It’s hard to fathom that it was four years ago when “Hey, this virus thing is getting serious” became “EVERYONE GO HOME NOW!” I vividly remember sitting in my 8 a.m. reporting class and prepping the kids for their 24-hour midterm. One student asked, “So what happens if they close us down?”
“Look, folks, I know this place is really slow on the uptake, but if they were going to shut us down, they’d have done it by now,” I said.
I went back to my office after class and found the “We’re all shutting down, going digital and figuring out the rest of this after Spring Break” email. (Cue everyone I know freaking out about how to do this and what assignments would still work and more…)
Things may not feel as chaotic now, but just in case you’re looking for an exercise to help kids with AP, a story assignment to weave into a class or anything else that might be of value, here’s today’s throwback post where we introduced the “Corona Hotline” page on the blog.
The link in the post is still active and I’ll still happily update it if anyone needs anything else, assignment-wise.
Hope you all are having a great spring break or getting ready to take one!
Resources for Journalism Professors Teaching Writing and Reporting Classes Online, Thanks to The Coronavirus
I’ve been preparing for this moment my whole life. I just didn’t know it…
As promised, today the blog is launching some help for those of you running media-writing, reporting, news-writing and other similar classes. I’ve created a “Corona Hotline” page that you can go to for a clearing house of all sorts of stuff that you can use for distance learning.
One of the benefits of teaching media-writing classes is that I am limited in how much “reporting” I can force on the students, so a number of these exercises are canned writing pieces that lack a need for additional work. I also did some cleaning on them so that they’re more universal and less “UWO-centric.”
As I get deeper into my own class build, I’ll toss more stuff up here. If you have anything you want me to share, hit me up with it through the contact page. I’ll also be posting some teaching stuff here and there, along with links to student media outlets that are still grinding away during the crisis.
As always, we’re from the internet and we’re here to help.
Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)
