- Google Glass. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
This fall, students at University of Southern California will get the chance to study Google Glass and what it means for journalism, Kurt Wagner reported in Mashable Tuesday.
In the class, Wagner reports, about 12 students from several disciplines “will create apps for Google Glass that help enhance both storytelling and story consumption on the platform.”
It’s a first-of-its-kind class for USC, and web-journalism professor Robert Hernandez believes the class offers a rare opportunity for journalism to get ahead of a budding technology trend. Hernandez said journalists have been followers — not trailblazers — when using other technology like mobile and social media, but that the industry has a chance for a head start with Glass.
Hernandez hopes his students will help change journalism, Wagner reported.
“Half my colleagues don’t know what I do for a living,” he joked. “They don’t understand it, some of them might think I’m trying to kill journalism. The truth is I’m trying to save it, and advance it.”
(Disclosure: Hernandez is a Poynter adjunct faculty member and will be teaching in Poynter’s Teachapalooza college educator series in June.)
In December, Anna Li wrote for Poynter’s PoynterVision about getting out in front with Google Glass. American Press Institute’s Jeff Sonderman said it’s good for journalists to understand how they can use wearables, and how the public will use them. Reporters also need to show some restraint, though, he said.
Poynter’s News University also has a training course on wearables and journalism, “Preparing Journalism for the Age of Wearable Devices.” Use the promo code 13POYNTER100WEAR to get unlimited free access to the on-demand replay.
