The Adviser Update Technology Survey 2011

While new media can make teachers’ jobs more challenging, their students are charging into the new digital information stream

by Gary Clites

Originally published in the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund’s Adviser Update, Summer 2011

Twenty-five years ago, journalism teachers built pages using X-Acto knives, hot wax and blue-lined layout sheets. Today, advisers are expected to be masters of all technology, to lead students in creating digital publications shipped via the Internet to printers, to build websites and blogs in support of print publications and to help their students to learn everything about communications technologies. After 15 years of writing about technology for this publication, it seemed like time to assess where we are as journalism teachers dealing with the new world of the digital information stream. 

The first ever Adviser Update technology survey examined advisers’ relationships with new media. The survey ran on Kwik Surveys (www.kwiksurveys.com) between May 30  and June 12, 2011 and comprised 25 multiple choice questions on the subject. Respondents could only complete the survey once. Teachers and advisers were solicited primarily via three platforms: The Journalism Education Association listserv, the Radio-Television News Director’s Association listserv, and the School Video News website (www.school-video-news.com) with respondents asked to forward the survey link to other appropriate colleagues. The manner in which they were solicited makes it likely all respondents were appropriate subjects, but no vetting was done. All results were rounded to the nearest whole number.

255 teachers responded to the survey. 31% were newspaper/newsmagazine advisers, 25% advise broadcasts, 21% work with yearbooks, 20% advise websites, and 3% work with literary magazines. 94% work in high schools and 6% work in middle schools. No matter what media they advise, 56% of teachers also work with students who operate websites. This is a strong result and indicates that a majority of teachers are helping their students move their content from the printed page onto the Internet. 

Those websites, of course, take various forms. Modern web visitors expect their sites to be up to date. Only 13% of teachers’ students update their websites daily. 40% say their students update their sites weekly or several times a week. 34% of staffs update their sites monthly or several times a month. While 12% of sites are updated less than once a month. 

Teachers report that video is an integral part of their students’ web presence. Fully 63% of teachers whose students’ operate a website report that those sites include embedded video, a spectacular result indicating that even print programs are incorporating the multimedia capabilities of the Internet into their online coverage. Few students, however, blog as part of that coverage. Only 22% of teachers report that their students blog. Blogs are more and more a part of the professional media’s work, and the small number of students who use them as a way to communicate speaks to a divorce between the student and the professional media which needs to be addressed.

Podcasting is another area that has become a staple of professional reporting but which school programs find challenging. Only 20% of teachers report that their students create audio podcasts. A larger number, 28%, say their students create video podcasts. This result may be slightly skewed by the larger than average number of broadcast teachers (25%) who responded to the survey.

Social media have become a significant part of the modern media landscape, and a majority of our students are taking advantage. An impressive 54% of teachers report that their students use social media like Facebook and Twitter to communicate journalistically. This number might be even higher were social media not blocked in many schools.

Students can do more than broadcast on the Internet. For many, the ‘net offers tools to make their jobs as communicators easier. While only 11% of teachers report that their students use Wikis (tools that allow students to plan and organize online), fully 47% of us use Google Docs (a tool which allows students to create and edit copy collaboratively via the Internet). This indicates that many student journalism programs are already working on the theoretical “cloud” where experts believe most work will be done in the future. A smaller number, just 9%, say their students use available websites to sell photos or video via the Internet.

No matter what their students create, teachers are incorporating the web into their own educational missions. 65% of us operate professional websites we use to communicate with students and parents, a number which indicates journalism teachers are some of the most web savvy to be found in the nation’s schools.

Few of us have taken advantage of the capabilities offered by new print on demand (P.O.D.) technologies, which allow users to create files that can be printed as needed (often at a profit) via companies on the Internet. Only 13% of journalism teachers say they “know much” about P.O.D. technology. A much smaller percentage, 2%, say they have actually used P.O.D. technology as part of their journalism programs.

Changing technologies have not made being a journalism teachers less challenging. Under Hazelwood, school administrations have the right to censor student publications. It seems, however, that they feel a need to exercise those rights doubly when it comes to publishing via the Internet. 26% of teachers report that their school administrations exercise prior review over material published via the Internet. 95% of school systems operate a firewall that in some way limits students’ access to the Internet (an important reporting tool for all). While 71% of teachers report that YouTube is completely blocked in their schools, radically limiting students’ access to video of all kinds. 

Even more troubling, a majority of teachers report that their school system in some way limits the publication of names or images of students over the Internet. This despite the fact that no one has ever been able to explain how publishing a photo of a student or the student’s name on the web might put them at risk. How is such content different from publishing names and photos in a local newspaper and that coverage then appearing on the professional newspaper’s website? In this regard, paranoia wins out.

Requirements that journalism teachers be masters of all technology have taken their toll. 44% of teachers report that the demands of technology have made their jobs harder. Only 22% say technology has made their job easier, while 34% say their jobs are “about the same.” A larger number, 67%, say that time demands make publishing via the Internet “difficult.” This reflects the reality that, while modern communications teachers are asked to do much more than they did in the past, for the most part little additional time or resources have been made available to help them with this mission.

Communications teachers are always willing to learn more. A heartening 85% of journalism advisers say they would like to receive more information and training on new media technologies via teacher publications and/or educational conferences. A challenge to journalism education organizations who sponsor such publications and events.

The survey as a whole paints a picture of a profession moving quickly to help students both understand the new media landscape and to use it in their mission to communicate with their communities. While these new opportunities bring challenges, they offer spectacular opportunities of which communications teachers are more than able to take advantage.

© Gary Clites 2011