Attending professional conferences can be very helpful for cultivating contacts and learning the latest on trends in the field. For graduate students, attending professional conferences can be especially important, as the students will be on the job market upon graduation and those professional conferences can be an opportunity to network.

Ashley Carnifax, a doctoral student at the University of Florida, attended  “Excellence in Journalism 2011,” a conference co-sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Ashley received a scholarship to be part of The Working Press, a group of graduate students who covered the convention.

I asked Ashley to share observations about attending the convention. Although her experience is with attending a convention of professional journalists and journalism educators, her insights also apply to other professional conferences.

by Ashley Carnifax

Tip #1 – Professional conferences are great places to network and get yourself recognized.

Hundreds of media professionals attend the Society of Professional Journalists conference each year, and, now that SPJ has partnered with RTDNA, there are even more opportunities to branch out and meet people who may become your future boss.

Never underestimate the impression you are capable of making. Even if it means holding the elevator door for someone or striking up a conversation in the line for Starbucks, people will remember who you are. This industry is much smaller than you might think, and word about you will travel fast. Use this opportunity to make a positive first impression.

Tip #2 – Take the time to attend as many conference sessions as possible – You will learn so many new things.

Over the course of five days, the SPJ/RTDNA conference had more workshops and panels than I could ever manage to attend. Sometimes two really interesting-sounding sessions are going on at the same time, and you’ll have to make the tough decision — whether you want to go to “Creating Multiplatform Stories” or “How to Turn Your Website Into a Mobile App.” (Yes, those were real sessions at the conference.) The key is to see as much as you can while still remembering to eat and sleep.

Tip # 3 – Even though attending conferences can be expensive, there are LOTS of scholarship opportunities.

Each year, SPJ offers several scholarships for students wanting to attend the conference. The application deadline for the Terry Harper Memorial Scholarships is June 11, 2012. They are specifically used for allowing journalism students to attend the conference. Another option is The Working Press, which gets its own number:

Tip #4 – Don’t be afraid to sign up to work the conference if given the chance.

Sure, attending the conference is useful and a great place to meet people, but it is also a great place to get some real journalism experience. Each year, SPJ selects a dozen or so college journalists – reporters, editors, photographers and designers – to produce a daily newspaper for conference attendees. I was selected for to work the conference in New Orleans, and it was a whirlwind experience.

We basically had fewer than 12 hours between when we arrived in New Orleans and when we were expected to start working on the paper, so there wasn’t much time to get to know one another. I had to interview the SPJ President by phone before I even got on my plane to New Orleans. It was a lot of work, but I was able to get a lot of experience working on deadline in a real news environment. I did three or four stories a day while I was there, which was completely new to me. If you’re interested in seeing the work we did, there is an online version of our stories at this link.

Tip #5 – Have fun, but remember where you are.

I completely understand wanting to explore the city and enjoy yourself while you are at the conference. In fact, I would recommend taking an evening or two after the sessions are over to do just that.

What is important to remember, though, is Tip #1: This is your chance to make a good first impression.

I’ll give you a little anecdote from my trip. Surrounding my hotel room were rooms packed full of other college students. I’m not sure how it happened, but the four girls in the room next to my room knew the four guys staying across from me, and I would hear them running back and forth to talk to each other throughout the conference. On my last night in New Orleans, I suspect many of them were enjoying the famous nightlife in the city because when they came back they were essentially falling over and shouting at a volume that was unacceptable for 3 a.m.

It ended up not being that big of a deal because they were next door to me, and I stuck my head out of the door, laughed and went back to sleep. But what if they had been staying next to the editor of a major newspaper? The situation could have been detrimental to them finding jobs. So keep that in mind. Have fun, but be smart.

The AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division meeting in St. Petersburg was professionally energizing and fun.

The Poynter Institute is an excellent venue for our meeting, and Poynter faculty member Ellyn Angelotti provided a great kickoff session.Sessions included strategies for improving our teaching, including dozens of ideas for incorporating technology. Dow Jones News Fund Teacher of the Year Aaron Manfull offered tips to help us with our outreach to high school media teachers, helping them incorporate online delivery of student media. Research sessions were informative and provided both a perspective on the history of scholastic journalism and how new technology is impacting legal guidelines that govern student expression.

The weather was in the 70s. The views were just what Florida travel brochures promote. The last night ended with a festive dinner at Columbia Restaurant at the St. Petersburg Pier.

Beth Fitts demonstrates the ShowMe iPad app.

As a bonus iPad app, Beth Fitts shared ShowMe, which goes beyond just sharing an image.

Beth demonstrated by explaining how she would use ShowMe from a teaching perspective.

• She opened a photo she had taken from the presentation by Aaron Manfull.
• She showed how she could circle information on a photo, if she wanted to point out something in particular.
• She then recorded an audio message that provided a homework assignment based on Aaron’s presentation.
• She emailed the ShowMe file to me.

And before she had time to finish discussing the program, I opened the file on my iPhone and played the file so that the audience could hear it.

Here's how a ShowMe file looks when you open it.

1. The AP Stylebook – It’s searchable, portable and fairly inexpensive.

Julie Dodd - Photo by Christine Eschenfelder

2. Autostitch Panorama – Shoot photos separately or in the app and stitch them together to create a panoramic image.

Judy Robinson took the stage to deliver the next two picks:

3. Zinio – Zinio is an application that allows you to subscribe to and read print magazines on your mobile device.

4. Keynote on iPad – Mac’s version of PowerPoint is an easy-to-use presentation software that allows you to take all your presentations with you.

5. Keynote Remote for iPad – Connects with Keynote on your iPad to allow you to control your presentation.  It even lets you read your notes from across the room!

Cheryl Pell offered a few suggestions of her own:

6. Mood Board for iPad – Compiles photos and text into a collage.

7. More magazines – The iPad allows magazine producers to incorporate content and interactivity that the print version can’t accomodate.  Reading magazines on your mobile device offers a completely different experience.

8. LetterMpress – This app allows the user to create interesting designs using typography and makes a number of fun sound effects for those missing the days of noisy printing presses.

Judy Robinson - Photo by Julie Dodd

1. Use YouTube – Judy Robinson says YouTube is the second most powerful search engine.  Including your URL before any other information in a video description can drive users to your site.

2. Use headers when writing – Remember, a reader can’t tell the difference between a header and bold text, but a crawler can.  Search engine crawlers pick up headlines before body text, so use them effectively.

3. Use Google Adwords’ keyword tool – Allows you to see how users are searching for information that you are providing.

4. Choose titles carefully – Base your title on keywords, not cleverness, or your best visitor might not find you.

5. Tag your photos – Crawlers read tags on images, and people using Google Images or similar services can end up at your site because of the image tags.

6. Tag blog posts – The more tags, the better.  Make it easy for users to find your site using search engines.

Cheryl Pell - Photo by Julie Dodd

3. Cheryl says to bookmark some of your favorite sites for inspiration, showing a great clip on Vimeo, which she has tucked away for another day.  She also talked about Cover Junkie, a site which stores old magazine covers.  You never know when an interesting, inspiring link may be useful.

4. Embrace typography – Cheryl says that typography is an underappreciated element of teaching.  Choosing interesting type can provide the wow factor that is often missing from student work.  She shared some interesting sites dedicated to the art of typography – Linzie Hunter, Font Fetish, I Love Typography, Paula Scher and Axis Maps.

5. Seek new ways to tell stories – With traditional media outlets trimming their staffs, media workers are seeking out new, alternative ways to tell their stories.  Again, she shared a number of great links – All Thrifty States and The Momentus Project.

6. Take your daily design vitamin – Design matters.  Take time to be interesting and different.  There are lots of great sites to get ideas and see what others are working on – Newseum, Charles Apple at ACES, and News Page Designer.

By Christine Eschenfelder and Casey Kochey

With an energetic introduction, Julie Dodd, Cheryl Pell and Judy Robinson have begun their talk on

Julie Dodd, Judy Robinson, Karen Flowers and Cheryl Pell ready to take the stage. - Photo by Casey Kochey

technology tips for the classroom – “2, 4, 6, 8 Tech Tips You’ll Appreciate.”

Julie Dodd says that tech considerations should always begin by thinking about the motivation behind your use of technology. An understanding of professional applications of technology can be a useful motivator for students, and connecting with large classes can be a motivator for instructors.

On to the teaching tips:

1. Develop a course blog, which can provide students with useful links, introduce students to lab instructors and provide information to students who may have missed class. It can also serve as a useful resource for posting class handouts and documents, which eliminates the need for instructors to print and distribute copies of some materials.

2. Teaching using smart phones – the abundance of students with smart phones can allow white board discussions to be captured and saved, promote reporting skills and allow students to take their learning out of the classroom and easily report back to the instructor.

Christine Eschenfelder and Casey Kochey have been part of my life blogging efforts.

Live blogging has kept me busy during the Scholastic Journalism Division meeting at Poynter. I’ve appreciated the assistance with the blog by colleagues Judy Robinson and Cheryl Pell, who have shot photos for me.

Casey Kochey and Christine Eschenfelder, graduate students with me at the University Florida, have been assisting — taking photos, helping with notes, fact checking and checking the accuracy of links included in posts. They are going to take over for posting during the next session, which I’m involved with.

Lola Burnham - Photo by Casey Kochey

Lola Burnham (Eastern Illinois) is presenting her research on “Can MySpace be School Space: Confusion Abounds.”

Lola provided overview that although the two MySpace cases aren’t about scholastic media the cases do have potential implications to student media.

J.S. vs. Blue Mountain School District case – Students created fake MySpace profile for school principal. Created MySpace page at JS’s home computer. The two students involved were suspended. Court supported the school district.

Layshock vs. Hermitage School District case – Student created fake of MySpace profile of principal. Student suspended for 10 days. Court supported the student.

Both cases were heard together in June 2010 with 14 judges. Student free speech cases — including Tinker and Fraser — were cited in the cases.

Followup discussion about the potential “Big Brother” implications of the schools controlling off-campus student speech and how rulings can affect perceptions of rights of student media.

Bruce Konkle - Photo by Casey Kochey

Bruce Knokle is presenting his research — “The National Education Association’s Framing of Scholastic Journalism during the 20th Century.”

Bruce’s research analyzed the origin of scholastic journalism as a special interest area within the NEA. The Journalism Education Association formed as a subgroup of NEA and split out as a separate organization in the 1960s.

What did NEA provide for scholastic journalism?
Forum for some of the schoalstic journalism strongest advocates. NEA publications included articles on scholastic journalism. Those authors included Mary Benedict, Laurence Campbell, Clarence Hach and Carl Towley.

Links to college and university presidents that might have helped give additional validation to scholastic journalism.

NEA was an outlet for journalism information NEA members to let them know how to create viable journalism and student newspapers, yearbooks and magazines.

Bruce is discussing the value of research on scholastic journalism and discussing some of the state scholastic press associations have histories. The first scholastic press association to reach the 100th anniversary will be Oklahoma, which was founded in 2018. [The organization is now named Oklahoma Scholastic Media.]

What is discovered in history could be useful to help us avoid being a “mothball publication.”