I’m currently working on the preparations for the launch of a new global environment news site which is being run by journalism students at BCU.

Second year degree students will be writing the stories for the news site as part of their Online Journalism module and I aim to guide them through the process as Editor along with Azeem Ahmad and lecturer Paul Bradshaw. The website will cover original environmental news from across the globe and will include our journalist blogs about the process of putting together the articles.

Progress?

So far, we’ve been using RSS readers, delicious and environmental blogs to locate potential story ideas and contacts. Some students seem to be utilising this technology more usefully than others and are using Twitter and personal blogs to document their progress.

A few of the students are making the most out of twitter to exchange ideas, leads and communicate their progress in learning about a subject, that before, they knew very little about. Some are not twittering at all. Read Paul Bradshaw’s blog about the twittering activity (or lack of) among the journalists.

Successful bloggers

The students that have been twittering are consequently the ones who have written excellent blog posts. Worth taking a look at, are:

At the next news conference, we’ll be discussing any potential articles that they may have come across and starting to think about ‘going live’. Keep checking back for links to the best student blogs of the week and for updates about Environmental News Online.