And we’re done. Well not quite.

One thing I really enjoy in school is really learning a new skill. Not just learning new techniques and further areas of studying, but learning something brand new that I had never much or ever deigned to play with before. It’s exciting, it reminds me why I’m here, not just for a diploma and recommendations at the end, but to become better at what I hoped to do and to become a more capable person.

The class has really been good for me in this specific area. I never much played with Flickr or Pinterest, in fact to imply that I had even started my own account or done anything more than follow links to them at another’s behest, would be dishonest. I had more experience with Facebook and had even started to post my own professional tweets on twitter. But I had never even flirted with real blogging, not beyond a few short rants or posts on social networking pages, I remember MySpace had an actual blogging function I think. Facebook’s change to “notes” did seem to motivate the creation of such posts.

I now feel like I have a chance in this high tech world. Not only do I feel I may be able to keep up my own blog in a manner that might be described as competent, I no longer see tasks like getting video onto YouTube, or starting a podcast, as so daunting. As Renay SanMiguel  intones in his, now twice read, piece “It’s Hard Out There for a 21st-Century Future Journalist of Tomorrow,” no longer is the newsroom a diverse  collection of uniquely skilled individuals putting the puzzle pieces together as a team.

This is the future, and every job opening media outlets have is looking for a candidate that can produce more with less. Consequently, aspiring journalists, not to mention journalists looking for better work, need be able to function as a one-man-unit with the ability to produce all of the content needed for publication or broadcast. And they need to be able to do so with a strong internet presence.

The internet offers means to connect to ones audience in a way that could never be achieved in eras past. Sure, you could use an editorial section to get some personal opinions out and to allow some outside  opinions in, but now comments, likes, shares and updates are all just a click away.

Its something that Mark Coatney, director and media evangelist at Tumblr talked about during his interactive chat session at Poynter.org. I look forward to adding Tumblr to my newfound wealth of interactive creative tools. That and Polls, everybody loves polls?

 

Now that you love polls, make your own!