Just A Humble Journalism Student

Live tweeting a memory disorders presentation

The beat I am most interested in covering is health. Partly out of nerdy curiosity, partly out of concern that one of my family members might I have dementia, I attended a memory disorders panel this morning. The event included presentations by Alzheimer’s support organizations, a physician, researchers and a brief appearance by U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, whose mother had Alzheimer’s.

I was tapping away on my phone when my mom leaned over and asked, “What are you doing?” “Tweeting,” I told her. We were sitting in the back so I thought I would take the opportunity to practice live tweeting. I was never trained on how to do it, so I just carefully listened for key facts or interesting tidbits that I could successfully condense to 140 characters.

By the end, I had sent out nine tweets from my Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Captivate.  Thankfully, my touch-screen phone allowed me to type almost silently. If I had been using a keypad then I would have been really noisy.

My advice to others hoping to live-tweet a quiet event like a panel, academic presentation, or featured speaker is to make sure their phone/equipment is quiet and be prepared to multitask. Sometimes the speaker would move on to a new point while I was still trying to get my thought formulated for the character limit. Also, find an event where you can practice without the pressure of an editor, deadlines or journalistic obligation.

I was worried how my actions might be perceived, but because we ended up with seats in the back, the speakers couldn’t see me and neither could most of the audience members. Any advice on how to achieve live tweeting without looking like a distracted, disinterested, rude audience member?

New Tech Toys

I’m starting the new year and new semester off with new gadgets!

All my electronics seemed to fail me at once: My camera died right before Thanksgiving (which made completing my year in photos blog a challenge) and my cellphone died right before Christmas.

But thanks to the technological meltdown, I now have the latest and greatest equipment. My new Canon Rebel T1i with video capability will be helpful for my capstone, applied multimedia journalism. It’s been almost a year since I used a DSLR camera so I’m having to readjust to things like metering. 

Even though I had a phone with Internet and a Qwerty keyboard, I never felt like a smartphone user. Now I feel like a genius with my touchscreen Samsung Captivate. I decided that an iPhone was too much money, so I took a chance with an Android smartphone. I’ve been happy so far, except that I use up my battery too fast.

One of the features I’m loving is the camera. Because my Rebel is not always convient to cart around (plus it’s not allowed at basketball games) and I don’t have the money for a second camera, it’s a suitable substitute for now.

The only problem is I have had problems sending photos (like this one) out via both Twitter and Hootsuite. I also haven’t figured out how to upload them to my computer. Time to download the manual, I guess,

But another plus for the camera: applications. I’m extremely excited to finally able to use apps, especially because I’ve had to write multiple stories about them without ever using one myself. So far I’ve downloaded resources like a French verb conjugator and the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, as well as reading material like the New York Times and France’s Le Monde.

I’d love suggestions for great apps or journalistic uses of a smartphone.