In Lab 8, we’re gathering audio using digital audio recorders, editing audio using Audacity, and uploading our audio onto our WordPress blogs, all in real time. Below is a list of instructions to guide you through the process » Read the rest of the entry..

We’re providing handouts with photography and Photoshop instructions in Lab 7. Below is a full run-down of those instructions. » Read the rest of the entry..

Had some requests this week that we post our lab notes/instructions for last term’s lab on widgets, maps, interactivity, and tagging. Glad to do it.

The full instruction is after the jump: » Read the rest of the entry..

Just a quick suggestion for all students taking the online journalism labs:

If possible, best to bring a memory stick and headphones to each lab. I’m seeing students frequently run out of space on their desktops to save video/audio files, and without headphones, it makes listening to your video and audio footage a tad difficult (i.e. impossible).

Following is a list of the Apple iPhone apps I use for mobile reporting. Obviously only a partial list of what is possible so if there are other apps you find useful leave a comment on this post. » Read the rest of the entry..

The concept of ‘content management’, at least in one respect, is easily unraveled:No prizes for guessing it must be the process or activity by which you ‘manage’ your ‘content’.

Tongue in cheek as that may seem, as somebody who works with a content management system or CMS almost every day, I have sincerely come to think of it this way. This article will help you to understand what it means journalistically as well as semantically, whilst explaining why the simple, and playfully tautological definition of it above is the most useful one.

» Read the rest of the entry..

We’re discussing the fine art of tagging and using widgets this week. Below are a few helpful resources:

One definition of tags and how and why we use them.

What exactly are widgets? One definition is here. Widgets are comprised of HTML. Remember HTML?

One slideshow on how to use your internal WordPress widgets.

Cover It Live is one example of an external widget that you can download.

And, further proof of why to make your content as easy to find as possible.

When you take something online, you rely on technology, but the point should never be the technology itself. In other words, although online journalism relies on technology, it is not ABOUT technology. Technology is never more than a means to an end. » Read the rest of the entry..

I’ve created a two-page guide to connecting to a server using FTP, plus an explanation of what FTP is and how it’s useful to us. You can download that here.

If you are using Wordpress for your portfolio, you will also find this one-page cheat sheet helpful to get started. If you get through that and still have questions, I encourage you to check http://codex.wordpress.org/, which is Wordpress’s official documentation website. It’s very user-friendly and extremely thorough. You can of course mail me (Marcus) through the contact form on this site, but the chances are I’ll just have to look at the Wordpress site myself (hmm, something about giving a man a fish or teaching him how to fish comes to mind).

Smartest documentation/instructions to follow.

Citizen journalism is back in and on the news instead of reporting it. Apple stock dropped nearly 10% in a hour on 3 October, 2008 following a false story published on CNN’s iReport by a site user that Steve Jobs was in hospital from a massive heart attack. » Read the rest of the entry..