GLOBALEDCON_Cypress%20College%20Journ%20Dept.%20Welcome%20%28v9%29....

Your Name and Title: L'Oreal Battistelli, Adjunct Instructor (and Instructional Designer)

School, Library, or Organization Name: Cypress College

Co-Presenter Name(s): Possibly Elissa Stankiewicz (elissas@bwngo.org) of Better World, Cairo, Egypt.

Country from Which You Will Present: United States of America

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience: College and university journalism department chairs and faculty

Short Session Description (one line):  Please drop by and share our conversation about "First Globals" and digital journalism; Combined there has been many opportunities to create global friendships, develop cultural awareness and impact the lives not only of the students themselves but also the countries from which they report.

MY PROPOSAL:

U.S. Journalism education is based in constructivism using the University of Missouri teaching model which began in 1908, i.e. students learn by producing media. The Cypress College journalism program continues to embrace Constructivism. 

The Cypress College Journalism Department Chair, Robert R. Mercer began to create global journalists in 2002 via a curriculum redesign (in August 1998) that introduced the integration of all of his courses in the first convergent newsroom in the United States in higher education:  “All students worked in all media at the same time in the same newsroom.” The evolution of digital technology made it obvious: “All students can work in all media at anytime from anywhere.”

 A six-week, summer abroad program was launched in Fukuoka, Japan in May 2004. Designed in cooperation with the Cypress College Japanese language program, it allowed Cypress students to share classrooms with Japanese students, and tour national media. The summer program continues today as a language-only program, as Cypress’ journalism program has chosen a new study abroad approach.

In a Fall 2005 semester-abroad program in Prague, Czech Republic, 27 journalism students proved the practicality of “BACKPACK JOURNALISM” in which they maintained a news website using laptops, digital cameras and digital camcorders while they traveled through Europe. As a response to that success, the department abandoned traditional media for a Backpack journalism-style curriculum model in January 2006.

During the period of 2007-2008, MERCER traveled to the Ukraine on a Fulbright Scholar’s grant to create links between Lutsk Liberal Arts University and the Cypress College program. During his international tenure, Mercer taught online journalism to students who still utilized a dial-up connection. However, nine months later the students were working for web-based Ukrainian media start-ups.

During the Fall 2008 semester, Mercer taught (from Cypress College) the first distance education course for Lutsk Liberal Arts University (utilizing the collaboration theory) while cultivating student relationships between the Ukrainian and Cypress College students. His goal was to provide his students with insights into global mindfulness, expand students’ global technological and social networking proficiencies, and motivate students to expand their newly developed knowledge and skills outward into their communities and media outlets.

Battistelli’s involvement in Mercer’s program from 2007 to 2010 began with Battistelli returning to campus to learn new journalism technology. She was an editor of the Cypress community newspaper, “Event News.” Mercer and Battistelli introduced themselves to each other: (She from his Cypress newsroom, he from his Lutsk classroom) via Skype while he attended to his Lutsk Fulbright program. Battistelli expanded her skills to include web editing, digital reporting, plus video reporting and production and she also began reporting independently for KDOC’s morning news television show while Mercer’s students mentored her in the art of pod-casting, studio production, video reporting. She learned to use Skype and College Publisher SOFTWARE.

Mercer introduced Battistelli to California State University Fullerton’s Master of Science Instructional Design and Technology program in 2008 which she completed May 2010.

In 2010, when Mercer returned to the Ukraine, Battistelli, then an Instructor’s assistant to Mercer’s program, designed a supplemental instruction program for Mercer’s Reporting and Writing course and provided on-site, online and global tutoring and mentoring to his local and Lutsk students. Battistelli and Mercer created seminars with Lutsk Liberal Arts University in which Ukrainian and Cypress College students met each other. Together, they published news stories on http://www.CyChron.Com  and in Divergence Magazine. These publications showed international collaboration worked when students create personal links with each other.

Spring 2012, Battistelli was invited back to Mercer’s journalism program as an adjunct instructor. She was to apply her newfound instructional design expertise to his ongoing integrated, collaborative program: Battistelli researched and obtained an open-source Moodle platform i.e. Global Classroom; she redesigned his Reporting and Writing course as an upside down, blended learning course retaining Mercer’s original Constructivism, social networking, and collaboration teaching strategies. She’s recently redesigned the course to integrate additional instructional strategies:

• Terminal objectives
• Formative and summative assessments
• Cloud-based instructional strategies:
• Simulated gaming via Poynter’s NewsU
• Information acquisition via PowerPoints
• Direct instruction via assigned ebook readings, supplemental instructional resources via links to blogs, journalism organizations, expert resources etc.
• Learner preferences via suggested applicable films
• Prior knowledge activation via social networking and face-to-face mentoring and on-site classroom and virtual discussion forums.

 She also integrated applied linguistic applications to teaching strategies (see document titled: “Bumperstickers for ESL Teachers” by Patrick Herrera, an instructor with whom she taught an intensive, workplace English language development and enhancement program for Coastline College’s contract education department 2009-2010.

• "Children learn what they think about.”
  • Applied: Provide concepts, sequence, cause and effect: The collaborative newsroom environment where students mentor each other through multimedia productions allows students to apply their knowledge and skills and develop proficiency while obtaining immediate feedback from Mercer and Battistelli and classmate
  • “Hearing is not listening.”
  • Applied: Employ subtle methods that ensure students' active listening skills are in effect BY using the Socratic Method. i.e. one-on-one mentoring and class discussion about journalism concepts and applied technologies.
  • “Don’t take anything for granted.”
    • Applied: Provide essential elements of instruction via step-by-step technology training, and journalism (and technology) vocabulary in context.
    • If there is decoding of a "new language", there must be a code to break.”
      • Applied: Provide exercises in which students master the "codes" i.e. vocabulary and concepts of technology by providing practice (simulations) that introduces vocabulary in context for example: Students are taught to TWEET their notes during the news gathering and reporting process.
      • Learning is not filling a bucket, it is lighting a fire.”
        • Applied: Provide students with skills to continue to learn and discover on their own, for example, show them a new technology and then ask them to use it to tell a story in ways no one has seen before.
        • “If there is confusion, learning stops.  If it persists, effort stops” 
          • Applied: Shift the focus from what the instructor wants to teach to what the instructor wants the learners to learn. Instructor stays within students’ ability to grasp concepts.  A multi-media project forces them to move in small steps from their own skill level to the full range of skills.
          • Vocabulary exists only in context.” “Words on a page have no meaning, they only represent meaning”.
            • Applied: Provide context within which to introduce vocabulary. By constructing a multimedia project, they learn what the terms mean.

(EGYPT SEMINARS AND WHAT THE STUDENTS LEARNED ABOUT RELIGION, POLITICS, AND CENSORSHIP)

Battistelli also networked with colleagues and was introduced to an NGO program i.e. Better World (home based in Cairo, Egypt). She designed the Global Classroom as one class within the integrated program (i.e. the Reporting & Writing, Global Media, Introduction to Broadcasting, Introduction to Photography, Public Relations, Print Production, Online Production, Visual Journalism, Broadcast Production, Independent Study, Visual Communication, and Television Production I courses) where all journalism students could obtain and share story leads, participate in asynchronous conversations and collaborate on projects.

She invited students to participate in a global, collaborative multimedia project that lists reporting teams, their project names and links to final deliverables, the results of which represent the culmination of the program’s integrative focus: global awareness, global competency and inspiration to address real-world issues facing the world on a global scale.

Thank you!