Topic: 1,000 Term Papers in Your Pocket

Susan Walker is an Associate Professor of Journalism and teaches several courses related to writing, reporting, and producing television and online news at BU’s College of Communication.  Professor Walker is a veteran of the newsrooms at the ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates in Boston where she produced newscasts, award-winning news series, and documentaries. A graduate of Brown University with a master’s in history from BU, she is a working journalist who is currently writing the book Come Fly With  Me: Geoffrey de Havilland the Birth of the Jet Age. A five-minute trailer for the book can be found here.

Students can produce video assignments for courses using the device that is always with them—the smart phone. Professor Susan Walker launched Smart Phone Reporting as a journalism and HUB multimedia course four years ago. She teaches students how to research, shoot, narrate and edit 4 news videos using only their smart phones and an Adobe all-in-one app called Rush. She will show colleagues how video assignments can be easily integrated into a range of disciplines from history to science, where students can access video archives and how video assignments can replace blue book exams, lengthy term papers and those god-awful cat videos on YouTube.