Thursday, September 20, 2012

Learning to be legally and ethically fit on Constitution Day


   PHO 245 students passed out these flyers on campus to celebrate Constitution Day.
   Week 5 is done, and it’s been a whirlwind of learning and doing.
   The students kicked off the week by celebrating Constitution Day. They spent their first 30 minutes of class Monday posting flyers in many of the buildings on campus. Constitution Day came at a good time, considering we were in the middle of learning about press law, ethics and the First Amendment.
   After they returned to the classroom we conducted the first weekly critique, which comprised of going over their edited blog essays on the projector, and viewing all of their individual blogs.
Students don’t necessarily like being critiqued in a group, but it helps them learn from each other’s good and bad practices. This is where mistakes tend to be nipped at the bud.
   They are certainly getting comfortable with tweeting and blogging. All of their blogs, which include cell phone photography pages in the tab bar, are up and running.  I encourage you to visit their blogs, and please let them know how they are doing. Feedback is an important learning tool.
   We finished the law, ethics and copyright lecture Wednesday morning. This is one of the most important lessons of the course. Being legally and ethically fit is what separates the amateur newsmaker from the pro. Everyone responsible for disseminating information in any way should be aware of their First Amendment rights, and have high legal and ethical standards. Photojournalists have a civic responsibility to record accurate, un-manipulated images. Ignorance is no excuse.
    I was thankful for the opportunity to show two informative online webinars on legal issues offered by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).  The Fine Print: a Webinar series on Legal Issues for Photographers includes two tutorials on legal issues and copyright. The content generated a few questions and lots of answers. Thank you, NPPA!
   Finally, we wrapped up the week with a lesson on caption writing and the AP Stylebook. This is the journalist part of photojournalist. By this time, however, they’ve already written four essays, so writing brief captions shouldn’t be too intimidating. The 5Ws and the H formula makes data collecting pretty easy.
   Next week we begin the photo part of photojournalism.  

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Individual student blogs are now up and running

   The Intro to Photojournalism students created their class blogs last week, and all eight are available for commenting on, viewing, learning and admiring.
   The blog URLs are located in the Student Blog Roll/Fall 2012 tab bar above. Please feel free to comment on them. I'm sure they would enjoy pats on the back and constructive criticism now and then.

It's 'something cool' when students teach fellow students


   I recently received the following email from PJ student Jen Hannum:
“Hi Lori
I just wanted to share something cool with you and also let you know how I did it, and if you thought it was worthy of passing on to the rest of the class.  Check out my blog: http://jenhannum.blogspot.com/
    The pages Jen created for cell photos and her website are in the yellow tab bar.
I created pages at the top, one of which is a cell phone pics page that is easy to upload to right from my cell phone.  It is actually another mobile blog that is tied to my original blog.  I attached directions on how I did it in case you wanted to pass the info along. I have an iPhone so I can only speak to how I did it with that but it seems pretty universal.
I am copying and pasting steps below:
iPhone directions to set up a Cell Phone Picture Blog 
1. txt the word register to 256447
2. you will receive an @(blahblahblah).blogspot.com and a code
3. enter that code at go.blogger.com and captcha provided
4. chose continue as this user if its not selected and click continue
5. name the blog (I chose Cell Phone Shots) click continue
6. chose a template (can be changed to match your regular blog later)
7. you now have a new mobile blog
8. go to your regular blog choose the pages tab
9. create a new page that is a website and name it (I chose Cell Phone Shots)
10. enter the web address that was texted to you back in step 2 (the blahblah .blogspot)
11. Chose location on home page you want page to show up
12. Now you have a page on your original blog that links to your mobile blog
13. Download the blogger app on your cell phone and sign in
14. In settings on the app you can choose  the new blog and send just cell pics there”

   My reply:
   Yes, Jen, what you did is “something cool!”
   Not only did you do this for yourself, but you wanted to share it with your classmates, and that makes me one awfully proud instructor!
  You even taught me something (how to link blogs via pages), which makes me a stronger instructor because I can pass on this new knowledge onto the next class. A+ for your effort!
   Thank you.