Ball State launches journalism web site

Black Issues in Higher Education, June 17, 2004

MUNCIE, IND.

Ball State University has created a Web portal to assist high-school journalism students and educators, providing information on standards, diversity, integrity and knowledge of First Amendment issues.

The portal was developed by Ball State's Journalism Institute for Digital Education, Activities and Scholarship (J-Ideas) and may be found online at <www.jideas.org>.

"We want to make the high-school journalism world more cohesive," said Christi Girton, the J-Ideas assistant director. "If we can use jideas.org to connect students, teachers and administrators to existing scholastic journalism organizations and online sites, then we've accomplished the goal for our Web site," she added.

The portal will house current and archived videoconferences that link high-school students with industry professionals. Visitors can also find journalism scholarship information; a comprehensive, searchable database; and categorized links to other key players in the world of scholastic journalism.

Other journalism resources include free, downloadable teaching handouts, curriculum suggestions and results of journalism-related research projects.