For my latest post for PBS Mediashift, I’ve written about a new undergraduate course I am teaching at UBC: The young men and women entering university today are digital natives who have grown up in a world of Microsoft, Google and Apple. They have lived through a time when the Internet went from being a highly specialized system used by scientists to a ubiquitous utility that defines how they engage

With the start of the new semester, I haven’t had enough time to post to this blog so apologies to all. The first couple of weeks of a new term are always a hectic time. It is also time for my students to take up blogging as part of the core Integrated Journalism course at the University of British Columbia. I have written a piece for PBS Mediashift on why

Just finished publishing a bunch of j-student work on Vancouver’s local elections at TheThunderbird.ca. This was the final big assignment for this term for the students at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism. There is a wealth of content on the race to be mayor of this beautiful city, the controversial $100m loan for the 2010 Winter Olympics and the debate over the future of the UBC Farm. The students

PBS Mediashift has launched a new initiative with “embeds”. The idea is to get first-hand reports from people who are in the midst of change brought on by technology and the internet. I am one of them, reporting back from the front line of journalism education. My first missive has just been published, looking at our integrated journalism approach at the UBC j-school. This extract sums up what we are

The J-school where I work has a new director, Prof Mary Lynn Young. She is a talented and valued colleague at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism with vision and determination, so I am confident she will make a great director. From the UBC news release: “Prof. Mary Lynn Young has been appointed Director of the UBC School of Journalism. She succeeds Prof. Stephen Ward, who has taken a position

I’m speaking at a couple of conferences in Vancouver this week, discussing how public service broadcasters can sustaining citizenship and civil society in an internet age. In particular, I will be looking at the rise and fall of the BBC’s Action Network and propose new ways of moving forward as the BBC prepares its digital democracy project. Friday May 2: When Citizens Decide: The Challenge of Large Scale Public Engagement

Students at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC are trying out something different. Instead of doing an essay as part of a course in agroecology, they are producing a 12 to 15 minute podcast. It follows a larger interdisciplinary project on podcasting at the university I was involved with last year, which brought together students from journalism and agroecology to create a new kind of academic podcast,

A couple of days ago, the University of British Columbia campus was under lockdown following a threat against students in the Bio Sciences building. I was on campus at the time and, like others here, wanted to find out more. One of the best sources turned out to be not mainstream media, but the citizen media site, NowPublic.com. One of its contributors, ScienceDave, happened to be in the building at

On Friday 9 November, I had the privilege of delivering the keynote address at the opening of the Future Directions in Science Journalism conference at the University of British Columbia. Entitled, Reimagining Science Journalism, the talk examined how the way audiences are getting news and information about science is changing, with the Internet emerging as a key resource. The challenge is how to revitalize science journalism for a digital age.

The UBC School of Journalism is hosting a conference over the weekend on Future Directions in Science Journalism. It brings together journalists and scientists to discuss how to improve the understanding of science through research, teaching, and public discussion. I have the great privilege of delivering the keynote on Friday evening, Reimagining Science Journalism. I will post the full text over the weekend but this abstract will provide a flavour