Add a sports calendar to your publication web site

Here’s a cool and easy addition for your publication web site: A running weekly sports calendar.

Step One. Create a Google account for your publication specifically for sports. Use a publication domain e-mail address or one you will have control of after today’s student moves on.

Step Two. Create a calendar under Google Tools for campus sporting events. You’ll have to spend some time at the beginning of a season entering all the data into your calendar, but do all the schedules for a season (or year).

Step Three. Create a Google Gadget calendar. You can customize the look and size with the options afforded. The address for the calendar, of course, will be the Google calendar created in Step Two.

Step Four. Grab the embed code the Google Gadget calendar creates and go to your web site. For College Publisher users paste the code in the summary field. (If using CP5 be sure to switch to source view.) You can also put it in your story view if you want, but you may want to change the width in the parameters because the article page has more width to work with.

The calendar will now show up on your page as a “story.” What is cool about this is that it is a scrolling calendar the reader can use to go forward and backward with the schedule. You set this up at the beginning of the semester and then never have to touch it again. You simply keep your Step Two calendar up to date with additions or deletions …. or consider adding win/loss results to games as they occur so you have a way for users to check results.

The Holy Grail for community college publications

In the 30 or so years that I’ve been involved in JACC one idea that has come up time and again and never come to fruition is that of a wire service style of sharing news.

Most ideas brought forth have centered around Sacramento area schools originating quality legislative news we can all use or sharing of sports stories and photos.

And I now read where industry cousins have so cut their travel budgets –in a time where the wire services are less popular and the Internet is delivering hyperlocal competition– that sports news consortiums are forming.

Kind of brings back memories of JACC’s holy grail.

Efforts in the past have failed for a number of reasons:

1. Lack of an easy-to-use sharing tool. You’d think easy tools like e-mail, we pages, Flickr, etc. would have leveled the field, but too many of our programs (advisers who mist understand them and be the glue to our high-turnover staffs) are not and may never be tech savvy enough to adapt to anything but a dedicated tool actually designed to do these tasks.

2. Lack if consistency in quality and reliability to process content quickly.

3. Lack of buy in. Not only do some staffs lack the wherewithall to contribute, more see their publications as proprietary. They’d rather underserve their readers than use content from another publication. (Some even think doing so should — or does — disqualify a publication from our General Excellence contests).

I see the mission of my program as two-fold: train students in my program AND serve the campus community with the best news coverage we can muster.

Gaps in what we do or don’t do will open the door for innovators to come in and make us irrelevant. How many of you would fear and fight a commercial entity that, for instance, contracted with our athletic departments to provide a localized web site or print product that gave timely and complete sports coverage in exchange for cooperative access to contest results and coach/athlete quotes? Sure, it would be highly filtered, but I’d bet our sports readers wouldn’t object all that much in exchange for better service.

We should discuss these kinds of issues and innovate before we’re someday innovated out existence. Or we could stick our heads in the sand.

At every JACC conference we should have innovation roundtables to discuss issues like this. Not with an agenda to always walk away with the latest gerry-rigged tool, mind you, but to explore buy-in as much as innovative service solutions.

My Kindle DX and newspapers

The Los Angeles Times is not necessarily my favorite daily newspaper –although I’ve not lived in the Bay Area for 12 years I still enjoy reading the San Jose Mercury News whenever I can get my hands on it– but it clearly is the paper I read in the most varied ways.

Ways I read the Times, in my order of preference, include:

1. In print
2. Through the Times web site
3. Through Twitter on my iPhone (LA Times feeds)
4. Through my Kindle DX
5. Through third-party RSS links (from blogs) on my computer
6. Through Twitter on my iPhone (third-party Tweets with links)
7. Through RSS links from the LA Times
8. Through my iPhone app for the LA Times (sorry, this was too cludgey and I’ve deleted the app from my iPhone. So scratch this one. What a terrible interface.)

On any given day I’m likely to read a Times article via five or more of these sources.

My most recent pathway to reading the the Times is with my new Kindle DX. Reading it this way most decidedly is an acquired taste, one that I’m still working on.

I’ve read a lot about e-book readers being the next big thing for newspapers and have wanted to try it. Amazon.com sells Kindle and with no brick and morter stores to visit to test the Kindle, you pretty much have to buy one on faith. And that takes a lot of faith because the DX, the only version that handles newspapers, sells for close to $500. (Amazon did not even answer my query about whether there was such a thing as an educational discount or whether I could get a reviewer’s discount.)

While I like LISTENING to books –my iPod/iPhone gets a lot of use and I currently carry almost 100 books on it– I can’t really say I’m an avid book reader. I DO read novels and non-fiction books from time to time and do a lot of newspaper and blog reading, to say nothing of textbooks because of my teaching job. I just don’t READ enough books to justify even the lower-end Kindle that sells for around $300.

I like to listen to books while walking, which I do a lot, and highly recommend Audible.com. I’ve been a subscriber for years and can download two unabridged books a month from its humongous and ever-growing library for less than the cost of one newly released printed book. (Hey, Audible, if you are listening, I would willingly accept the gift of a free book for that unsolicited but heart-felt plug.)

Lately, though, I’ve found the Kindle book reader app for my iPhone and that has increased my love of book reading, especially with favorite authors who don’t seem to condone their books being distributed in mp3 format. Yes, Clive Cussler and Tom Clancey, I’m talking about you! I’m currently devouring Cussler’s Oregon series since only two seem to be available in iPod/iPhone listening format.

I bought the Kindle DX because my job includes reading lots of course outline documents. The DX screen is big enough to read these documents as PDFs, which are easily uploaded to the Kindle. Carrying the 1/3-inch thick device around is far superior than carrying 3-inch to 5-inch stacks of course outlines that my job as campus Curriculum Chair requires. That made it worth the purchase price.

My verdicts so far:

* Reading books on the Kindle DX is okay, but quite frankly, the touch screen navagation of my iPhone makes that experince far more satisfying. I even prefer the limited iPhone experience (forget texts that require illustrations) to reading a printed book.

* Reading newspapers on the Kindle DX is interesting, but ridiculous. Forgive me, but presentation DOES count and the presentation on a Kindle leaves a lot to be desired. More below, but I cannot for the life of me understand why Kindle limits newspaper readership to the high-end unit. With some minor tweaks in the interface, my iPhone would be a much more convenient way and I don’t see why it can’t be done. The navigation system of the Kindle is cludgey compared to the touch screen iPhone and if the rumored Apple iTablet ever comes out and gets into the newspaper game Kindle will have a competitor.

* Reading short PDF documents on the Kindle DX is a godsend. But the built-in search function combined with the ridiculous chicket keyboard makes including pdf reference books, such as my college catalog, which I have to refer to almost daily, a lousy choice. Again, the iPhone approach to touchscreen navigation and virtual keyboard is going to blow Kindle out of the water.

Let me talk for a minute about the newspaper reading experience on the Kindle DX, which some of my journalism teacher colleagues have asked about.

In short, you subscribe to a text-only version of a newspaper. (Again, why the cheaper versions or iPhone app can’t handle that is unclear.) The DX has a built-in wireless connection to your personal Kindle account and the paper is delivered automatically within minutes of turning on the unit in the morning. The previous day’s paper is moved to archives. That’s cool. But unless you are a hard core newspaper reader the appeal drops off after there.

You access your files/newspaper by scrolling down the home menu with a five-way joy stick key that can give your thumb a blister. And it takes a while to become comfortable with what you can and cannot do with the the joy stick.

When you select the newspaper you want to read it defaults to opening up the text of the first story, presumably the lead story of page one. You use “Next Page” and “Previous Page” buttons on the right side of the Kindle to page through the story. Because you have some control over the size of text a story can take more or less pages to display. (And given the Times’ penchant to make any story long, count on most stories taking multiple pages, even at smallest font size.)

There is a slight delay in the pages changing on the screen after clicking the button and the button requires a pretty good push to activate, but you get used to that…unless of course you’ve gotten use to the easy touch screen swipe on your iPhone. You learn to click the button before you get to the bottom of the page so as to keep the interference with the reading flow to a minimum.

You use the joy stick to linearly page through the stories one at a time. But because presentation isn’t an issue with Kindle, you have no way in this mode of knowing where you are in the list of available stories and what is coming up. With the printed version or online version you can scan for the story that interests you and jump directly to it; you can read which stories you want in the order you want. That is not the consideration here.

There IS hope, though. Move the cursor to the bottom of the page with your joy stick and you can select a “View Sections” option that lists the major sections of the paper (Front Page, California, The Nation, The World, Business, Sports, Opinion, etc.).

You can choose one of those and start your linear oddessy just in the section you want.

The Section View also tells you how many stories are in the section. You can even move the cursor to number next to the section name. Click on the number and your Section View changes from a list of sections to an RSS view of the stories in that section: headline and first few lines of the story. Ahhh, now you are getting somewhere. You can now choose which story you want to read without having to wade through each story. Simply move the cursor to the headline and click on it to get the full story.

But did I mention that presentation matters? There are no photographs with the stories. The headlines are barebones and there are no drop heads or pull quotes to entice you into a story. Roundups and letters to the editor are difficult to read because there is not even an extra line of space between each item and the subheads are indistinguishable from body text.

When I look at how I select stories to read from the print edition of the newspaper I rely heavily on those drop heads and pull quotes and photos to give me more information about whether I’d be interested in the story. No so luck with the barebones approach. And that barebones headline may not be very descriptive. There does not appear to be any effort on the Times’ part to rewrite the headlines with the Kindle interface in mind. A clever five word headline followed up with a more descriptive drop head –to say nothing of the interesting photo– works fine in print and even on the web. But that same five word headline as the ONLY information I have about the story does not. True, in the RSS view I have the first few lines of the story, but use an anecdotal lead, which the Times does a lot, and you have no idea what the story is about.

Don’t buy the Kindle DX to read newspapers or even books. If you can find another reason like I did, then think about it. If Kindle tweaks its interface, if photos and additional subhead information can be included it might someday be good. Last ngiht, for instance, I had time to kill waiting for my daughter’s beach party to end, so I plopped my butt into a chair at a Starbucks and enjoyed reading the SJ Mercury and a few Times stories had not already read earlier in the day. It was hgih tech, it was cool.

Now, I’ve left out a lot. The screen IS easy to read. Maybe not as easy as my iPhone, but the iPaper platform works for me. It is not backlit, so you still need a well-lit environment. But you could read this thing on the beach (if you weren’t worried about the sand getting in it and gummying it up). It has a built-in dictionary; move the cursor to any word, click on it and the definition appears at the bottom of the screen. And the sucker is supposed to be able to handle something like 3,500 books (because they are all text-only with no graphics), not that you’d ever want to do that. Without a better navigation system, I don’t see it being a viable option for textbooks, too bad.

To put documents on your Kindle, those you don’t buy for greatly reduced prices from Amazon, is really easy. Either attach your Kindle to your computer via cable or email the document to your special Kindle account and wait for it to be delivered wirelessly.

There is a text-to-speech function I haven’t tried, but the thought of uploading a light background music mp3 file sounds like something I may try.

Despite my mostly negative comments above, I like my Kindle and look forward to its interface being upgraded to be more useful. Unfortunately, without the touchscreen archtecture built in, though, I’d probably have to actually buy a future generation version to take advantage of a fully pleasurable-to-use unit. (Apple or Kindle, keep me in mind as a reviewer of new versions; I think this technology has potential and will accept my current role as an unfortunate early adopter.)

12 Things Community College newspapers could do to survive

It is sometimes easy for college journalism programs to feel that we are insulated from the travails of the newspaper industry because … Well, we ARE insulated. We are artificially funded and we don’t face the same expense models of having to pay our employees.

But if we are to best prepare our students for the future, even at print publications, we have to pay attention. Indeed, we should be proactive in leading the education of our students not for what jobs existed yesterday or exist today, but those which will exist tomorrow when they either enter the workforce or learn they have to adapt to a changing workplace.

Here’s a good list from Mashable of 12 things newspapers should be doing. Some don’t apply to us, others are opportunities for us. See the full, original discussion at http://bit.ly/xfSWt .

1. PUTTING WEB FIRST AND REPORTING FROM MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

That might seem like a no-brainer, but this fact is a double-edged sword. Newspapers are often still treating their websites as an afterthought because their advertising revenue is largely still coming from print. At the same time, the shift to getting more revenue from websites won’t happen until the websites are the first priority.

We can and should be doing this. To believe that our students don’t need to know how to do this is ignoring the facts. To think this is ALL our students need to know is also ignoring reality. But at least this is something we can realistically work on in our programs. Without ignoring the nuts and bolts of what we do, I think we should herald the experiments we try more.

2. GO NICHE

Duh, we do that for the most part anyway.

3. OFFER UNIQUE CONTENT IN PRINT

We need to stop treating their websites as a dumping ground for print stories and treat each somewhat independently, carefully selecting the stories better suited for each media.

4. JOURNALISTS AS CURATORS AND CONTEXTUALIZERS

Journalists need to move away from being “processors of information” to contextualizers, Bradshaw said. In the old industrialized model, he explained, journalists simply processed raw material into an article or a broadcast in a market that they also had a monopoly on, but in today’s networked model the raw material is available to the former audience, which is taking on the role of the reporter, as are the sources themselves.

5. REAL-TIME REPORTING INTEGRATION

To Twitter or not to Twitter. To integrate Facebook or not. To blog o not. These are not the questions. We need to make use of the social network tools of the day and teach our students TO BE RELEVANT in doing so.

6. INTERNET CULTURE: STARTUP VS. CORPORATE

How many of us continue to run our operations the same way we’ve always done? Oh sure, we might talk about changes, but do we have a start-up mentality? I suggest with the economic situation being what it is that we look at our artificial financing structure as venture capital that could dry up.

7. ENCOURAGE INNOVATION

Part of having a startup culture includes an environment that encourages innovation. Again, JACC should herald innovation where it takes place. Realize that more will fail than will succeed. Knowing that, we need to give recognition to those bold enough to try. BUT, and this is a big but, we must not fall into the trap of thinking the innovation is god and trumps our basic mission.

8. CHARGING FOR QUOTES IS NOT THE ANSWER

Okay, in the original article this is talking about AP and the big boys. If you think at the college level that we’re serious partners in this discussion you’ve been ingesting something probably illegal. But our students need to know and understand this discussion.

9. INVESTING IN MOBILE: E-READERS OR SMARTPHONES?

We should give consideration to how our electronic versions translate to smart phones, so many of our students have them that if we can promote our content through them we can build relevant audiences perhaps stronger than relevant web audiences.

I recently bought a Kindle DX, partially so I could experience the end-use of the newspaper-through-ebook model. My initial reaction is very cool, I still prefer print for a lot of reasons, but I’m getting the hang of it. I’ll blog on it later. Am interested to see the new Apple tablet, if it materializes, but at double the already expensive Kindle cost, I suspect that it will be slow to have an impact.

10. COMMUNICATING WITH READERS

Think letters to the editor on steriods. We need to put more effort into this. Looks like the future won’t be sitting around waiting for the letters to maybe show up. We need to make it easier and more relevant.

11. BUILDING COMMUNITY

You’d think we understand that at a COMMUNITY college. But we really don’t. The weird thing is that we’re in a perfect position to benefit from understanding and building this.

12. TO PAY WALL OR NOT TO PAY WALL — THAT IS THE QUESTION

Again, we’re not really part of this discussion. But our students need to be aware. There is the real problem of how will the industry or our students make a living doing this if we don’t work our some kind of reasonable income stream to replace the fading advertising model.

WILL WEBSITES REPLACE NEWSPAPERS?

Regardless of what happens in the industry, print editions will not be replaced at our level anytime soon. What IS realistic for us to consider is whether our schools continue to see our product as something they are willing to continue to fund if the revenue stream of “butts in the seat” continue to be our income model. While the print edition will continue its effectiveness on the campus for many years, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the answer will be “no” and the publication will fold if it does not build a multi-platform audience. Web sites are only the first step, but not if all of it is simply a duplicate of print. More and more I think social media and mobile delivery will be our best friends. The print product will continue to be our bedrock for training, but have less relevance as a delivery mode.

50 web tools for student online publications

Regardless of your student publication’s online platform, you can enhance content presentation with these 50 online tools.

1. AM CHARTS

Create interactive and animated Flash-based maps without knowing Flash. Embed the results in your web site. <http://www.amcharts.com/>

2. AM MAP

Create interactive and animated Flash-based maps without knowing Flash. Embed the results in your web site. <http://ammap.com/>

or

3. SWIVEL CHARTS

Upload a database and Swivel will help you choose the best way to display the numbers visually. Then grab the HTML code to put onto your web page <http://www.swivel.com>

4. AUDIO NOW

Tool for streaming radio music, news and talk by using your existing phone. <http://audionow.com/>

5. BRAVENET WEB TOOLS

Free and subscription based web tools that include a blog, online calendar, guestbook, password protection for web sites, hit counters, photo albums, web templates, FAQ services, vote casters, classified ads, mailing lists, chat rooms, guest maps, e-cards, headline news, web pools, e-mail forms, message forums, speaking characters and more. <http://www.bravenet.com/>

6. CLASS TOOLS

Classtools.net allows you to create free educational games, activities and diagrams in a Flash! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet. <http://classtools.net/>

7. CLIP ART

Clipart.com by Jupiterimages is the largest collection of royalty-free images offered by subscription on the web. For one low price you can download all the clipart, photos, fonts and sounds you need. <http://www.clipart.com>

or

8. iSTOCK PHOTO

Member-generated image and design community. Find your inspiration on the world’s leading royalty-free stock destination. Search for over 4 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage, audio tracks and Flash files. <http://www.istockphoto.com>

9. CREATING KICK-APP WIDGETS FOR YOUR WEB SITE

Presentation by Amara Aguilar on creating widgets for your web site. <http://web.me.com/amara_media/widgets/Home.html>

10. CUSTOM RSS GOOGLE GADGET

Enter the RSS source you want displayed on your page and this tool creates code for a handy widget to paste you’re your site. <http://www.gmodules.com/ig/creator?synd=open&url=http%3A//customrss.googlepages.com/customrss.xml&pt=%26context%3Dd%26synd%3Dopen%26lang%3Den%26.lang%3Den%26country%3Dus%26.country%3Dus%26cat%3Dall%26num%3D1%26start%3D-1%26cols%3D1%26objs%3DUtS&sn=UtS&lang=en>

11. DIPITY

Create timelines and embed them in your web page. <http://www.dipity.com/>

12. EMBEDDED MEDIA HTML GENERATOR

The Embedded Media HTML Generator has been developed to ease the burden of inserting video and animations into web pages. Select the type of video and get help generating code to paste into your pages. <http://cit.ucsf.edu/embedmedia/step1.php>

13. FACEBOOK CONNECT

First, build a Facebook page for your student publication and co-post content . The use FB’s new Facebook Connect to link your publication to that site and place a Facebook widget on your web site. Use it to bring the new content from your social media network to your regular site. <www.facebook.com/connect>

14. FEEDWEAVER

Feedweaver allows you to create your own personalized RSS feeds. You can create your own feeds by combining source feeds from your favorite websites, and use filters to choose what you want in it! You can combine multiple RSS feeds into one. <http://feedweaver.net/>

15. GOOGLE GADGETS

Hundreds of widgets that take advantage of RSS feed to provide content of all kinds. <http://www.google.com/ig/directory?num=24&synd=open>

16. HTML TO PDF CONVERTER

It’s a simple HTML to PDF Converter. No need to install any applications on your computer.

It’s free and without registration! Simply type in the URL of a page and it converts the page to a PDF. <http://html-pdf-converter.com/>

17. iPETITION

Create free online petitions to generate support for your cause. <http://www.ipetitions.com/>

or

18. TINY PETITION

Create a Twitter-based petition. <http://www.tinypetition.com>

19. ISSUU

Issuu turns your print documents into beautiful online publications. Publish to an audience of millions and get your message across to anyone, anywhere. It only takes a minute and it’s free. <http://issuu.com/>

20. JOT FORM BUILDER

Web based WYSIWYG form builder. Its intuitive drag and drop user interface makes form building a breeze. Using JotForm, you can create forms, integrate them to your site and collect submissions from your visitors. <http://www.jotform.com>

21. KEEP HD

KeepHD is a sweet tool that lets you download HD videos off Youtube! Not only can you download HD copies of your movies, you can also download the mobile 3GP version for your mobile devices plus the standard MP4 and FLV format. <http://www.keephd.com/>

22. LIVESTREAM

Online video broadcast platform. <http://www.livestream.com/>

23. MIPPIN

Allow readers to access your publication on their web site by signing up for this free app and then promoting it on your web site. <http://www.mippin.com/>

24. MY CSS MENU

MyCSSMenu provides the average webmaster with tools to create custom, cross browser compatible css menu. The generator makes it easy to create custom web navigation: Horizontal, Vertical, Drop-down menu without having to know all the complicated HTML and CSS. <http://www.mycssmenu.com/>

25. MY FONTBOOK

MyFontbook is an unique online font viewer that helps save designers time by providing a number of tools to view installed fonts quickly and easily. Unlike a classic font management tool, MyFontbook is platform independent and can be used freely through any web browser. <http://www.myfontbook.com/>

26. ONLINE TOOLS FOR REPORTING

Blog entry defines some of the online terms such a widget or content management system. Also explains some of the tools on this list. <http://dunnreporter.com/online-tools-for-reporting/>

27. PICNIK ONLINE PHOTO EDITING

Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos. <http://www.picnik.com/>

or

28. PHO.TO

Online photo enhancement and presentation platform and a variety of other photo services. <http://www.pho.to>. Also see related services while there to turn photos into cartoons <http://cartoon.pho.to> or animated avatars <http://avatar.pho.to>.

29. POLL DADDY

Create online surveys and polls for your website, blog and social network. Best for short poll questions. For longer surveys also see Survey Monkey. <www.polldaddy.com>

30. PRODULE

Web-based visual tool for rapidly building customized Flash widgets. Similar to SproutBuilder and Wix. <www.produle.com>

or

31. SPROUTBUILDER

Sprout Builder is a web-hosted, visual authoring solution that allows creative professionals to quickly and easily create branded, rich-media content and widgets. Used to be free, but now requires a paid model. <http://sproutbuilder.com>

or

32. WIX FLASH PRESENTATIONS

Wix offers you a simple powerful online platform to make flash websites, MySpace layouts and more. No downloads or programming needed. Similar to Sprout, but free. <www.wix.com>

33. PUBLISH2

Save, organize, and publish links to interesting and important news on your own web site or blog, with just a click. Save links privately for your own reporting, then publish selected links along with your story to enhance its value. <http://www.publish2.com>

34. SCRIB.D DOCUMENT EMBEDDING

Scribd.com allows you to upload files in PDF, PowerPoint, spreadsheet or photo form, then spits out the code for you to embed it in a Web site or e-mail it anywhere. <http://www.scrib.d.com>

35. SLIDE SHARE

Take your PowerPoint slide shows and share them on the web through embedded widgets. <http://www.slideshare.net/>

36. SURVEY MONKEY

Powerful and easy to use web-based tool for creating surveys. Free for simple, short surveys or pay a fee for longer surveys. Good analysis tools built in and you can embed links to your surveys into your site. <http://www.surveymonkey.com>

37. TABLEIZER

A quick tool for creating HTML tables out of spreadsheet data <http://tableizer.journalistopia.com/>

38. TEXT MARKS

Deliver targeted SMS text alerts to your subscribers’ phone numbers. You can enter 160-charcter messages from the web site or set it up so you can send them by phone. You can also create small communities that can communicate with each other. <http://www.textmarks.com/>

39. TR.IM URL SHORTENER

Create short URLs from long ones. Great for Twitter. Free and simple to use. Just paste the long URL into a field, click a button and a short URL is generated. <http://tr.im/>

or

40. BIT.LY URL SHORTENER

Similar to TR.IM, but one character larger. Includes a tool you can place in your browser menu for easy use. <http://bit.ly>

41. TWITTER

A real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. There are a ton of related programs that allow you to customize the way you interact with the tool. You can also generate widgets so that your tweets can show up automatically on your web site. Start at <http://www/twitter.com>

then look at

42. 30 WAYS TO CREATE TWITTER GROUPS

Great blog entry by Mashable on how to customize your publication’s use of Twitter. <http://mashable.com/2009/07/13/more-twitter-groups/>

43. VODPOD

Your favorite videos on the web, in one place. Save videos you like as you surf the web. Lets people watch videos you save on your blog, website, Facebook, MySpace or just about anyplace. <http://vodpod.com/>

44. VUVOX

VUVOX is an easy to use production and instant sharing service that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music into rich personal expressions. <http://www.vuvox.com>

45. WIDGET BOX

Instantly turn your blog or RSS fed into a widget to share with others. Or you can grab widgets created by others. Grab content from one part of your site and show it in another part of your site with a “blidget.” <http://www.widgetbox.com/>

46. WIDGETBOX

A variety of widgets for your web site, including a tool that makes widgets. <http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/youtube-videos>

47. YOUTUBE REPORTER’S CENTER

The YouTube Reporters’ Center is a new resource to help you learn more about how to report the news. It features some of the nation’s top journalists and news organizations sharing instructional videos with tips and advice for better reporting. <http://www.youtube.com/user/reporterscenter>

48. YOUTUBE VIDEO WIDGET

This easy to install widget provides the ability to quickly add video directly from YouTube to your desired destination. <http://www.widgipedia.com/web-widgets/details/techstuff/YouTube-Video-widget_390.html>

49. ZAMZAR

Free online file converter. Convert files from a dazzling array of formats into almost any other logical similar format. Simply upload the file and within a short time you can download the converted file in the format you choose. <http://www.zamzar.com/>

Okay, so there are only 49 tools here, not 50. Time for my readers to suggest a 50th tool for student publications to use.

Communicate with your students via Twitter

Twitter can be a pretty public communication tool, which is okay for journalistic purposes when you are trying to reach a large group of readers.

But what if you want to restrict the group? For instance, what if you want set up a premium service with specialized content? Or even just set up a staff communication tool using Twitter? Or how about a replacement for something like the JACC faculty listserve?

Mashable, the social networking blog, has reviewed a number of Twitter add-ons that would let you set up such private groups.

See http://mashable.com/2009/07/13/more-twitter-groups/ .

Teaching Trauma Pt 7: Developing class lessons

PART SEVEN

Saturday morning of our Teaching Trauma workshop centered on how to actually prepare our students to cover trauma with exercises on how to introduce some of what we learned into the classroom.

Actually, most of the morning was dedicated to a review of good teaching practices and only the last hour or so was devoted to developing lessons. But we got the message.

I am reminded on one of the seven habits of highly successful people in what we were told to do: Begin with the end in mind. Know what it is you want to accomplish before you start developing a specific plan.

Teaching Trauma Pt. 6 – My own personal trauma

Saturday morning of participating in the Teaching Trauma workshop turned into my own personal trauma. Those who know me will understand how close the world came to an end.

When I arrived at San Francisco State University this morning I discovered that in a brain-freeze moment I forgot to pack my laptop computer in my laptop bag. Instead, I left it sitting on a desk in the hotel room in downtown San Francisco; the same hotel room I had officially checked out of an hour earlier. HORROR!!

Teaching Trauma Pt. 5 – Covering disasters

PART FIVE

Part Five of the Teaching Trauma workshop was about covering disasters. Presenter Matthew Stennard from the San Francisco Chronicle made the point that all disasters –fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami, storm, riot, terrorism and war– are all essentially the same, they are community-wide traumas. He used fire to tell us about how to prepare.

Along with other first-responders reporters are given special attention in law to be allowed “beyond the yellow tape” to serve the community. But doing so comes with risks and it is a mistake that “any rookie reporter can do it.” The risks are just too great, from heat exhaustion (with a fire) to death.

Teaching Trauma 4: Covering suicides

PART FIVE

Part Five ouf our Teaching Trauma workshop looked at covering suicide.

Presenter Rachele Kanigel from San Francisco State University pointed out that most news organizations do not cover suicide stories unless the suicide is part of a bigger story, such as a murder-suicide, or involves celebrity.

Student organizations are different, though. They are more likely to cover suicide.