Assignments

Personal site | 150 points
During the first half of the semester, you’ll create a home page and three other pages, which will include a résumé, a font poem and a Flash slide show. Effective design, thoughtful organization, creativity and content are important.

Cronkite zine | 175 points
As a class, we’ll produce the next edition of the Cronkite zine, which showcases student work (most of it is in hand). Each of you will handle at least one story. The zine has placed first in the online magazine category of a national student magazine contest for several years in a row. Let’s keep up the winning tradition!

Team projects | 225 points
In the second half of the semester, you’ll work on team projects to build sites that incorporates multimedia and interactive storytelling. Take us as far as you can! The best projects will appear on the Cronkite zine.

Online journalism is a highly collaborative affair. Some of you might not be keen on teamwork, but in the end I hope you’ll find it exhilarating and liberating. The distinguishing difference between an amateur and a professional is the ability to handle deadline pressure and complete a task with grace. The basic rule among pros is simple: When disagreements arise, forget about what’s best for you and honestly focus on what’s best for the story.

Short assignments | 100 points
These include online research (25 points), an HTML résumé (25 points), a font poem (25 points) and a Flash slide show (25 points).

Quizzes | 100 points
You’ll take four quizzes based on lectures, discussions and readings—but no midterm or final exam.

Class participation | 100 points
Class participation is important. You’ll be encouraged to express your thoughts and contribute to every discussion. Respect for other’s feelings, beliefs and values is essential to the success of the class, so please be considerate of your classmates’ different backgrounds and experiences. Much of what you’ll do in the day-to-day professional world will involve dealing with people. I welcome honest feedback, which I try to respond to as best I can. A positive attitude, extra effort and constructive criticism will help your grade. Whining won’t. Also included in the 100 points will be some short writing assignments. Hand assignments in on time. Assignments must be typed, printed out and turned in at the beginning of class. Print it out before you come to class. If you arrive late, your assignment will NOT be accepted.

Cooperative learning
This course is a cooperative effort, requiring all of us—including Nancie and me—to share what we know and have learned with each other. Nancie and I will dispense the knowledge and experience we have, and we expect you to contribute with questions, corrections, ideas, and pointers to good information.

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