Henderson, Bruce

Using a journalism course Web site to construct knowledge in a community of practice

Abstract

Students taking a hybrid classroom/Web course are involved with producing a weekly newspaper as an authentic activity within a journalistic domain utilizing experts (editors and others who have already worked for the newspaper) and apprentices (new reporters and photographers) who constitute an online community of practice. Students seed the course by producing online artifacts -- such as a writing style guide, reporting resources guide and descriptions of how to cover certain areas of the campus. Students enter a zone of proximal development by using a forum to discuss these artifacts and problems encountered while attempting to write a story; and, separately on the Web site, as they submit their stories and work with editors on story revisions online. Using these interactive features outside of class, students posted nearly 3,000 messages to each other in one semester. This study examines the network of message in terms of diffusion of innovation and information (teaching and learning), and looks at the content of the messages in terms of the impact (teaching and learning) the messages had on each published story.