Four Mizzou courses outside the journalism school to hone your digital skills

By Andrew Gibson

Creative Commons photo from Flickr user nigelpepper

No matter what emphasis area you choose in the Missouri School of Journalism, you're going to walk away with some coveted digital skills.

Reporting classes teach you how to produce text, photos and videos for an online audience. In Multimedia Planning and Design (Journalism 4502), taught by Rob Weir, you learn how to build snazzy news websites using HTML5 and CSS3. And if you enroll in David Herzog's Computer-Assisted Reporting (Journalism 4430), you'll have no trouble using MySQL to find stories in data.

That said, as you register for summer and fall courses, consider looking away from the northeast corner of Francis Quadrangle if you want to bolster your digital skill set. The computer science and information technology departments, among others, offer a slew of courses worth working into your four-year plan.

A breakdown of online mapping tools for journalists

By Andrew Gibson and Elise Schmelzer

Creative Commons photo courtesy of zabdiel

Journalism professor David Herzog led a workshop Thursday explaining how to build interactive maps with Google Fusion Tables. During his presentation, he mentioned several online cartography tools journalists might find useful.

We've outlined many of those tools below. They're broken into three categories: beginner, intermediate and advanced.

For each, we've listed pros, cons, examples and whether it's free.

Are we missing anything? Tell us in the comments.

Workshop alert: How to build an interactive map in 60 minutes

By Elise Schmelzer and Andrew Gibson

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Tomi Knuutila

Maybe you want to track all the cool places you've been. Perhaps you want to create an in-depth map that shows today's domestic migration routes, like Forbes did. Or maybe you want to collect and share the best sledding hills in town, like ABC 7 in Detroit.

Whatever your goals may be, having the ability to tap into all the geographic information online is invaluable both inside and outside the newsroom.

Join the Online News Association at Mizzou as journalism professor David Herzog leads a one hour workshop on how to build clickable, customizable maps with Google Fusion Tables. Herzog, also the academic adviser to the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, will highlight his favorite examples of mapping in journalism and briefly introduce other online cartography tools.

• When: 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 30
• Where: Microsoft Application Development Lab (42 Walter Williams Hall)

Three Missouri School of Journalism professors' blogs you should be reading

By Andrew Gibson

There's a good chance you've blogged about something during your time at the Missouri School of Journalism. It might've been for Journalism 2150 -- a required course, for those not familiar -- or maybe you're like us and write for a school organization.

What you might not have known, though, is that some of the professors grading your blogs might have ones of their own. Here's a look at three MU faculty members who, as they advise you to do, are building their online brand.

Joy Mayer

Twitter: (@mayerjoy)

The Columbia Missourian's director of community outreach writes about, you guessed it, the intersection of journalism and community. You'll find posts about being transparent with your audience and about "what Missouri community newspapers are doing on Facebook."

But here's the bonus: Mayer, also an associate professor in Print and Digital News, teaches participatory journalism (Journalism 4700), which is all about "social media, analytics, identifying audience, being ambassadors for the newsroom, crowdsourcing and comment moderation." That means her blog is full of useful snippets from the course. If you're curious how to market yourself, find a job or avoid becoming the annoying one in the newsroom, start reading.

Live Blogging: ONA Mizzou Meeting 11/17/11

6:06: Thanks for coming to today's meeting. See you soon. Tweet @ONAMizzou with any questions.

6:05: Q: Flash is dead. Explain please. Weir answers with an important comment about mobile devices connecting to the internet more in the next year. It's more touch screen than hover.

6:04: Web 2.0 Tools are on slideshare and they can be Googled.

6:02: Weir- "To learn more join Hacks/HackersIRE."

5:58: Computer assisted reporting tools involve web browser, spreadsheet, and database managers

5:57: Working with data requires finding it then negotiating on how to investigate it. Then evaluate the data along with analyze it.

5:53: Weir goes into the history of Computer assisted reporting.

5:49: Pro Publica is a national organization and makes more journalism public.

5:47: "Web apps love data."- Weir. He shows an example from the NYT Election page and how candidates are raising money. The Election page is getting it's info from different sources, no one is inputting it.

5:46: Computer assisted reporting helps in many different facets of journalism.

5:45: David Herzog is know speaking about Data Journalism.

Calendar Alert: Don't fear tech tools! 5 p.m. November 17

Picture courtesy of Brett Jordan

Hey, journalist! Don't let the word "programming" scare you. With a little help from ONA Mizzou and our panel of presenters, you'll walk away feeling like you can take on the technology world! Bring friends, bring a laptop, and bring questions to Don't Fear Tech Tools!

5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17, in Reynolds Journalism Institute 100.

Tweet us questions now, so we have a list before the event kicks off!

Here's a list of the technology experts that will be joining our conversation:

• Mike McKean, Futures Lab director, who will talk about mobile-app development for journalists.
• David Herzog, academic adviser to the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, who will talk about computer-assisted reporting.
• Rob Weir, Columbia Missourian digital-development director, will talk about programming and coding for journalists.