Following are a series of postings by journalism tools students participating in a class exercise on mobile reporting. Each student who had a cell phone (and all did) was to cover An Hour in the Life of Hofstra. They selected a place on the campus during the class period and when there with their cell phones. Depending on the phone’s capabilities, the students could: post a voice report, a text posting, a photograph, or video all within an hour. Then they were to report back for posting on the class Tumblr blog (here).
The students then wrote a meta story, bringing together links to their mobile reports in an article form with links. They wrote all of these on their own microblog, with links to a central blog platform.
[Tumblr notes: Even if you are following someone on a Tumblr blog, you still have to go through the reblog process. Also, students have different choices in Tumblr templatesa and there is sometimes conflict between the templates and the ability to reblog simply. Many students forgot to provide the link to their Tumblrs and this required a search to find. Not hard to do.}
mpehel: Mobile Coverage
Hofstra’s basketball team gears up for their game against Farmingdale State tonight. By running offensive and defensive drills they hone their skills. Their coach stops them periodically to point out flaws in their defense.
For our class mobile project, I went out to the Wellness Center in Republic Hall to report on student health and how it has been affected in light of the H1N1 virus.
Using my enV Touch, I live-tweeted all of my observations for an hour. After speaking with the receptionist, I was able to sit down with Maureen Houck, director of the Center, who reluctantly let me text about the availability of “swine flu” vaccinations on campus.
I say reluctantly because she was very concerned about keeping patient records confidential, and having a journalism student snooping around must have made her a little defensive.
She clearly didn’t want me loitering around any longer than I needed to — immediately after she answered a question, she would prompt me to move on. As soon as I ran out of questions, I was shown the door.
When I explained how I was doing this as an exercise in mobile reporting, both Houck and the receptionist looked really confused. Not to sound ageist, but I’ve found that most adults take offense when someone is texting during a conversation.
So I took a little flak from my sources, but at least I got the information that I needed.
On an average day at Hofstra, finding a parking spot is not a simple task. Unless one arrives before nine o’clock in the morning, a spot on the south side of campus probably will not be found. If there are no spots available on the south campus, a driver must venture over to the north campus and walk all the way back over to the south side.
Students like Courtney Henley and Patrick O’Brien bemoan their experiences in parking at Hofstra. Courtney Henley discusses her difficulty finding a spot during the morning hours, and how people tend to dangerously “fly” over the speed bumps. Patrick O’Brien mentions the same problems as Courtney, and says that his parking experiences on a daily basis are “not fun”.
Arun Morace
Journalism 10
Mobile Journalism Essay
11/21/2009
By Arun Morace
Reporting on the Hofstra University Public Safety service at 11:00 in the morning wasn’t exactly the most exciting assignment in the world. Nothing but the most basic patrols were going on, since it was a very uneventful time of day. Still, I got pictures of the Public Safety Center, and a safety officer on duty in the parking lot by the Admission Center.
As I said while blogging, a better time to cover this particular group would have been 11:00 at night, when Public Safety would be responding to calls about drunk students and the like.
Here on my blog you can see the pictures of the Public Safety Office and the officer standing on duty.
Ariel Gaworecki
JRNL 10
11/22/09
Assignment 12
By: Ariel Gaworecki (agaworecki@yahoo.com)
This Friday in class we all split up and did separate news reports on different parts of the campus. Hofstra has tons of things going on at all times and our class wanted to show the world through the outlet of Tumblr what is it like to be a Hofstra student during the day. The idea was to only use our phones to do our reporting. We learned different ways to send media with our phones and have it posted on our Tumblr sites. This made it easy to do a live news report because all of the pictures, videos and voice over’s could be sent in seconds and posted online in no time.
My personal assignment was to cover the Admissions building on campus and to post what I shot on my Blog on Tumblr. I interviewed a few students and took a bunch of pictures to show what the outside of the building looks like as a student walks by it each day. Most of the students didn’t seem to notice the admissions building so I found different ways to make it seem interesting by taking pictures from interesting angles to make my report as informative as possible. The project was fun and very educational because I learned a lot about using my cell phone as a journalist.
By Maggie Doherty
On Monday, November 23rd, our class assignment was to live blog from different locations around the Hofstra University campus. I went to several of the campus dining locations, including Hofstra Deli and Cafe on the Quad. I was able to speak with several workers, students and one manager of Cafe on the Quad. One of the workers at Hofstra Deli, Ana, explained that student theft has reduced within the past semester due to the addition of printed receipts. The video I took of her was too long to be sent via cell phone, so it had to be cut. The manager of Cafe on the Quad was able to share information about running the business, the distribution of Starbucks Coffee and how the business has been attracting student consumers for twenty years. The hours of operation of the dining locations are conveniently posted on the doors of each entrance. All reporting was done via my cell phone: an ATT&T LG CF360.
Lauren Shalit
JRNL10
11.29.09
Homework Assignment
By: Lauren Shalit (Lshali1@pride.hofstra.edu)
A large portion of Hofstra University’ student population is filled with commuting students.
Including the commuter parking lot in my Tumblr [news] story was not an option. My journalism tools class, decided to provide our Tumblr followers with an inside look into our campus. Tumblr members can gain a sense of Hofstra’s [campus] from the interviews and [photos] I posted on my [page].
Each audio clip is composed of interviews from students of different years; a sophomore, junior, and senior. Prior to my interviews, I though each student would provide me with varying opinions. However, each dialogue consisted of a common thread. The students explained the challenges they face in forming friendships with other students and limited parking space.
A senior stated, “It’s difficult to participate in after school activities, since most meetings take place at night.” The senior Hofstra University student commutes twenty five to thirty minutes each day to school and extra travelling is an “inconvenience.”
Hofstra University junior agrees with her and continues to mention an additional disadvantage. Due to the limiting parking spaces, many commuter students resort to parking in the student center, which is the furthest lot from classes.
Reporting from a mobile device led me to understand that anyone can practice their journalistic skills anywhere at anytime. However, the journalist must identify the existing news value in their story.
