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“Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II [email protected] International Institute for ICT Journalism/ GINKS

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Page 1: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

“Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training”

Kwami Ahiabenu,II [email protected] International Institute for ICT Journalism/ GINKS

Page 2: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

INTRODUCTION

Journalists and the media for a lot of good reasons need constant training in online tools in order to ride the tide with the information revolution.

Issues such as cost, time, resources availability means capacity building process is not in tune with growing demand

Page 3: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

OUR STORY

The International Institute for ICT Journalism (PenPlusBytes) in partnership with GINKS(IICD) and other Institutions since 2006 run an annual three month online training course for working Journalists in a wide range of topics including Knowledge Management for the newsroom, ICT tools for journalism including some web 2.0.

Page 4: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

OUR APPROACH

Online tools offers free to low cost options for training

Empowerment role of online tools including web 2.0 is crucial

By using new online tools such as web 2.0, change elements are incorporated in a more practical way

Page 5: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

WHO

Reach out via websites, blogs and emails Requirement : working journalists with access to

Internet especially email majority from African Countries

This year we had 53 participants from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and North American.

Course is free of charge – paid for by partners reliance on free online tools

Time commitment is crucial

Page 6: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Online Learning Experience

Online learning experience can be fun though difficult if you are not committed to it

It allows working journalists to undertake a course without leaving their jobs

“learning by doing” makes a difference in information and knowledge sharing experience; and skills transfer processes.

Page 7: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Online delivery

We aim at using the most appropriate online tools with specific reference to learner’s environment while enabling the participants to connect with each other.

Page 8: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Online delivery

We also hope by providing an online training opportunity for journalist while they are still sitting at work would empower them to better negotiate online space and demands of daily work in a more down to earth manner.

We allow flexibility in terms of deadlines for submission of assignment, lecture notes and discussion but no compromise in the terms of completion of course.

Page 9: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

OUR ONLINE CLASSROOM

We start our week on Fridays by posting lectures Fridays was selected to enable participants make the

best use of weekends Then on Monday, we post trigger questions to

facilitate discussion of the weeks’ lecture notes Assignment and Task Special Guests Final project work

Page 10: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Our Content

Quick read lecture notes Straight to the point and written in a narrative

format with references and further readings Links to resources online Encourage participants to buy relevant text

books

Page 11: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Web 2.0 ACCORDING TO OUR CLASS

To me, web 2.0 means easy sharing of content. everyday users can accesscontent from all over the web. this is done mostly through rss feeds. inaddition, they can comment on web content in a variety of forms. bloggingis an obvious choice, but also sites like del.icio.us, digg.com, flickr, youtube and myspace allow for people to comment on content of the web. theweb we know today has a huge social aspect to it thanks to web 2.0. (Titly )

Page 12: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

WEB 2.0 ACCORDING TO OUR CLASS

Web 2 for me really means the growth of the practical applications which make the internet more RELEVANT to me as an end user and person. It does beg the question though of whether we are going to see Web 3 -- or whether older Web 2 applications will soon become part of the old and newer innovations slide into the Web 2 'space'. (Lisa)

Page 13: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

TOOLS OF OUR TRADE

The primary tool we used for the class is the good old email

We run our first course on yahoo groups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mediaictrain/ this was an open list with 43 participants

This year : dgroups at http://www.dgroups.org/groups/Mediaictrain/index.cfm?op=dsp_info

The email group discussion provided the main means of interacting, networking and connecting tool for the class.

Page 14: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

TOOLS OF OUR TRADE

In additional to the primary group mailing list, we also created five sub groups on Google groups for sub group work and discussion – group leader, recorder and third party facilitator

It was difficult for some participants to understand the divide between the main group list and sub groups

Page 15: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

BLOGGING

One of our weekly session was on blogging/User Content Generation

Each participant was required to create his or her blog

Blog were expected to be updated with learning experience

The blog was used as the platform to integrate some web 2.0 tools

We maintained a class blog as well

Page 16: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

CLASS WIKI

Using peanut butter –pb we created a class wiki at http://mediaictrain.pbwiki.com/

Some participants made use of the wiki feature in google group as the platform as well

Each participants worked on our main page by contributing their objectives for undertaking the course and other content

Page 17: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

WIKI AS OUR NEWSROOM

In order to show and tell how virtual newsroom works, we created five groups

Each group went through the news production process online

Using wiki, the sub group worked to produce stories virtually

Google groups was used in content gathering and meetings whereas wiki was used in production and packaging

Page 18: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

FLICKR /PODCASTING

Difficult to interact online with a class geographically dispersed as ours

To help in putting faces to names : via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/7967176@N08/

Podcasting Session

Page 19: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Del.icio.us/Skpe

We created http://del.icio.us/mediaictrain To bookmark relevant links for the class We were not successful at using skype since

some participating countries were not allowed to use skype

Page 20: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

CHALLENGES

Lack of access to affordable and reliable Internet Services

Some of the web 2.0 are not built with low bandwidth in mind

Time commitment issues Challenge of Change – online learning means a

major change Online collaboration and communication difficulties “information overload” issues Appropriate learning materials are not readily

available

Page 21: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

Undertook the course using group email list as our primary course delivery tool

Encouraged the participants to devote more time to the online learning experience

Developing strategies about coping with change and developing “online” mindset

Adapting the course to the learner’s environment via flexibility

Page 22: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

LESSONS/ACHIEVEMENT

Online learning provide the opportunity for participants to learn about new tools and use them in the process of learning

Evolving a vibrant network of journalist working in the ICT space

We are contributing to knowledge development in the area of ICT Journalism

We are reinforcing the fact that with low cost to free online training is possible

Page 23: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

CONLUSION

Online learning is here to stay with us The increasingly availability of web 2.0 tools

is making online learning experience more rewarding

Some challenges exist by overcoming some of these challenges we can derive more benefits from using web 2.0 tools as information and knowledge exchange tool.

Page 24: “Empowering journalists with online tools: making a case for online training” Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami@penplusbytes.net kwami@penplusbytes.net International

Thank you

Kwami Ahiabenu,II [email protected]

www.penplusbytes.blogspot.com