Above: Knight’s Eric Newton presents during a NewsU webinar, “Six Things Educators Can Do Right Now to Go Digital.” A full recording of the webinar is available online, with registration.

Journalism educators, here’s something that might put you at ease: to go digital in the in the classroom, you don’t have to be an expert on all things tech.

In fact….

If we think being an expert in the digital world means knowing every new thing that happens, we r fooling ourselves. @EricNewton1 #nuwebinar — Kate Nash Cunningham (@katenashnm) October 28, 2013

The only way to keep up with this ever-evolving field is to keep your reporter’s hat on, Eric Newton said during a Poynter webinar earlier this week on “Six things educators can do right now to go digital.”

Going digital “is a mindset. It’s an attitude of learning, of constant learning and a change in the way you do things,” Newton said during the session. RELATED LINKS

Continue the conversation with #edshift and at edshift.org. 

“@sdmoeller: How I’m already using ‘Searchlights and Sunglasses’ in the classroom” on KnightBlog

“Pencils down everyone. Your digital toolbox is here’: Five lessons from ‘Searchlight and Sunglasses” on KnightBlog

“Getting students to ask tough questions: My 5 favorite parts of “Searchlights and Sunglasses” on KnightBlog

“What curriculum innovators can learn from “Searchlights and Sunglasses” on KnightBlog

“Navigating Knight’s new book: Choose Your Own Adventure” on KnightBlog

As a journalist turned grantmaker, Newton has talked to thousands of educators over the years. He recently used that experience to launch “Searchlights and Sunglasses: Field Notes from the Digital Age of Journalism,” a digital book that with one click turns into a classroom tool educators can use to refresh their lesson plans. It’s available for free at searchlightsandsunglasses.org, and via Kindle.

During the webinar, Newton offered practical ways educators can better prepare students for digital jobs.

Here are three tips:

1. Flip the class: Essentially this means doing your homework in class, and watching lectures as homework. That leaves more class time for working together, solving problems and doing projects. Research is showing it’s a more effective way for students to retain what they learn, Newton said. If you can’t tape your lecture, have students go on a digital scavenger hunt and find the best online seminars on the class topic.
2. Viva Edison: Journalists want to be perfect, error-free. It’s a wonderful thing when proofreading, but not so wonderful for doing news in the digital age, Newton said. The important thing is to experiment like Thomas Edison did.  “The way forward is to try new things, fail and try a different thing, fail, and eventually do something that works and succeeds and go down that road,” Newton said.  Try out a new tool or a new way of storytelling. Keep learning, keep trying.
3. We need sunglasses: Keeping up with changes in the field can be overwhelming, so Newton suggests finding your own virtual pair of sunglasses to filter the news you need. Newton does it by subscribing to email lists that aggregate the important stories of the day – be it the Benton Foundation’s list of media policy headlines or the Federation of American Scientists’ newsletter on secrecy – or following blogs by fellow journalism educators or news sources like Poynter, Nieman Lab and PBS Media Shift. One idea he tossed out: assign students to devise their own sunglass list of filters for the future of news.

You can hear the full list of six tips in the recorded webinar session, or check out Searchlights and Sunglasses for even more classroom ideas.

The important thing to remember, though, is that educators need to take off their “expert” hat and get uncomfortable with what they know and don’t know.

Embrace the chaos, the future: we may sometimes take wrong path. It’s a learning experience. @EricNewton1 #nuwebinar — James Breiner (@jamesbreiner) October 28, 2013