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Empowering journalists with online tools
making a case for online training

• Kwami Ahiabenu,II kwami_at_penplusbytes.net
• International Institute for ICT Journalism/
• GINKS

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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Online delivery

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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 )

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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)

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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/grou
  ps/Mediaictrain/index.cfm?opdsp_info
• The email group discussion provided the main
  means of interacting, networking and connecting
  tool for the class.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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_at_N08/
• Podcasting Session

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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

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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

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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 learners environment
  via flexibility

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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

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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.

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Thank you

• Kwami Ahiabenu,II
• kwami_at_penplusbytes.net
• www.penplusbytes.blogspot.com