PBS MediaShift's DigitalEd series of live, weekly, one-hour online training sessions will provide participants practical information from instructors at top journalism schools.

The topics to be covered by DigitalEd will include measuring impact of stories, shooting mobile video, increasing audience engagement, and creating an entrepreneurial venture.  

“In surveys, the MediaShift audience has asked for more workshops and training, and we’re trying to provide more of that for them,” said Mark Glaser, founder and executive editor of PBS MediaShift, said in the announcement. “Thanks to seed funding from RJI, we’re able to offer practical, how-to training that will give people the skills they need to succeed.” 

MediaShift announced that it is initially partnering with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri and the BigMarker browser-based online conferencing platform.  The plan is to eventually partner with other journalism and communications schools.  

The first two online sessions will be held later this month on these dates:

·      April 22, 1 PM ET: How to Measure Impact for Your Crucial Content, taught by Joy Mayer, associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, and a former RJI Fellow. Mayer will help content creators measure impact on their important, in-depth stories to go beyond simple metrics.

·      April 29, 1 PM ET: How to Become a Mobile Ninja in the Field, taught by Judd Slivka, assistant professor of convergence journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism. Slivka will teach various mobile techniques that require less than 90 seconds to create content that goes up to social media and lets you get back to reporting. 

The fee for each one-hour online training session is $39, with handouts and personal interactions with instructors included. MediaShift is also developing free sponsor-supported training, to be launched in the coming months.