Knight Center concludes popular online course in Spanish “How to Write for the Web”

Due to heavy demand for the online course in Spanish, “How to Write for the Web,” the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas offered the second version of the class this year, March 14–April 17, 2011.

The course was taught by Colombian journalist Guillermo Franco and was based on his book How to Write for the Web. It combined exercises and concepts to help journalists understand how to write for digital platforms.

The Knight Center earlier concluded one offering of Franco’s course that ran from Jan. 31–March 6 in which journalists from 14 countries participated. Due to the large number of applicants, a second section of the course was immediately formed to meet the demand.

Franco, who has spent the last eight years working in digital journalism and the Internet, developed the course especially for the Knight Center.

The course is taught entirely on line and explores the following topics:
• How to write for the web.
• How and when to process texts written for other media to online media.
• Critical thinking about texts published on the Web.
• Incorporating concepts from across platforms into online content

The teaching assistant for the course was Paul Alonso, a Peruvian journalist and a University of Texas at Austin PhD candidate.

“How to Write for the Web” is one of several online courses being offered this year as part of the Knight Center’s Distance Education program. Other courses in March include Journalism Ethics for a Digital Age taught in English by Professor Edward Wasserman, and the new course “Editors in Times of Internet,” from March 14–April 24, taught by veteran Colombian journalist Maria Teresa Ronderos.

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas was created by Professor Rosental Calmon Alves at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism in August 2002 thanks to a generous donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Its main goal is to help journalists in Latin American and the Caribbean who are interested in improving the quality of journalism in their countries.