The News U training program is a project of The Poynter Institute and features more than 65 online courses – most of them FREE! Anyone can enroll and start taking classes immediately. There’s no time limits for completing a course – you simply move through the module at your own pace.

Classes range from how to write better headlines for the web, how to be a more efficient writer, how to incorporate multimedia options for print, web and mobile delivery and more than I could possibly list here.

Best of all, these courses utilize some of the top Flash programming I’ve ever seen: animations, video, photos, newspaper clippings, boxes of info that appear when you click and all kinds of dynamic stuff.  A student simply clicks through and reads small segments of info or watches an animation or otherwise chooses their adventure.

One module had me sitting face to face with a fictitious local mayor I was interviewing, when “my cell phone” rang and appeared on screen. The cell phone featured a video chat with “my editor” who gave me instant pointers on what to do.  It was a trip! I’d taken a few college courses online before, but nothing like this.  This was a lot like the real deal, but with tons of assistance.  The real virtual deal I suppose.  Perhaps this is what it would feel like to interview our Mayor in 2nd Life.

News University

Highly Recommended Courses in Multimedia/Online Journalism at News U:

Multimedia Reporting: Covering Breaking News – this course totally revolutionized how I think about online journalism and where it intersects with citizen journalism.  It shows how local coverage of Hurricane Katrina led to better rescue efforts during the first few days the waters rose.  EVERYONE interested in the future of journalism must check this out.

Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers – I haven’t taken this one yet, but it’s next on my list.  I think we may have viewed some of the exercises from this class in our Feature Writing class last week when we were discussing libel and defamation on blogs (and how to avoid it, natch).

Reporting Across Platforms – AND – Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling – 2 classes that discuss different platforms and how to record and present different types of media.  I’ve taken both and both are great.  Neither one walks you through any particular device or software.  They just explain what types of stories work best in which kinds of media, how to supplement a story with different media and how to capture and deliver that message.

I can’t embed a course here for you to see, so you’ll just have to click over to the News University website.  But, one thing I learned in the excellent classes on multimedia and online journalism, is always try to incorporate photos and video to help illustrate your point.  So, to that end, I’ll leave you with this video of Kurt Vonnegut being interviewed in Second Life:

The Infinite Mind in Second Life with Kurt Vonnegut

http://mitworld.mit.edu/

MIT World Videos and Open Courseware

The site’s own description reads:

MIT World is a free and open site that provides on demand video of significant public events at MIT. MIT World’s video index contains more than 500 videos.

It features lecture series, guest speakers, industry conferences and the like on a range of topics.  Categories include Media, Public Policy, Education, Technology, International Affairs, Defense/Military, History, Innovation/Invention and many, many more.  Here’s 2 examples of videos you can watch:

“The Emerging Mediascape” is about the decline of foreign news and balanced reporting while celebrity-based news fills air time 24/7.  The discussion really resonated with me and supplemented what I’d learned from a fantastic, must-read book by Tom Fenton called “Bad News.”  (More on the book in another post…)  This video features a discussion between Mark Jurkowitz, Jeffrey Dvorkin and David Thorburn.

(Read more here)

Watch:

I haven’t watched this one yet, but it’s next on my list:

“The Emergence of Citizen’s Media” with David Thorburn, Dan Gillmor, Ellen Foley and Alex Beam.  According to the video’s description:

Extra, extra, browse all about it! The newspaper (as we know it) is history. As David Thorburn handily describes the situation: “The younger the cohort is, the less interested it is in printed materials and the more committed to emerging technologies. The implication is, within 25 to 30 years, there won’t be people who want to read newspapers.” These panelists discuss newspapers’ transformation in the digital age.

(Read more here)

Watch: