Each week, PBS MediaShift will list upcoming online trainings and courses for journalists and media people — with a focus on digital training. We’ll include our new DigitalEd courses, as well as those from Mediabistro, NewsU, KDMC, and others. If we’re missing anything, please let us know at mediashift [at] pbs [dot] org.
FEATURED TRAINING
DigitalEd: How Publishers Can Engage on Social & Drive Revenue
June 17, 2015
Instructors: Dale Blasingame, Chuck Fishman, Mark Glaser
Media and entertainment publishers face many unique challenges in today’s digital age. Fans are commenting, liking, and reposting content at all hours of the day, across a variety of channels that don’t necessarily link back to your site (message boards, Twitter and even niche blogs to name a few!). So how do you distinguish your publications and content amongst “the noise?” How can you mine this rich media data to deliver a unique and contextual digital experience for each fan? You’ll see patterns of success from TV newsrooms that are posting native video to Facebook and seeing big returns from it. In this session, we’ll share a blueprint for how you can craft and implement a unified digital strategy that engages fans, increases exposure, and drives incremental digital revenue.
Price: FREE
JUNE 2015
MOOC: Math for Journalists Made Easy: Understanding and Using Numbers and Statistics
This course aims to provide journalists, media practitioners, and the general public with knowledge about how to be critical about numbers, statistics, and research, and to avoid being improperly swayed by biased researchers. This is part of JournalismCourses.org, the distance-learning program of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin. Our program offers MOOCs, massive online courses that are free, and other online courses with a limited number of students that have a small fee.
Date and time: June 1-28, 2015
Place: online
Price: free
DigitalEd: Which Self-Publishing Platform is Best for You?
Instructor: Carla King
Join us for a 1-hour training exploring the major self-publishing companies to learn what each company provides in the way of book creation services and distribution. This session will identify challenges that authors often face when making this first crucial decision, and reveal the one secret that will prevent your book from ever being trapped in any particular service. The session will help you select one or a combination of services from the following “tested and trusted” companies for your publishing project:
– IngramSpark
– BookBaby
– Amazon CreateSpace
– Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
– Smashwords
– Kobo
– Bowker
Date and time: June 24, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: $39
Podcasting: Telling Stories in Sound
In this two-day certificate earning course, Podcasting: Telling Stories in Sound, you’ll learn the art of creating and producing distinctive audio podcasts. You’ll practice hands-on recording and editing to develop your own podcast with direction from award winning radio journalist and podcaster, Ben Manilla.
Date and time: June 16-17, 2015, 8:30 am- 4:30 pm daily.
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $725. 10% early registration discount for registrations completed by June 8, 2015
How Publishers Can Engage on Social & Drive Revenue
Media and entertainment publishers face many unique challenges in today’s digital age. Fans are commenting, liking, and reposting content at all hours of the day, across a variety of channels that don’t necessarily link back to your site (message boards, Twitter and even niche blogs to name a few!). So how do you distinguish your publications and content amongst “the noise?” How can you mine this rich media data to deliver a unique and contextual digital experience for each fan? You’ll see patterns of success from TV newsrooms that are posting native video to Facebook and seeing big returns from it. In this session, we’ll share a blueprint for how you can craft and implement a unified digital strategy that engages fans, increases exposure, and drives incremental digital revenue.
Date and time: June 17, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: free
UF CJC Summer Institute and Workshop
The University of Florida’s summer institute and workshop is a five-night and three-night media and communications camp where students are immersed into the world of journalism and communications. Starting this year, the camp will cover all disciplines offered at UF’s College: advertising, broadcast, journalism and public relations. Students will have a core storytelling class, hear keynote talks from industry leaders, and select classes from our diverse curriculum.
Date and time: June 20-25, 2015, from 8:30 – 4:30 pm daily
Place: UF College of Journalism and Communications, Gainesville, FL
Price: $795.95. Register here.
JULY 2015
Summer Investigative Reporting Course
Over three weeks, journalists from around the world in various media platforms examine what investigative journalism is and how to conceive, research, and write such stories. The process involves recognizing when something should be a long-term project, basics for launching into the story, testing and retesting the hypothesis throughout the investigation, shifting direction when the reporting dictates that the story direction change, and initial techniques to use in getting started. Workshops will be taught on retrieving data from outside sources, analyzing the data, and using tools to visualize it for readers; instruction will include locating and using public records found worldwide, utilizing financial documents, interviewing techniques, structuring an investigative story, using multimedia to support projects, writing and editing a long-form narrative, and more. We will hold exercises in computer labs within Columbia’s Journalism School to practice techniques, including use of programs such as Excel. This course is not intended for beginners and requires an application process.
Date and time: July 6-24, 2015
Place: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Price: $7,500 (10% discount for Columbia Journalism School alumni and 5% discount for past Columbia Journalism Continuing Education students).
Data Visualization for Storytellers
Data Visualization for Storytellers is a two-day, hands-on certificate program focused on communicating complex information with visually appealing charts, graphs, and maps. Participants will learn to create a clearer, more meaningful picture of complex information and publicly available data, tell stories with interactive maps, and create beautiful and effective graphs and charts.
Date and time: July 9-10, 2015, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $795. Early Registration Discount for registrations before July 5, 2015.
DigitalEd: Reinventing Student Media for the Digital Age
Instructor: Dan Reimold
Date: July 15, 2015
How do student publications move from print to digital? A growing number of student media advisers, journalism educators and student journalists worldwide are wrestling with how, and how fast, to shift their outlets — or at least how to more smoothly sync the two together. This one-hour session will feature a rapid-fire breakdown of the many things you and your student media team should consider when making the leap to online-only, digital-first or simply more digital-and-mobile friendly. Examples of successful and failed student media reinventions will also be shared. And five key traps will be laid out that you may want to sidestep before, during and after the transition.
Date and time: July 15, 2015, 1 pm EST
Place: online
Price: $39
Podcasting: Telling Stories in Sound
In this two-day certificate earning course, you’ll learn the art of creating and producing distinctive audio podcasts. You’ll practice hands-on recording and editing your own podcast with direction from award winning radio journalist and podcaster, Ben Manilla.
Date and time: July 16-17, 2015 from 8:30 – 4:30 daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $725. Register before June 8, 2015 for a 10% discount.
Social Media For Content Creators: Brand Building, Content Strategy, Audience Engagement
This workshop offers comprehensive training on how to leverage the power of social media and storytelling to develop audiences, build trust relationships, and drive engagement. Upon completion of this workshop, you will have developed an expanded strategic social media roadmap for creating engaging content across multiple platforms, have experience developing content that resonates with your audience and be knowledgeable on the latest social media tools and technologies.
Date and time: July 21-23, 2015, 8:30am – 4:30pm daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $1,450. Early Registration Discount of 10% before June 1, 2015.
AUGUST 2015
Code Now: Programming for Non-Programmers
This intensive two-day workshop provides hands-on training in three coding languages: HTML, CSS & JavaScript (jQuery). You’ll have the knowledge to confidently write code, develop web pages and design a basic website with responsive interfaces. You’ll leave with an understanding of these basics and a simple portfolio website that demonstrates skills learned.
Date and time: August 3-4, 2015, Monday-Tuesday, 9 am – 4:30 pm daily.
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $645. Register before September 4, 2015 for a 10% discount.
OCTOBER 2015
App Development Strategy and Marketing
As the app ecosystem continues to explode, many magazine publishers and content creators are still wrestling with app development and overall audience marketing and engagement strategies to ensure their app performs in an ever increasing competitive marketplace. This two-day certificate workshop will help you determine what app development strategy is the right fit for your organization with best practices for building and engaging your digital app audience.
Date and time: October 7-8, 2015, from 8:30 – 4:30 daily
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $865. Register before September 4, 2015 for a 10% discount.
More course listings are available at MediaShift’s DigitalEd, Poynter’s NewsU, Knight Digital Media Center Berkeley, Columbia Journalism School’s Continuing Education listings and Mediabistro.
Sonia Paul is a freelance journalist based in India, and is the editorial assistant at PBS MediaShift. She is on Twitter @sonipaul.