Sent to: Valerie Penten-Virginia Association of Journalism Teachers and
Advisers
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE:
Vicki Krueger
NewsU, Poynter Institute for Media Studies
727-821-9494
New Online Courses Designed For High School Journalism Students
High School
journalism teachers in
Media Studies to help enhance learning in the classroom.
site that is 80 to 90 percent free.
The NewsU courses address specific tasks such as how to write a better lead and take just an hour or two to
complete. Because the courses are offered online one is able to take the course anytime and do a little bit at a time or
take the whole course at one time. Also, once someone enrolls that individual is always enrolled. One is able to use the
course as a reference in the future.
“Additionally, its quality training from faculty at the Poynter Institute or from other professional journalism
organizations,”
said Vicki Krueger,
Media Studies.
For example, the
course Cleaning Your Copy, instructed by Krueger takes about two hours to
complete. This
self-directed module helps journalists understand the basics of grammar, spelling,
punctuation and AP style.
There is a test at the end of the course called; “Copy
Quotient Test” this test allows one to see how well they
really can clean a copy.
New Online Courses Designed For High School Journalism Students
NewsU is currently offering 30 courses and the enrollment has recently reached 29,000 registered users.
The NewsU courses officially opened in April of 2005 and have had a lot of growth since then. Some of the courses
offered include: “The Lead Lab”, “News Sense: The Building Blocks of News” and Journalism and Trauma”.
“I would like to have a growth rate of 30 to 50 percent for the user base growth and for the course development
I would like to have more than 100 courses,” said Howard Finberg, the director of Interactive Learning/NewsU.
The courses for NewsU are selected very specially to fit a variety of skill level such as student, young journalists,
and veteran.
“We consider courses in all the “food groups” of journalism: reporting, writing and editing; visual journalism; ethics
and diversity; broadcast and online; and leadership and management,” said Krueger. “Also, from a mix of ideas of queries
from journalism associations, Poynter faculty, and ideas that are pursued based on requests from our users.”
There is a tool that helps ensure teachers that students are active in the course. This feature is called “Course Report.”
It keeps track of how long a person has been active in the course. Then the student can see how long he or she has been in
the course and email the information to the teacher.
As the growth of NewsU continues, other languages will emerge in 2007.
“Funding will matter when it comes to a projection as to which languages and how many courses will be offered,”
Finberg said.
New Online Courses Designed For High School Journalism Students
NewsU started in 2005 as a project of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies funded by the John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation, NewsU is committed to providing interactive, inexpensive courses that appeal to journalists at all levels of
experience and in all types of media. For additional information contact Vicki Krueger, NewsU Editor at www.newsu.org.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Vicki Krueger,
Poynter Institute for Media Studies
727-821-9494
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