USING AN ONLINE INTERSCHOLASTIC NEWS NETWORKS AS A COLLABORATIVE CLASSROOM TEACHING TOOL
USING AN ONLINE INTERSCHOLASTIC NEWS NETWORKS AS A COLLABORATIVE CLASSROOM TEACHING TOOL

Summary/Abstract: The University of Tennessee’s journalism department established an online news network that hosts the startup websites of secondary schools. The network was intended to help journalism programs make the transition to the web and to connect student journalists via their campus-based news websites. The network has unlimited potential as a pedagogical tool, mirroring as it does the Web’s deliberate interconnectedness, its entrepreneurial potential and its ideals of transparency and hackability. Students can engage with the network on many levels, from simple aggregation and curation of content, to the exchange of ideas on student reporting or regional issues. Web journalism in the classroom too often falls victim to a silo approach that insulates students from real-world and workplace realities where flexibility and collaborative practices are the norm. This paper introduces the concepts behind the intercollegiate online network and its use as an innovative teaching platform. Ultimately, the online news network begins to address the need for journalism schools to graduate students who can produce and manage content – and people – collaboratively and across organizations.

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