Assistant professor Jill Van Wyke has been awarded a competitive fellowship to attend a seminar on mobile journalism this summer.
Van Wyke was selected as a winner of the James H. Ottaway Sr. fellowship and will attend “Mobile Media: Opportunities on the Move” at the American Press Institute in July. The fellowship covers about $1,800 in tuition, hotel and travel expenses.
Most attendees at the two-day seminar in Reston, Va., will be professional journalists and digital marketers. The seminar will examine:
- the future of mobile
- getting started with mobile
- social media and mobile use
- mobile strategy, content and advertising
- location-based audience targeting.
Van Wyke, who teaches in the news-Internet sequence, is one of several SJMC faculty members adapting to how smartphones, tablets and apps are transforming journalism. Earlier this year she was awarded a $2,000 grant from the University provost’s office that allowed her to buy six iPod Touches for student use in her spring Multimedia Journalism class. For the second half of the semester, she and her students pursued “mobile only” journalism, using only the iPod Touch or smartphones for multimedia reporting and publishing.
“Together we experimented and explored the potential of mobile reporting and publishing,” she said. “The students embraced it with enthusiasm, and it was one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I’ve had.”