Each week, 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 mark [at] mediashift [dot] org.
FEATURED TRAINING
Social Media Marketing Master Class: Part II
You’ve established yourself on social media, but you want to grow your audience. How do you get people talking about your content without seeming too self-promoting? Learn to harness the power of #hashtags, run a popular live Twitter chat, find out what’s trending today and how to jump in at the right moment with the right content. MediaShift’s Social Media Editor Julie Keck will show you powerful tools to take your social media from basic to brilliant. Avoid faux pas, establish yourself as an expert and stand out from the crowd with this intermediate class that will seriously up your game.
Date and time: September 23, 2015, 1 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $39
SEPTEMBER 2015
Web Headlines & SEO Essentials (September 2015)
Headlines appear on the Web with photos, graphics or other type, but usually they stand alone. That means you’ve only got a few words—and a few seconds—to tell readers what the story (or blog posting, video or photo gallery) is about. In this course, we’ll focus on considerations unique to the Web. Chief among these, of course, is SEO – a set of technologies and techniques that can bring more eyes to your content and more visitors to your site.
Date and time: September 7-22, 2015
Place: online
Price: $299
Headlines, Not Cheaplines or Borelines
It’s time to stop boring your readers or serving them sophomoric puns in headlines. Your stories and readers deserve better. You need to slather on the SEO (for humans, not robots) and swirl in a sliver of sophisticated creativity — all while being a headline factory. How can you do it all? This session will cover research on successful headlines from the reader’s perspective and how to figure out what stories to invest time in.
Date and time: September 22, 2015, 2 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $29.95
Investigative Storytelling, Lessons from a Career in Radio: Master Class with Howard Berkes
In this Poynter NewsU event, NPR investigations correspondent Howard Berkes will discuss his approach to audio storytelling, including why and how to gather compelling audio, how audio often needs a reporter’s finely-tuned writing to make it work best and how to tell complex stories solely with sound and spoken words. Participants will also hear about Berkes’ approach to investigative stories, including the challenge of rendering reams of data, documents, perspectives and facts into a compelling audio narrative. He’ll talk about how he humanizes data and documents, and how he decides what fits into a story or series after days, weeks and even months of work.
Date and time: September 25, 2015, 10:30 am ET
Place: online
Price: $99
How to Create a Video With Impact
You may have been thinking lately about broadening the reach of your company or organization’s message. This seminar will consider why a shareable short web video just might be the best vehicle for your message. It will also help you to focus your planning on what you want to say as well consider how the best short web videos are both engaging and visually rich.
Along the way we’ll discuss changing needs for videos intended for an online audience as well as take a look at some compelling examples of video messaging done right. We will also discuss considerations for videos that might be shared over a variety of different devices and how transmedia story telling can engage your audience over a variety of modalities.
Date and time: September 30, 2015, 1 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $39
OCTOBER 2015
Mobile Media: Producing Visual Stories With the iPhone
This two-day certificate workshop provides all skills necessary for shooting quality video on your iPhone. We’ll take you through how to capture key moments from events, product launches, conferences and interviews to publishing on social networks or your website. You’ll work hands-on with experienced TV and online content producers to learn foolproof techniques for capturing professional looking videos on your iPhone. Plus, we’ve added an optional one-day lab: Advanced Video Editing for the iPhone.
Date and time: October 1-2, 2015, from 8:30 – 4:30 daily; additional one-day advanced editing lab October 3, 2015, from 8:30-4:30.
Place: 160 Spear Street in San Francisco, CA; additional one-day advanced editing lab at 141 North Gate Hall, UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA
Price: $825 USD for two-day workshop on October 1-2, 2015. Register before September 10, 2015 for a 10% discount. Discount automatically applied during registration. $350 USD for one-day advanced video editing lab for the iPhone on October 3, 2015. Register Here – Advance Registration Required.
Smartphone Filmmaking 101
Whether you’re shooting coverage for your high-concept documentary, making a low-budget music video for your band, or shooting pick-ups for your corporate online PSA, there are a multitude ways to use your phone as a legitimate route for production. This training will illustrate the use of the iPhone as a low-budget professional production camera. We’ll include short practical tips on shooting techniques. We’ll review and demonstrate some of the emerging technology, apps and software alongside of traditional tips and tricks that can be added to a smartphone in order to make it a more robust production camera. While this class will concentrate on an iPhone, most concepts are applicable to all smartphones.
Date and time: October 7, 2015, 1 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $39
Livestreaming the News: Replacing the Satellite Truck with a Cellphone
Livestreaming, once restricted to TV stations with expensive satellite trucks, is now affordable, accessible and relatively easy to produce. In a pinch, all you need is a reporter with a smartphone to go live on most any website. Whether you’re covering breaking news in the field or planned live events like press conferences or town hall meetings, livestreaming is a great way to add video and boost user engagement on your site and social channels. Both on the technology side and the reporting side, there are best practices for everyone who will wield a cell phone and broadcast directly to a site. This Webinar will show you how to go from no livestream to an easy livestream on your site, or help you strengthen your site’s livestreaming capabilities if you have started to experiment.
Date and time: October 7, 2015, 2 pm ET
Place: online
Price: $29.95
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.
NewsTrain: Digital Skills for Journalists, Monroe Edition
Sessions include maximizing your use of social media for branding and reporting; improving your mobile newsgathering; generating better data-driven enterprise stories; mastering the mobile-first, multi-platform news cycle; and navigating the new ethical challenges of digital journalism.
Date and time: October 15-16, 2015
Place: University of Louisiana at Monroe Student Union Building, Mitchell St., Monroe, Louisiana.
Price: $75. It includes dinner on Oct. 15 and Continental breakfast, lunch and snacks.
NewsTrain: Digital Skills for Journalists, DeKalb Edition
You will learn how to: produce enterprise stories efficiently; get started with data journalism; maximize your use of social media for reporting, as well as for personal branding and community engagement; shoot engaging smartphone video; use audience analytics to get your stories read; take create approaches to local features coverage; and unleash your watchdog with beat mapping.
Date and time: October 29-30, 2015
Place: Northern Illinois University, where visitor parking is at 200 Carroll Ave., DeKalb, Illinois 60115. The workshop sessions will be in the university’s Holmes Student Center, 340 Carroll Ave., in the Heritage and Lincoln rooms.
Price: $75. It includes Continental breakfast, lunch and snacks each day.
Digital Media Skills Certificate
You’ll experience best practices for telling stories to an online audience—through social media, on the web and to a mobile audience. You’ll learn to engage with video, digital photography, audio recordings, and data visualizations. You’ll have the tools and storytelling skills to produce, edit and post content 24/7. This includes having the skills to code or use tools for quick production. We’ll also teach you what metrics are important in determining engagement and how to market your product or personal brand. Upon completion of this program, participants will have the knowledge and tools necessary to apply their new skill set immediately to their profession.
Date and time: October – December 2015
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: TBA
NOVEMBER 2015
NewsTrain: Digital Skills for Journalists, Philadelphia Edition
This will be a digital-storytelling boot camp: two full days of training that will help you make smart decisions about the best way to tell a story. This workshop will introduce you to: producing video, recording sound and shooting photos with your smartphone; writing news for mobile; using data to drive enterprise reporting; and maximizing your use of social media for both reporting and branding.
Date and time: Nov. 13-14, 2015
Place: Temple University in Philadelphia. The Nov. 13 classes will be in Mitten Hall, 1913 N. Broad St. The Nov. 14 classes will be in Annenberg Hall, 2020 N.13th St. The Friday evening reception will be in the Atrium of Annenberg Hall.
Price: $75. It includes two days of training, Continental breakfasts and lunches, plus a reception on Friday evening.
JANUARY 2016
Visual Storytelling
A one-week workshop with seminar style and hands-on training in essential skills for producing visual content to a digital-first media environment.
Date and time: January 11-16, 2016, Monday through Friday, 9:00 am- 5:00 pm daily. Morning coffee and networking lunch is included.
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price: $2,400 USD, Register Early for 10% discount. Discount immediately applied at registration.
NewsTrain: Digital Skills for Journalists, Lexington Edition
In this daylong NewsTrain, you will learn how to maximize your use of social media for reporting, as well as for personal branding and community engagement; tell video stories more efficiently in ways other than the traditional TV-news segment; shoot video effectively on your smartphone; spot enterprise stories in data, whether your beat is government, sports, the arts, business or education.
Date and time: Jan. 21, 2016
Place: Hyatt Regency Lexington, 401 W. High St., Lexington, Kentucky 40507. The workshop precedes the Kentucky Press Association Winter Convention at the hotel.
Price: $75. It includes a full day of training, breakfast, lunch and snacks.
Courses on demand
How to Crowdfund 10K
Learn how to raise $10,000 by designing a one-of-a-kind crowdfunding campaign. Learn how to set goals and better prepare yourself for a campaign launch. Once your campaign launches, you’ll be an expert on methods of raising the most money, and how to design a professional page.
Place: online
Price: $30
How to Livestream on YouTube
Have you ever wanted to broadcast — live — but weren’t exactly sure how to do it, or what tools to use? Learn the technical nuts and bolds of how to livestream anything on YouTube, and how to market your show so people will see it.
Place: online
Price: $25
How to Tell a Story to Build a Community
Do you need to build a following, but are not sure how to tell your story to grow your community? Learn how to tell a story that will help others relate to you and your mission to take action.
Place: online
Price: $40
Using Facebook as a Reporting Tool
We get it. You use Facebook for posting photos and keeping in touch with family. You’re pretty happy with your trusty Rolodex of sources. And the most “journalism” you do online might be to verify the age of your teenager’s latest crush. But with the right skills, you can turn Facebook into a massively helpful engine to find story ideas, sources, information and quotes. You’ll also learn best practices for engaging with your audience not only to promote your content, but also as a community you care about and are a part of.
Place: online
Price: $29.95
More course listings are available at MediaShift’s DigitalEd, Poynter’s NewsU, Berkeley Advanced Media Institute, Columbia Journalism School’s Continuing Education listings, Mediabistro and CreatorUp.
Sonia Paul is a freelance journalist based in India, and is the editorial assistant at MediaShift. Her work has appeared in a broad range of media, including the Al Jazeera Media Network, Caravan, Foreign Policy, Guardian, Mashable, New York Times, PRI’s The World, Roads & Kingdoms and VICE News. She previously produced the grant-funded podcast series Shizuoka Speaks, based in Japan. She is on Twitter and Instagram @sonipaul