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Journalism.net

Journalism.net

New community centers. Local scientists. Health scares at town beaches. These are just a few of the important topics that make the local news and the desks of young reporters who play Journalism.net. Combining the excitement of local stories with the thrill of publishing their own work to inform the public, young players in Journalism.net work as reporters publishing online newsmagazines on community-based topics.

During the game, they work with professional journalists, learning skills like interviewing and copyediting. And they use these skills right away, working on and publishing stories that matter. By participating in Journalism.net, players learn about the diversity of life around them, develop an awareness of the relevance of community happenings, discover local scientific issues, and begin to see the world as journalists.

Game History & Players

We’re very lucky to have run several different versions of the Journalism.net journalism game. In our first game, where players published under the Wisconsin Science Journal masthead, middle-school-aged players took on the role of science reporters for 12 hours during the spring of 2004. During the summer of 2004, high school-aged players investigated several local neighborhoods under the South Madison Times civic journalism masthead. During the summers of 2005 and 2006, middle-school-aged Science.net players worked the science beat by interviewing scientists, gathering research, and writing stories for 45 hours.

Online Editions

All of the Journalism.net newsmagazine editions written and published by our young reporters are available online. [UPDATE: once a technology upgrade is finished these editions will once again be available.]

The Wisconsin Science Journal and Science.net editions highlight science topics studied by researchers in the Madison area, while the South Madison Times focuses on community issues in the vibrant and diverse south side of Madison.

 

- Science.net (Edition 2, summer 2006)
- Science.net (Edition 1, summer 2005)
- South Madison Times (Edition 1, summer 2004)
- Wisconsin Science Journal (Edition 2, summer 2004)
- Wisconsin Science Journal (Edition 1, spring 2004)

 

 

Tools for Journalism.net: ByLine

Part internet printing press, part computational tool for thought, ByLine is the epistemic game engine used in Journalism.net, the epistemic role-playing game of professional journalism. Players use ByLine to write and publish stories – and at the same time, they learn to think like journalists about science, their communities, and society at large. To learn more about Byline, check out the ByLine project page.

Recent posts for Journalism.net

Someone should have played Science.Net

23 Jul, 2009 with 0 comments so far

Here’s an argument as to why it could help you to learn to think like a journalist:

If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. Just how poorly constructed was the governor’s holiday-weekend address? We asked V.F.’s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape.

Projecting ourselves

20 Apr, 2007 with 5 comments so far

Things are finally beginning to slow down (at least in terms of travel) after a very busy March and April, but many ideas from this year’s DIGITEL workshop (in Taiwan) and AERA annual meeting (in Chicago) have continued to bounce around in my head and in several different on-going conversations.

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Reblogged: Science, literacy, and the internet?

6 Mar, 2007 with 1 comment so far

This piece was originally published by the Macarthur Foundation on their Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog (original link).

Young people already use web search services, wikipedia, blogs, and online news to learn about their world and complete their school assignments. When it’s easy to find thousands of hits on just about any topic – some fascinating, some irrelevant – with a simple Google search, it is not surprising that they report learning far more from the internet than they do from school, and enjoying that learning more. But are they getting accurate information from the explorations that they do on their own?

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Reblogged: The power of authenticity

4 Mar, 2007 with 0 comments so far

This piece was originally published by the Macarthur Foundation on their Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog (original link).

One of the things we know about creative thinking is that creative thinkers these days use sophisticated tools: graphic designers use Photoshop and Illustrator, architects and engineers use CAD (Computer Aided Design) software, urban planners use geographic information systems, managers use gantt charting tools, accountants use spreadsheets, and everyone uses word processors, Web browsers, and email.

So it makes sense that to learn innovative and creative thinking, you need to use these tools and you need to learn to use them.
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“Be the Reporter” in minutes

14 Feb, 2007 with 0 comments so far

In the journalism epistemic game, science.net, players spend days and sometimes weeks learning to think like reporters by taking on this professional role and writing, and ultimately, publishing stories. So I was a bit anxious when I learned that The Poynter Institute and News University were providing an online game called “Be the Reporter” (BtR) that promised to “help users understand some of the basics” in only 15 minutes! After playing the game a couple of times through (and taking nearly an hour), I’m less anxious and more excited by the interesting design elements built into this intriguing mini-game.
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