AEJMC

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention took place in August 2006 in San Francisco. The research I worked on for this conference was Helping Citizens Be Involved: Usability Factors in Teaching Computer-Based Journalism Courses.

BEA

The Broadcast Education Association convention was April 2006 in Las Vegas. BEA is in Las Vegas every year--since they are supported by the National Association of Broadcasters and meet in conjunction with the NAB Convention. This is a great convention to attend, since the Radio Television News Directors Association also holds its convention in conjunction with NAB--so educators like me can attend some industry-focused sessions to go along with our academic sessions, plus we can tour the tens of thousans of square feet of broadcast equipment we might like to acquire for our university program. At this BEA, I presented From Classroom to Convergence: What Employers in Smaller Markets Need from Our Graduates.

SSCA

The Southern States Communication Association met in Addison (Dallas-Fort Worth area) March 2006. I presented Re-evaluation of Teaching News Convergence in the University Curriculum. This paper and presentation came about after I came to some conclusions at the Fall 2005 Convergence Conference at Brigham Young University, sponsored by BYU and the University of South Carolina. What was my moment of enlightenment? Well, for some years I had studied what was developing in local market news convergence between print, broadcast and web sites. In relation, I had begun, as many others had, trying to incorporate more 'new media' preparation into my broadcast journalism teaching. This presention was a continuation of an argument I started trying to make--that the illusion of creating the 'super journalist' who could shoot video, be the talent, shoot still pictures, then write / create the story for print, broadcast and online distribution was impractical. Yes, we should prepare students for the changing media, but educators should not necessarily assume this economically-beneficial-to-employers super journalist can be produced from redesigning our curriculum. The moral of the story? Focus on still teaching the basic skills.