May 5, 2008

CfA: Improving coverage of education issues - Online Course

Transitions Online (TOL) is searching for participants in an online course on covering the education beat, developed in cooperation with the Guardian Foundation and the BBC World Trust. The course will be led by Linda Christmas, former journalist at The Guardian and respected journalism trainer.

Interested applicants should be from Central and Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. They should have at least two years of journalistic experience, either already covering the education beat or hoping to. In some exceptional cases, education professionals, such as teachers, who are interested in branching out and writing about education will be considered.

The course will feature three online modules, each with a lesson plan and interactive questionnaire:
1) Specialist Reporting
2) Reporting education
3) Interviewing Children

Participants in the online course will be required to complete each module. They will also be asked to write one news story and one feature on education-related topics. The trainer will provide supervision at all stages of the course, as well as
detailed feedback on the articles. The best articles will be published on the TOL website (www.tol.org) and their authors will be paid a writer´s fee.

Two courses will be offered, one starting in mid-May and the other starting at the beginning of June. Each course will last six weeks.

The most successful participants will be invited to Prague for a fall workshop on
covering education with all expenses paid by the organizers.

Linda Christmas began her journalistic career as a writer on education with The Times
Educational Supplement. She worked for more than a decade with The Guardian and left to write two books. She then ran a post-graduate course for newspaper journalists at London´s City University and is now Senior Adviser to the Guardian Foundation. For the last two years she has been training journalists in the Arab world.

How do I apply?
To apply, fill out the online APPLICATION FORM You should submit your application as soon as possible but no later than May 10. Successful applicants will be contacted by
email. Click here to apply for this free training: http://tol.botnet. cz/form/23/

TOL's program for education journalists is sponsored by the Open Society Institute with the contribution of the Education Support Program (ESP). The ESP aims to facilitate change in education and national policy development in line with the Soros
foundation network's mission of promoting open society. http://training. tol.org

If you want to receive academic resources in your e-mail on daily basis, please subscribe to 10resources-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.