The Syllabus The Notes

Design & Development

Come explore what’s next in news delivery and audience engagement, and prototype your ideas. Throughout the industry, we see that the ability to build journalistic products is key, not just in startups from Vox to Quartz but also in big media companies of all sorts, from The New York Times to CNN to WNYC to a metro newspaper. This class will help you imagine and prototype new products and services – and in the process reimagine journalism itself and how it connects with and serves the public.

We’ll experiment with telling news stories through channels such as texting, intelligent agents like Google Home and even household objects. You will learn essential skills to develop, grow, test and retry how you use information in a two-way exchange with your community.

You’ll also learn how to sketch out your technical hopes and dreams so that others might help you code and build it, too.

Welcome!

Class Objectives

When you’re done with this class, my aim is that you’ll leave with the following knowledge and experience:

Additionally, I want to make sure you can enhance your project through:

The Syllabus

Here’s the rundown of what we’ll cover in our weeks together. Note that the full syllabus, with grading and other details, is in a Google Doc available to students.

Class 1 • Basic internetting

First we’ll meet each other and review the plan for this class.

Then we’ll dive in, making sure we all understand how information zips around the internet and the basics of the most basic of internet services: A web page. We’ll craft a basic “static” page using Glitch.

Notes for this class.

Class 2 • Introduction to databases

We’ll set up and explore a dog database, using simple “SQL” statements to get information out of it.

Then we’ll load that same database into our Glitch site and make some simple queries from there, too, by changing the url of our page.

Notes for this class.

Class 3 • Making a dynamic webpage

We’ll take our dog website to the next level by adding forms that query our database.

Notes for this class.

Class 4 • Introduction to conversational interfaces (aka chatbots)

From chatbot platforms like Facebook Messenger to voice services such as Alexa and Google Home, there are more ways for your audience to talk directly to your creation using natural human language. We’ll talk about how conversational interfaces work and build a simple web chatbot using Dialogflow.

Notes for this class.

Class 5 • Talk to me: Making a voice service for Google Home

We’ll weave our original service into our conversational system, making a specialized service that answers questions via text not even Google could answer. And then we’ll explore the world of voice interfaces by wiring up our conversational interface to Google’s voice assistant.

Notes for this class.

Class 6 • Getting & giving insights with forms

We’ll make sure you know how to use easy, free form software to collect information from your audience and encourage participation. We’ll take a close look at 3 services: Google Forms, Airtable, and Typeform.

Notes for this class.

Class 7 • Data security: For you, your sources, and your audience

Let’s talk about security. We’ll get into how you can start practicing better personal security and about how to act responsibly and ethically with the data you get from others.

Notes for this class.

Class 8 • Chatbots for collecting information in real time

We’ll mash up what you know about forms, chatbots, and Glitch to build a chatbot that asks questions and saves the answers.

Notes for this class.

Class 9 • Identifying and communicating your hopes and dreams

Let’s bring what we’ve learned so far into your community project. We’ll outline what you hope to achieve, how it would work, and how you can scope out your ideas for someone else to help you build them.

Notes for this class.

Class 10 • Make bots to do your bidding

All of this and more is possible without any coding at all. We’ll make theses mini-products and learn about mashing up existing services into new services that (maybe) never existed before.

Notes for this class.

Class 11 • APIs, scraping and other data sources

Valuable data is everywhere. Let’s get it. Weather info, crypto prices, earthquake alerts – it’s all available. We’ll also run through web scraping and open-data mining.

Notes for this class.

Class 12 • Sensors & Physical computing

Tiny computers can sense the environment, respond to your commands, and collect data that’s not available anywhere else. They can even keep track of things when you’re far away. Prototyping these kinds of products is surprisingly cheap and easy. We’ll do it in class.

Notes for this class.

Class 13 • Intro to AI for journalism

Artificial intelligence is a huge field, and the use of AI by corporations and governments is a huge issue in our society. The algorithms themselves, however, are not inherently problematic and can be used by responsible journalists to help in their investigations. We’ll explore some of the services available and how you might use them for your journalism.

Notes for this class.

Class 14 • Managing a technical project

We’ll talk about how to communicate with developers, assess the project as it progresses, adjust to blockers, and reach a successful state.

Notes for this class.

“Class 15” • Consulting for your own project

Whether it’s for your Engagement Journalism final project or something you’re thinking about building separately, we’ll set aside time to discuss it. Be sure to sign up when the opportunity arises midway through the semester. This counts toward your class participation, too.