Think Google Glass is only for high-paid techies willing to drop $1500 on a piece of (let’s call a spade a spade) dorky eyewear? Think again. When the new school year rolls around at the University of Southern California’s Annenburg School for Communication and Journalism, the ranks of Google’s “Explorers,” as the beGlassed are known, will be joined by college and graduate students.
A class taught by digital journalism professor Robert Hernandez will “consist of teams (journalist, designer, developer) working together to research and develop different types of news apps designed specifically for the Glass platform,” he writes, delving into questions like how the device will disrupt journalism, how to create journalism content with “wearables,” and the future of a typical news article on a platform like Google Glass.
“In this class we’re not talkingabout the future of journalism, we’re building it,” declares Hernandez.
And a bold declaration it is for such a hot topic – make that topics. Not only is the future of journalism in the digital age a constant subject of debate among writers and editors across media platforms, but at this point, wearing Google Glass makes you a pretty visible moving target. Could taking the conversation out of the bars and the offices and into the classroom be a step in the right direction to figuring out just how this technology can be used in positive ways? We’ll check back in at midterms.
Photo by Giuseppe Constantino via Flickr