Michelle Johnson, Associate Professor of the Practice, Journalism, Boston University, offers some takeaways from the Online News Association 2012 conference that may be of interest to journalism educators.

1. Tools, Trends & Stuff
That Caught Michelle Johnson’s Eye at #ONA12
Suitable for Classroom (and other) Use!

2. What is This?
As one of the co-chairs of the ONA Student Newsroom
and a volunteer on lots of other convention student
projects, I learn as much as I teach.
This is:
1) A look at some of the tools we used to produce
newsroom.journalists.org that I’ll be taking back to
my multimedia journalism classes at Boston
University.
2) Trends and issues worthy of discussing in class.
Me. In a convention student project newsroom.
Enjoy! Working. As usual.
Official: Michelle Johnson is Assoc. Prof.
of the Practice, Journalism, Boston University.

3. Student Newsroom Puts ONA On the Map
• ONA12 Attendee map produced with Google
Fusion Tables. Started life as a csv. Nice way to
visualize the more than 1,400 registrants.

4. Student Newsroom: Infographics
Need an infographic but you’re not a designer?
No problem. With these web-based tools you, too,
can do this. In minutes.
• ONA12 by the Numbers
• Is Diversity ONA’s Destiny?
Pre-designed, customizable templates. Embed code.
Here: easel.ly and infogr.am

5. Newsroom: Interactive Graphics
• Session Map
• Anatomy of New Journalist
Produced with:
• http://www.thinglink.com/
Student drew this image, too.
Showoff! 

6. Student Newsroom
Video/Coding Mashup
• Interactive:
Eliminate Your Fear
of Code
Two clever students
collaborated on this
clever little interactive.

7. ONA Conference Curated
• ONA12 As Seen on InstaGram
• What’s Trending at ONA

8. Misc. Other Stuff
• The newsroom co-chairs used GroupMe to stay in touch. Our own
backchannel. I felt so special….
• Chartbeat delivered metrics for the student and official ONA convention
sites.
• Meograph, but we didn’t get to use it. Tool for creating multimedia stories.
• 12 Stopped by their table at the ONA Midway. Hasn’t launched yet. Shared
reading app, strictly for iPad. And yes, you create a group of just 12 people
you trust to curate your reading experience.
• Tout Atctually saw this at another conference over the summer. Post video
status updates. Jour Edu use: live blogging?
• Burst.it Saw this in the Globe this morning. Another private sharing app.
Create a “Bubble” to view everyone’s stuff coming in from one event. Once
they add a way to easily make this public I’ll use it for a class project.

9. Wait! One More Misc.
NewsArt* High quality editorial
art. Tell your students they get it
for free!
From their web site:
“J-SCHOOL STUDENTS
If your school wants to participate
on our NewsArt Journalism School
Program, contact us and we'll set
up a password. After that you
may use your school's UserID and
password to download art at no
charge for use in your school
work, campus newspapers, etc.”
*Not ONA-Related. I met one of the artists
briefly at an editorial writers conference in
Orlando where I flew from ONA12 to pick
up an award.

10. New Tool for Journos
Spundge
• Curation, collaboration tool for journalists
• Beta launched at ONA.
• Still trying to figure out how it works.
Possible use for group projects?

11. Gannett, Nice use of Tumblr!
ONA12 world, according to Gannett employees.
This Tumblr is jam-packed with good stuff.

12. Top Tech Trends to Gawk at, Discuss
Amy Webb
The news was that she shared the “secret
sauce” that they use to forecast
The Next Big Thing(s).
However, there was an actual Top Ten list,
list, too! Click Amy’s name to see it.

13. Trend: Predictive Assistance
Amy Webb: Google Now "is
going to make Siri look like
someone's high school science
project.”
Perhaps they’ll beat Apple at
mapping, too. Oh, wait…

14. Trend: Verification
Verify, verify, verify.
Example: Shazam-like app checks who’s
behind political advertising.
Ad comes on, hold phone up to listen, get
the backstory.
Superpac App:
http://www.superpacapp.org/
Claims to offer:
“Objective, third-party information.”
Ratings. They show up on a map! Yay!

15. Wearable Tech
This purse charges your cell phone.
Does it come in red? I just got these red shoes…

16. Crystal Ball Gazing: Future of News?
Storytelling thru virtual reality

17. ONA Award Winners to Show in Class
Innovative use of data:
• The Guardian : “Gay Rights, State by State (and Beyond)”, Explanatory
Reporting, Large Site
• Homicide Watch D.C.: Knight Award for Public Service
Comprehensive Project
• The Reckoning -- America and the World a Decade After 9/11, The New
York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/thereckoning
Inspiration for your students:
• DePaul University, The Red Line Project — NATO Coverage, The Red Line
Project: News and Online
• Borderzine.com (Mexico / U.S.), Mexodus: Non-English Projects,
Small/Medium Site (An ONA Student Newsroom reporter worked on this!)