The semester is winding down. Only three weeks to go. I’ve published some the students’ extra credit work on the class blog including an interview with a Norwegian exchange student who shares his story of “coming out” to his family, a story about a local design festival, a video story about ice skating in downtown San Francisco and a short story about a visit from Steve Fainaru, a reporter for The Washington Post. All great examples of what my students have learned to do this semester.

This week, students are meeting with me one-on-one to discuss their final projects. I asked them to complete a story planning form before meeting with me.

I’ve started thinking about the spring syllabus and how I would like to revise it. I learned a lot this semester about lab time management and technology tolerance. The biggest lesson? More hands on lab time, less of me blabbing. I plan to start each lab with 30-45 minutes of hands-on exercises (using FPO content) to get the students familiar with the software. Next, I will show them some examples of best practices. Their assignment will be to go out and digitally gather content to bring back to the next class. They will spend the next class in lab, editing their projects. Then, I will assign another project where they will be asked to gather, edit and post a story outside of class.

In addition to the audio/video gathering and editing I would like to incorporate some lessons about social media. Specifically, how to use it to find sources and how to use it to promote content. If you have any suggestions on how I can do this, please leave me a comment below.

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