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
DigitalEd: How to Create Digital Maps
This training will introduce participants to three free tools for digital map-making. Following a discussion on geographic data sourcing, organization, and visualization, this training will conclude with instructions on how participants can visualize a simple dataset using one of three tools. Participants will leave understanding the data and story underlying digital maps as well as an appreciation of how to design maps and how they can be used effectively.
Date and time: Oct. 28, 2015, 10am PT
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Place: online
Price: $39
OCTOBER 2015
Tools for Smart Science Journalism
As journalists, we ignore science not only at our own peril, but at the peril of our readers and viewers. In this Webinar, you’ll learn to how make sense of scientific data and tell stories in ways that connect with your audience. You’ll get techniques and tips to improve your interviewing and reporting skills. You’ll also learn how to lift the veil from front groups to launch investigations based on informed fact-gathering.
Date and time: Oct. 29, 2015, 2pm ET
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Place: online
Price: $29.95
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: Oct. 29-30, 2015
Producer: Associated Press Media Editors
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.
NOVEMBER 2015
DigitalEd: Basics of Publishing with WordPress
This training will introduce the fundamentals of building your own website on WordPress, how to run a blog, and how to design and publish digital elements to complement and enhance your stories. We will learn the basics of HTML and CSS as they pertain to WordPress and how to add plugins and use themes.
Date and time: Nov. 4, 2015, 10am PT
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Place: online
Price: $39
Producing Great Audio Using Simple Tools
There’s nothing worse than bad audio on the radio – or on your podcast or multimedia presentation. Fortunately, producing high-quality, compelling sound pieces doesn’t require expensive microphones, digital recorders or software. In this Webinar, you will learn best practices for using microphones, tips for recording great interviews, and foolproof ways for gathering natural sound. You’ll get the tips and skills to give your audio pieces that professional “public radio quality” sound no matter what your skill level or budget.
Date and time: Nov. 5, 2015, 2pm et
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Place: online
Price: $29.95
Infographics and Visual Data
It’s no secret that infographics have become one of the most important tools for sharing information on the web. In this course, you will learn how to create effective and beautiful infographics that you can share with your followers to help tell a compelling story and grow your business or brand.
Date and time: Nov. 9-Dec. 7 2015
Producer: Mediabistro
Place: online
Price: $385
DigitalEd: 5 Tech Tools to Improve Your Reporting
We’ll introduce you to tech tools and platforms that will help you obtain and manipulate data. You’ll learn how to scrape social accounts, without knowing any code. And you’ll discover how to use features that are built into services you already use in more powerful ways. Plus, we’ll look at some popular (free!) project management software and applications to help you collaborate with colleagues and manage reporting projects.
Date and time: Nov. 9, 2015, 10am PT
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Place: online
Price: $39
Using Data for Better Sports Journalism
Money and power combine to make investigative journalism about sports incredibly challenging. Owners and leagues keep a very tight hold on information about their teams’ finances, performance, and controversies. But there are ways around the secrecy that lead to accountability. In this Webinar, you’ll learn what data is available and where to find it. You’ll get tips on how to use data, see some great examples from other reporters, and get empowered to find the documents and data you need to investigate your story.
Date and time: Nov. 12, 2015, 2 pm ET
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Place: online
Price: $29.95
How to Report on Money in College Sports and the NCAA
Tracking the money in college sports can seem like a Byzantine exercise, especially where the NCAA is involved. Whether you’re a veteran sports reporter or a red-shirt freshman sports reporter, you’ll find something new and helpful in this Webinar. You’ll get a walk-through the current state of play and some tips on what to watch for — everything from paying players to a potential split in the top division. Anyone who has tried to write about college sports has run into the need for sources, documents and data. You’ll learn which college sports documents are available (for both private schools and NCAA schools) and how to get them — from spending to scholarships to infractions.
Date and time: Nov. 13, 2015, 2 pm ET
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Place: online
Price: $29.95
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
Producer: Associated Press Media Editors
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.
DigitalEd: How to Get Foundation Funding
Have you ever considered getting foundation grants to help support your journalism and media projects? Didn’t know where to start? This training will give an overview of the major foundations and what they typically fund. There’s also a chance for one-on-one feedback from the instructor. Major media foundations are going through upheaval, with major reorganizations happening at Knight Foundation, McCormick Foundation, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and others. There will be a discussion of these changes, and how they will affect your chances for grants. And now foundations are supporting both for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Date and time: Nov. 18, 2015, 10am PT
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Place: online
Price: $39
How to Use Housing Data on Your Beat
Housing stories aren’t always about real estate. In this free Webinar, a housing economist will introduce you to the sexiest dataset she’s ever met, and show you how to use it to tell stories about your community. You’ll learn how to unlock stories about crime, culture, politics and much more with free housing metrics available online. Think for a moment about stories in your community in which housing plays a part. Can the middle class afford the rent? Are people of color able to get a mortgage? Where are the “sweet spots” – where jobs are plentiful and housing is cheap? Which neighborhoods are gentrifying, and what does that mean for culture and crime? In this Webinar, you’ll find out how to make sense of all this information.
Date and time: Nov. 19, 2015, 2pm ET
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Place: online
Price: $29.95
DECEMBER 2015
DigitalEd: Social Media Strategy and Analytics
You’re using social media, but you know you could use it better. This training will show you how to develop a social media strategy and monitor its effectiveness using analytics, starting with identifying the right strategies for your business or personal brand and how to set up experiments to test your target audience. You’ll also learn how to use some of the deeper functions and nuances of the popular social media platforms to make your posts and efforts more effective. We’ll also cover how to use social media management apps, easy ways to stay up-to-date on your favorite social platforms, and how to use attention to detail in your posts can amplify your presence and measure your success.
Date and time: Dec. 2, 2015, 1pm ET
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
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. And for a more professional look, a consumer-grade video camera and about $300 in additional equipment is all you need for an HD stream. 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 cellphone 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: Dec. 9, 2015, 2pm ET
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
Place: online
Price: $29.95
JANUARY 2016
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. The program is ideal for people interested in a rapid-paced, immersive experience in data visualization tools and techniques. This workshop is ideal for scientists, communication professionals, journalists, bloggers, educators and those interested in becoming proficient in learning to communicate data with clarity and creativity.
Date and time: January 7-8, 2016, 8:30-4pm daily
Producer: Berkeley Advanced Media Institute
Place: Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley, near San Francisco.
Price:$795 USD Early Registration Discount for registrations before December 10, 2015. Discount automatically applied.
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.
Producer: Berkeley Advanced Media Institute
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
Producer: Associated Press Media Editors
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
Periscope 101: Break News Faster with Mobile Live-Streaming
The power of Periscope means any person can live-stream eyewitness video from anywhere, instantly. Just by pressing a few buttons, the free Periscope app can immediately transport viewers to a breaking news scene. In the hands of a journalist or communications professional, the possibilities are tremendous. Award-winning reporter and mobile journalism trainer Neal Augenstein has developed best practices for this quickly-evolving tool, to enable users to grab and hold an intrigued audience.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19
Social Media Master Class Part I
MediaShift’s Social Media Editor Julie Keck will lead you through using some of the most powerful publishing tools any media professional can use. You can learn how to optimize your feeds, post the right amount each day, and help promote your content or projects better. You can establish yourself as an authority using the right mix of social media platforms and skills. And most of all, it’s fun. Don’t be intimidated or overwhelmed by social media – you can do it!
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19
Social Media 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.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19
DigitalEd: iPhone Audio Reporting 101
The days of carrying recorders, microphones, and cables and cameras are gone – the smartphone is replacing bulky audio gear. This training will show how to use free and inexpensive mobile apps to record and edit audio (as well as video and photos) to creatively engage with audiences. Participants will be encouraged to use a variety of storytelling apps to communicate quickly and effectively.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19
DigitalEd: 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, 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.
Place: online
Producer: DigitalEd at MediaShift
Price: $19
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
Producer: CreatorUp
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
Producer: CreatorUp
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
Producer: CreatorUp
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
Producer: Poynter’s NewsU
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.