Faculty Exchange/James Bowey Discusses Winona360

General Information Audience - All WSU instructors interested in intense writing assignments within their courses. Interview Date - 9/22/2010 Tools Used - Winona360 utilizes Drupal an open source content management system Meet the Faculty Member James A. Bowey is an assistant professor of photography and new media in the Mass Communication department at Winona State University. He teaches courses in photography, digital imaging and Web development. His scholarly focus is the evolving nature of images in a hypermedia culture Bowey is the creator and director of the Winona360 media project at WSU, which is using emerging media technologies to create and teach new approaches to visual communication, journalism, education and community engagement. Before joining the academy, he had a distinguished career as a photojournalist and editor, covering many of the major national and international stories in the last 20 years, including the war in Bosnia and Hurricane Katrina; and he produced the acclaimed documentary photo series “A Year to Live.” As the editor in chief of the Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, Ill., he led the paper’s award-winning coverage of the 2008 shootings at Northern Illinois University. Bowey is a 2010 recipient of WCET’s national WOW award for outstanding innovation in higher education. Viewing the Interview Segments The full interview is divided into six segments. Select play to begin viewing Segment 1. To advance to another segments at any time by using the Next button.

Segment Descriptions

1. Where did the idea for Winona360 come from? Jim explains that this concept is derived from the need to reinvent journalism so that we can create understand on multiple levels.
2. How are you using Winona360 in your courses? Jim goes on to describe the forces that drive students to want to publish quality work in a way that is very public, but not towards a single assignment or class. He describes the practice of exploration and creativity through a rubric to become published in Winona360.
3. What types of outcomes are you seeing with your use of Winona360 in your curriculum? Jim describes here the reasons why he feels Winona360 is improving the quality of student work.
4. How is the curriculum designed to assure quality and creativity? Jim continues to explain further the assignments used to prepare students form a habit of mind that encourages continual improvement in their approach with the field and for their own growth.
5. How is Winona360 transforming the learning? This a public laboratory that teaches student engagement in a community and understanding.
6. Talk about how Winona360 was built and how it helped you realized your learning goals. This civic media project was an idea and the working prototype was developed though a team approach to create a prototype to for what Winona360 now has become.

Good Practices

• Rethinking our preparation of journalism students: This reinvention is born out of the idea that we must start students in journalism in a public setting (Segment 1). The need was a laboratory where students apply the concepts of journalism to actual stories to allow the larger community to participate in this dialogue.
• A model of practice: Students work in this laboratory is public and they must in this learning model apply the theoretical element of journalism to the standards necessary to communicate effectively with the community (Segment 1).
• Creating cultures of achievement: Working in public drives students to stories they are passionate about. The curriculum design fosters a reflection on the difficult questions that need asked and the pubic nature of this laboratory learning propels the students to telling the story creatively so others will be compelled to understand (Segments 2 & 3).

Key Outcomes

• Having a laboratory that is public facilitates not only an exciting new way of engaging learning, but you find that your teaching is driven to this same public space (Segment 3).
• This process moves students away from a model of completing the assignment to a practice of continual improvement shifts the context and therefore changes the outcomes (Segments 2 & 3).
• This shift away from student learning to complete the assignment propels the learning into a context of learning to help others understand (Segment 2 & 3).

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