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.

Live event blog: Web design crash course with Rob Weir

By Cole Kennedy

The Palmer Room (RJI100) is filling up and we're getting ready to start our web design crash course with Rob Weir. Still time to come on down and learn the fundamentals, like typography, layout, and color scheme.

Rob's presentation is titled "Web design in 60 minutes," and we're excited to see what we can learn in an hour.

Rob is the director of digital development for the Columbia Missourian, so he takes care of all of the Missourian's technology.

The basics: web design is 95 percent typography. The other five percent is made up of:

• color, contrast, and balance
• presenting relevant information
• letting your content tell its own story

Event alert: Crash course in Web design

By Bridgit Bowden

Photo courtesy of Flickr user mararie

In online news, Web design is an important factor in keeping readers engaged with content. Poynter says it only takes 50 milliseconds for users to "form strong, long-lasting impressions about your news or information website."

So no matter whether you write a blog or are putting together an online portfolio, what layout, colors and fonts you choose are crucial.

Not sure where to start? Join ONA Mizzou as Rob Weir, director of digital development for the Columbia Missourian, leads a crash course on the fundamentals of Web design. You'll walk away understanding the proper design workflow and what makes a site user-friendly.

• When: 6 p.m., Thursday, March 6

• Where: Palmer Room (100 Reynolds Journalism Institute)

Bring a laptop to follow along with the workshop. See you there!

ONA Mizzou event: Building an online portfolio

By Elise Schmelzer

Although our generation is known as digital natives, many students cower at the idea of creating and updating an online portfolio. It may seem like a daunting task, but a site that collects all of your work and presents it clearly is an invaluable tool, especially in an age when prospective employees are often Google-searched before they're ever offered an interview.

There are many questions you might be asking yourself. How much personal information should I put on my portfolio? Should it function like a blog or should I use a static layout? How can I incorporate social media into my site?

Get the answers to your questions at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 19 in 110 Lee Hills Hall, when ONA Mizzou hosts a panel of local journalists to discuss digital portfolios. 

LIVE BLOG: Get feedback on your online portfolio!

5:40 p.m. - Reuben Stern from RJI says if you have different interests, make sure it's clear you're passionate about each one. Don't make it seem like you're only "willing" to do something. Stern also says it's important to put more emphasis on your work than the places you worked.

5:30 p.m. - MU photojournalism student Colleen DeAnna shows her portfolio website on WordPress. She has photos she's taken for the Missourian, Vox and portrait photography. She also includes her resume as a downloadable PDF. Weir says having a downloadable resume is a good idea because, when hiring, he prefers to print out resumes as a reminder to review them. You should also condense a web portfolio for your best work. Employers want to see what you are capable of.

5:25 p.m. - MU Convergence grad student Charles Minshew shows his portfolio website. He says professionals have told him web developers should work on coding their own sites. He also links to a WordPress blog on his site.

5:15 p.m. - Nathan Byrne from Newsy.com says your website should be simple so no one viewing it "gets lost." You don't want to oversell yourself. Byrne also says you should show off daily work on your portfolio site. You want potential employers to know you do good work on a regular basis.

5:10 p.m. - Weir shows websites from MU grads like Juana Summers and Kristin Kellog as examples. You should also buy a domain name and host space. Developers like Weebly and WordPress allow you to purchase domain names through them. Squarespace.com also lets you create sites by "dragging and dropping" elements.

5:05 p.m. - MU Multimedia Planning and Design Professor Rob Weir says WordPress is clean, fine easy to read for people who don't want to be online developers.

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.