I have to say that while online journalism was challenging, it has to be one of the most most valuable classes I took all semester.  If you never built your own website and you want to, this is the class for you.  The pace was fair and everything from learning how to use Motion and Adobe Illustrator to coding was frustrating but in the end so addicting you won’t stop trying to fix all the little details.

I found it so valuable to have students in the class critique your work, that helps you improve what you already have and definitely ask for coding help and feedback from your professor.  I also found it valuable to check out multimedia/project websites to see if you can get ideas for your stories.

Here are some programs we worked with if you want to get a head start learning:

• Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop
• Motion
• Firebug
• FileZilla
• Dreamweaver

(Yea, you will know what this all means by the end of the semester)

I would advise future students to do this alongside your final project because you’re dedicating a lot of your time to your story and learning the skills as you build your infographic or website for that story.  Spend some time thinking about the title of your project so that you can get the right domain name early on, I would recommend running the title through your professor or project adviser.  Nothing too long and complicated and make sure it’s spelled correctly.

If you have an idea for a story, it’ll be good to check out related websites on your topic to see how they presented it, but try to make yours stand out and own it.  Trust me, you will be proud of your work in the end and you’ll be surprised how much you end up knowing by the end of the semester.