Teaching and Professional Fellowship Report 2004/5 : An Investigation into the feasibility of developing a Virtual Newsroom - An e-learning tool for journalism

The aim of my fellowship was to put the idea of developing a Virtual Newsroom – an
online means of teaching journalism -- to the test.
I began work on this idea some six years ago after many years of using computers in
the teaching of journalism. At that time, I developed, together with the IT Research
and Development Unit (ITRDU), at the London Institute (now University of the Arts
London), an e-learning prototype based on the ‘breaking story’ exercise – a
fundamental exercise for journalism teaching.
In tests on students the early prototype proved to be an effective method for learning
journalism skills. The students found the prototype programme a worthwhile and
stimulating experience. Teachers of journalism saw it as an innovative way of
teaching journalism, but were hampered by the fact that there was no way, with the
programme as then developed, they could get behind the scenes to change any of
the content, or other elements of the exercise.
It was essential then, that in any future development, the programme would have to
have enough flexibility to enable journalism teaching staff to easily manipulate the
content.
It also became clear that, six years on, it was necessary to determine if any new
developments in online learning for journalists had superseded my original idea.

'Teaching and Professional Fellowships In Support of The Student Experience' and 'CLIP/CETL Fellowships' are to encourage individual staff's learning and development in their chosen field of endeavour so as to be of benefit to the University.