I spend a lot of time hanging out with my professors and some really cool grad students. It sounds weird, but they are my greatest resources for stuff like, “What’s the best video camera that you can pull stills off of?”, “Why isn’t [insert reference to code here] working?” and other questions.

On Friday, the topic of conversation, while 2 out of the four of us ate lunch, turned to the j-school curriculum. Currently, there are 4 online journalism courses: a CSS/HTML course, an introduction to multimedia course, a Flash course and the capstone, Applied Interactive Newspapers.

Here’s the problem: the CSS/HTML course is required for the Flash course. The intro to multimedia course is not required at all. Given how turned off a lot of students can be by the idea of programming, shouldn’t a) the beginner’s multimedia class be offered first (its a 4000-level class, the other is a 3000) and b) that course be required?

With people like Rob Curley and Howard Owens complaining about close-minded graduates, journalism students need to be exposed to the mindset behind online journalism. This course takes a brief look at many aspects of online journalism, plus the students learn Soundslides, Google Maps, blogging and audio.

I’m just sayin’.

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