Recent posts for Journalism.net
Media literacy and the future of the web
Lately, there has been significant discussion over the future of the world wide web. From talk of governments who censor information that they deem culturally dangerous to net neutrality, it is unclear what form the internet of the future might take or who might be exerting control over it. In addition, the growth and change of the internet is not (yet) well understood, something the BBC discusses in this article about a new research collaboration between MIT and the University of Southampton, UK – the Web Science Research Initiative:
“The Web Science Research Initiative will chart out a research agenda aimed at understanding the scientific, technical and social challenges underlying the growth of the web.
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Science.net
Nanotechnology. Blue-green algae. Stem cell research. These are just a few of the important science topics studied by researchers at UW-Madison and written about by student reporters in the epistemic game Science.net, in which middle school students role play as science reporters working for an online science newspaper.
Combining the excitement of scientific discovery with the thrill of publishing their own work to inform the public, young people in science.net work as reporters publishing a weekly online science newspaper. 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 about breaking scientific issues that matter to themselves and to their community.
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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 summers of 2005 and 2006, Science.net players of the same age worked the science beat by interviewing scientists, gathering research, and writing stories for 45 hours.
In a related game, high-school-aged players wrote for the South Madison Times, role-playing as civic journalists for 45 hours. This spring, Chicago charter school students will play a similar version, interviewing neighborhood leaders, investigating issues that are important in their home community, and publishing the Neighborhood.net newsmagazine.
Science.net 2006 a hit!
We have just completed another summer version of the Science.net epistemic game. Twelve middle school students (grades 6-8) formed our staff of science reporters and wrote stories on important science stories from local researchers’ efforts to find a vaccine for the avian flu to invasive zebra mussels in Lake Michigan to new breakthroughs in ethanol fuel. Each one of our reporters learned about many scientific breakthroughs that are not only new and exciting, but also important in their home communities and around the world.
We had a wonderful summer – a big thank you for playing to all of our young reporters and their families!
This fall, we have been excited to hear that many of our reporters have done additional research into their story topics, and that they continue to read the newspaper more regularly!
Watch this space for more specific results from this summer’s game…
South Madison Times
In the South Madison Times epistemic game – a civic journalism version of Journalism.net – high school students spent a summer learning to be reporters for a community-based online newspaper. They worked with local reporters to learn aspects of the craft of journalism – like interviewing and lead-writing – and met with community leaders to uncover important events and happenings in and around Madison’s most diverse neighborhoods.
