Southwest Education Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication

The SWECJMC symposium (see http://www.swecjmc.org) at the University of Northern Colorado is underway 11/4/05. The first sessions at 1 p.m. included

Nicole Smith –Ph.D. student at UNC--Current State of Online Education in J and MC
56% offered distance education; most use online--U. of Phoenix now the nation’s largest private university--Criticism—what is the quality? Purpose—discover what is being done, share findings with others involved, offer this info online. Stage 1—nationwide mail survey – sent to more than 500 universities. 37 schools offering courses and or degrees in J/MC. See LSU web site Stage 2: follow-up, qualitative with those 37 schools—54% response rate. Limited number of schools offering certificates, degrees (bachelors or masters). Limitations in offering these kinds of degrees noted. Problems with faculty assignments. Equipment resources issues
Problems—time required, student apathy, students expect faculty to be available 24 hours, faculty motivation, students may expect the courses to be easier—higher drop rate
Conclusions—university support manadatory, faculty member has to be in charge of deciding what/how, maybe use to reach students you can’t reach now
Know your audience --huge potential 70 million working adults w/o college degree

Cheryl Pawlowski U. of Northern Colorado
Chat Room conversations
Internet as a democratic form of communication – but what we expected is not what has happened—listing of facts about how people use chat rooms, what people use Internet for
Research questions—based on 19 students given gender-specific or neutral usernames. Males communicated more with gender based names and less when user name was gender neutral; females communicated more when username was gender-neutral.

Sarah Naper Northern Colarado
Improving Web Literacy in an Introductory J and MC Course
Literature-- Singh (2005) perception of literacy study
Pre-test administered in computer lab – general Internet knowledge etc.
But this time added a tutorial with four units
Then did post test
Research questions about web literacy
The online tutorial seems to improve web literacy

Last speaker, Mary Tolan of Northern Arizona University, with Facing Media Convergence--In the Newsrooms, In the Classrooms."

At 2:30, I'm listening to Kendra Gale from U. of Colorado - Boulder present "'I haven't made a scrapbook for either of my kids. Does that make me a bad mother?' Scrapbooks and Social Reproduction of the Good Mother"
The presentation said the symbolic interaction of scrapbooking creates the image of being a good mother. The documeted materials of a scrapbook reinforce the notion of good motherhood. More to come...