers. They are mentoring other advisers across the state through emails, phone calls and presentations. And they will help you, too.

So I challenge you this year to start thinking about new media if you haven’t already. I challenge you to look at some schools that are going online with their publications. I challenge you to push yourself and your students.

ILPC and TAJE will continue to support you through this journey with sessions at conventions and summer trainings.

It’s a jump but, I promise, a very exciting one.