Mother's Day, 2009

I am so blessed! Katie's friends Savannah and Alex spent the night, and we made a fabulous "girl's dinner," with everyone in the kitchen and setting the table beautifully, dressing up, candles, the whole deal. They are such amazing young ladies, even at 11 years old. Just a delight.

This morning, Alex, who is a skilled pancake "designer" (!) made a heart-shaped pancake stack for me, and Katie made the scrambled eggs, and they brought the breakfast to me in bed. I'm attaching a photo.

In addition, this really blew me away - Alex's mom, whom I've only met once, brought over a beautiful floral bouquet of long-stemmed Irises or Lilies, I'm not sure which flower family. Photo uploaded as well.

New student video below...or click on Vimeo post at right for full-screen version!

CBU intramurals can be fun, and frustrating, as depicted in this video report produced by a team of Journalism students at a soccer match in mid-April, 2009, at California Baptist University in Riverside, CA. As often happens on the Front Lawn during extra-curricular athletic events at CBU, it was a sunny and BLUSTERY day.

Student vlog assignment

Here are links to the 90-second "broadcast" news segments that students in the JRN220 "Podcast/broadcast" basics course at California Baptist University were assigned in mid-April, 2009:


Monica, Rochelle, Kelly...present
http://www.chicanaconfessions.blogspot.com/

Flutter: the next big thing

Okay, this is funny.

"This internet thing..." by Dr. M. Wesch

You gotta watch this one, too...Michael Wesch (not to be confused with Michael Welsch who plays "Mike" in the Twilight movie) presents more than 40 minutes of video that his students at Kansas State University compiled from YouTube to illustrate the anthropological aspects of YouTube for a presentation the professor made at the Library of Congress in 2008.

Fantastic!

By Dr. Michael Wesch, Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University

This video by a professor of cultural anthropology at KSU explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video, Dr. Wesch says on his YouTube Channel, was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

Does Jon Stewart protesteth too much?

Story by The New York Times News Service
Courtesy of Riverside Press-Enterprise

PR Works - Episode 1

PR Works - Episode 1

Posted using ShareThis

Lee Weinstein of Portland, OR, chats with Dave Mingey, Director of Olympic Marketing for Johnson & Johnson. Topics include: the upcoming Winter Games in Vancouver, the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing and other Public Relations topics.

Not teacher, but learner "guide"

Social constructivist scholars view learning as an active process where learners essentially take responsibility for their own learning. The role of the facilitator in the social constructivist viewpoint is that the instructor and the learners are equally involved in learning from each other as well (Holt and Willard-Holt 2000).

The "introduction to podcasting" course that I've been responsible for guiding as an adjunct professor at California Baptist University this semester is a prime example of an active learning process. Students have learned largely by "doing." The assignments have been built so that my primary role has been as facilitator, or guide, helping students get to their own levels of understanding. The classes have been geared to create an environment for hands-on learning, with an emphasis on individual responsibility for setting assignment goals, production schedules and quality.

I have encouraged students to collaborate, both in and out of class. For the most part, students seem to be enjoying taking part in activities which are directly relevant to the application of their learning--when it's fun to do, and it's something of a social exchange or opportunity, it can help the learning process.

On the other hand, since this is an introductory course and not all of the students have a foundation in journalistic writing or practices, the course might benefit from more guided instruction. With little or no prior knowledge of the subject matter, the students have necessarily had to practice new skills with feedback several times up to this point in the course, now about mid-way. For those who have the J background, the tasks may seem repetitive and pedantic. For those without the orientation, the practice may only just now be creating the requisite comfort level to move to the next level.

In any event, I have been trying to actively assess their individual progress up to this point in the semester, taking each student's learning approach and motivation into account and allowing for generous flexibility in scoring.

One particularly gratifying outcome of the class so far for me: several students are leaving their own imprint in the learning process. I encourage and support their boldness, and willingness to fully participate in this didactic trial.

Let the dinosaur stay

I blogged earlier in the year about my reluctance to let John King fill my weekly date with CNN's early Sunday morning talk shows, when he replaced Wolf Blitzer as host. This morning, there was an exchange between King and Howard Kurtz, host of "Reliable Sources," a segment of King's "State of the Union" show that analyzes media coverage each week, that won me over.

Kurtz commented on Fox's Sean Hannity's rant about a segment that Kurtz had done the prior week on his show. Hannity's remarks were taking Kurtz to task, basically, about doing his job.

The exchange between King and Kurtz that followed allowed King to remark about the difference between a reporter and a commentator, he being the former, and Hannity being the latter.

King's comments were pointed, and self-effacing, and well, the guy was just elegant. He said something like "Call me a dinosaur, but I'm still a reporter," drawing reference to the dying breed of journalists carrying prime TV slots who are still practicing unbiased, balanced reporting "the old fashioned way."

It was great! He put Hannity in his place, without being rude--he gave Hannity more grace than he deserves, IMHO, calling him a commentator.

Kurtz's part in the exchange was also good-tempered. The two were professional and commanding. I loved it...I say, "let the dinosaur stay"!

I'll try to find a clip of the exchange, and share it here.

Journalism Jobs are plentiful...

...just not in traditional journalism (i.e. daily newspapers) so much anymore.
Take a look at journalismjobs.com and note the variety of open positions:

Obama Signs Fair Pay Act

Today President Obama continued to create the change he promised by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which assures women receive equal pay to men. The bill cancels out last year’s disgraceful Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Supreme Court decision which gave plaintiffs only 180 days to sue employers for not paying them the same amount as other employees doing the same work.

Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for 19 years before learning she had been denied promotions and paid lower wages due to her gender. I don’t know about your job, but I’ve never worked in a place where employees went around comparing paychecks. It takes time to discover when pay discrimination is being practiced. You can’t just ask your boss about it.

For more on this historic act, I’ll let the President tell you himself:

“Lilly Ledbetter did not set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She was just a good hard worker who did her job — and she did it well — for nearly two decades before discovering that for years, she was paid less than her male colleagues for doing the very same work. Over the course of her career, she lost more than $200,000 in salary, and even more in pension and Social Security benefits — losses that she still feels today.

“Now, Lilly could have accepted her lot and moved on. She could have decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle and the harassment that would inevitably come with speaking up for what she deserved. But instead, she decided that there was a principle at stake, something worth fighting for. So she set out on a journey that would take more than 10 years, take her all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and lead to this day and this bill which will help others get the justice she was denied. …

“I intend to send a clear message: That making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone. That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it’s not just unfair and illegal — it’s bad for business — to pay someone less because of their gender, or their age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability.”

CBU student hosts Financial Aid Q&A segment

Financial Aid Q&A from Jeremy Zimmerman on Vimeo.

Rochelle Guillen, a senior at California Baptist University, recently took the leap to try out her on-camera talk show skills by serving as host for a videotaped Q&A segment on the topic of financing a college education. Rebecca (Becki) Sanchez, CBU's director of Financial Aid, was the guest host. The video is posted on CBU's institutional website as a way to assist parents and students with the complexities of navigating Financial Aid - we produced the video in conjunction with Riverside County Office of Education in support of a "February is Financial Aid month" promotion, because the federal aid filings for "FAFSA" and the state aid applications for "CalGrant" funds are due by March 2 this year. Students and parents all over the nation are cramming to file their paperwork--it can be an overwhelming or arduous process, and every student who receives aid of any kind has to re-file each spring (new students AND continuing students). The bottomline, according to Becki, is "do it early," and get it over with--if you miss the deadline, you will still be eligible to receive aid, but not all funding products are available after the deadline so you reduce your options.