Recent posts for Journalism.net
Civic engagement through journalism
At a time when public and governmental support for civic programs is dwindling, epistemic games like South Madison Times (and all of the versions of Journalism.net) have the potential to effect positive changes in civic participation. For players, writing and publishing about significant issues during game-play fosters a sense of potential efficacy that carries over into their home communities. Young people who role-play as journalists begin to see the information available in newspapers as consequential, to understand how journalists help community members learn about the world around them, and to feel as if they can understand local problems and effect change in the world.
Online Editions
All of the Journalism.net newsmagazine editions written and published by our young reporters are available online. [UPDATE: Editions will once again be available after a technology upgrade.]
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)
Byline gets pitched
New in Byline this year are an expanded set of editing and previewing interfaces for the science.net reporters to work with. Based on ethnographic field work with a junior-level reporting course, reporters now get engine-driven feedback about their background research to help them pitch the stories they will be preparing for their desks. New tabs also include support for interview questions, notes and quotes.
Virtual science education?
This recent article in the New York Times (20 October 2006, free registration required) discusses virtual science education – science classes that take place completely online, without a lab component:
Internet-based educators are seeking to convince the [College Board], and the public, that their virtual laboratories are educationally sound, pointing out that their students earn high scores on the A.P. exams. They also say online laboratories are often the only way advanced science can be taught in isolated rural schools or impoverished urban ones. Online schooling, which was all but nonexistent at the elementary and secondary level a decade ago, is today one of the fastest-growing educational sectors, with some half-million course enrollments nationwide.
While I’m in complete support of giving kids who live in districts without AP sciences the opportunity to take similar classes, the real question for me is what do kids who take any type of AP science courses learn?
Continue reading »
Byline Overview
ByLine is the game technology used in the journalism games (science.net, Wisconsin Science Journal and Neighborhood News).
It helped journalism.net players produce each of these online newspapers:
– 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)
The software is custom-developed, drawing technically from sources in the Learning Sciences (Guzdial’s CoWeb) and from commercial software (WYSIWYG text editors and Knight Ridder’s Cofax publishing system). ByLine also draws from ethnographic studies of professional journalism learning environments, including capstone university courses and actual newspaper offices. As an epistemic game engine, ByLine is designed to make it easier for young people to participate in the professional activities of journalists while also helping those cub reporters learn to think more like professional reporters. As a research tool, ByLine is designed to help researchers better understand the ways young people develop a professional epistemology.
