I took a walk tonight. That’s not unusual. I’ve been taking walks a couple of times a day for the past 12 years. Tonight, though, I didn’t have my companion of those 12 years, my little dog Sadie. It felt different. It was different. My own walking gait depended on Sadie’s short legs, her investigation […]
I will be attending my first SRCCON this week and I’m looking forward to the experience. My colleague and friend Julia Smith recommended the experience as I start on my data journalism journey. This smallish conference of about 300 people seems a great fit. Here’s the description from SRRCON’s About page: SRCCON (a contraction of […]
I never got to meet Joella Cohen, but this dynamo of a woman has changed my life. The journalist-public relations professional- producer-antiques dealer (and probably many more titles) established the Joella Cohen Endowed Chair in Journalism at Creighton University. I am the inaugural chair holder, an honor and challenge that takes my breath away. Journalism […]
Navigating the tricky etiquette of using cellphones in public can be full of minefields What is polite? What is just the way it is? Pew Research Center explored those concepts in a survey, and what the survey found was we have conflicting views. “Mobile devices play a complex role in modern social interactions — many Americans […]
You’ve probably all experienced it. That frantic feeling when you’ve misplaced your phone. For many, it’s a tether to organizing life with the calendar, maps, alarm clock, clock, music, messages and connections. Is it a tether or is it an anchor, weighing us down and leaving us without a moment of peace? A class discussion […]
We usually think of an earworm as one of those 1980s one-hit wonder songs or any-generation pop song that you can’t get out of your head. Let me pause for a minute here while you try to get something unstuck. Sorry. But I’ve learned of a different kind of earworm: the academic/mentoring kind. That voice in […]
Students in my Entrepreneurial Media class started out the semester on a creative note as we used an improv exercise I had learned at the terrific MediaShift-sponsored Collab Space Atlanta in 2013. Watching my students come up with media-based products developed from nouns I generated on a random noun generator was really fun. The noun “Cent” became […]
I’m assigning myself the same assignment I give to my students in most of my classes at the end of the semester: Write a reflection on what you’ve learned, what you liked, what you didn’t like. What could be better in this class? Students also fill out confidential evaluations, but I ask them to be […]
I always learn something from my students. I love having my students write blogs because I think it’s good for their professional portfolio and because I can learn so much from them. I just finished grading a group of freestyle blogs — no prompt from me for the assignment. Write about what you want, preferably […]
I’d call it one of the best ideas ever for Animal Planet. A Puppy Bowl. Two hours of puppies playing. And all of the puppies are from shelters. But Animal Planet didn’t stop there. Now there are tail-gating dogs. A waterbowl cam. The National Anthem with police dogs. A sideline re-parrot-er tweeting during the game. […]