Teaching bootcamp a real education

When you become a professor they don't hand you a how-to manual. So I have learned by trial and error the past three years. That won't change, but I believe the week I am in the middle of at the University of South Carolina's convergent journalism teaching bootcamp will improve the trials and reduce the errors.

The most difficult part of teaching is trying to teach and convince students that there are many ways to tell stories and that they need to learn beyond their preferred style.

• It is important for students to understand that storytelling is still at the heart of everything a journalist does no matter the medium. My job is to teach that concept and expose the students to different forms and teach them to choose the best ones.
• No matter the class, I realize I need to instruct students in producing stories in different mediums. That is the only way they will do it. The ones who find something they like outside of writing for print will, I hope, begin to use those skills for the student newspaper and website.
• And I need to be doing this kind of reporting as well on my own website. That will take a lot of work and planning, but I realize I have no choice.
• At Cedarville, we want to raise up multi-skilled journalists who can write great stories for print and produce interactive stories for online.
• I am discovering this week that learning and teaching basics in producing audio slideshows, audio stories, video stories and creating websites is simpler than you think.

The challenge is immense, but with good students and prayer it is possible.

And I can't recommend this yearly program enough to journalism educators.