Reflections of 2012 and Projections of 2013

When I started teaching this subject two semesters ago, it was like any journalism class I had taught. The only diffrence was the content and delivery as this was a diploma class. The kids were not many but fun to teach. Being an ex-broadcast jounalist, it was easy as I could fall back on my decade worth of experience in the industry, having worked at the most happening tv station at that time,TV3.

Students perception

This semester since the school was embarking on blended learning, I thought I’d try yet another different approach. Instead of the the normal “please put your assignments in my pigeon hole”, this time it was “please upload your stories and pictures on the blog”.

We discussed which platform they preferred and they unimously picked blogspot since all of them have or rather had blogs they they hadn’t updated in a long time. So a blog it was.

There was basically three assignmets – an event, a feature and a current affairs issue. Sounds simple enough, right and given that the assignments was given two weeks before the actual uploading of the stories as compared to the industry which was only one day, I thought that it was pretty fair.

But I guess it wasn’t for some of these kids. You see I only have one ruling for deadlines - “you miss my deadline, you die”. Some passed with flying colours while a few were casualities of this strict ruling of mine. But undoubtly has been a fun journey reminding the kids time and again to send their drafts and it was always exciting when the deadlines got closer and the students scrambled to piece their stories together.

I’ve always encouraged my student to write and send their articles to the newspapers because they will never know how good they are unless the editors think that its good enough to print. On that note, Laveda Charles sent in her third assignment titled “Encouraging online socialising” covering one of our very own events called ‘CommFest 2012’ and it made the New Straits Times on the 29^th November 2012. That was certainly a proud achievement for Laveda, the school and for me.

I’m sure the students will forge on to achieve their dreams to be aspiring journalists or they better die trying. This blog will continue be their platform to express themselves as it was intended for them and by them as you can see some have even uploaded their reflection of the semester thay have endured in my class.

Although it would be nice if this project could be developed into an online newspaper in the future for all journalism students to explore and experience. But until then, for those who are reading this blog, happy reading, ‘Long Live Journalists’ and have a Gregorian New Year!