google-glass-course

Google Glass journalism course coming to USC


Students will create and launch news apps for Google Glass

google-glass-course
Copyright: Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com

A new course to be taught at the University of Southern California will ask students to find ways for journalists to take advantage of Google Glass.

The course, which is called Glass Journalism, will begin this fall.

“In this class we’re not talking about the future of journalism,” Robert Hernandez, the course’s professor, wrote on his Tumblr blog. “We’re building it.”

Glass is a type of wearable computer developed by Google. A head-mounted display sits in front of the user’s right eye, allowing for voice-commanded access to the internet, a camera, and other applications.

Hernandez, a well-known digital journalist, is one of a select few who were allowed to purchase an early version of the device through a Google Glass Explorer program.

“It’s pretty cool, but, for me, it’s not going to replace broadcast equipment,” Hernandez said in a video, partially recorded with Google Glass and posted to YouTube. “It does offer really cool access to unique experiences.”

(Next page: Will journalists support a class about Glass?)

In the video, he also said it’s not fair to contrast Glass with smartphones or dismissively compare it to other devices that, like the segway, momentarily grabbed the tech-world’s attention only to fizzle into an expensive joke.

“But this is something,” Hernandaz said. “And the only way to find out what that something is, is to play with it.”

The “something” lies in the realm of augmented reality, providing news content to go with what a user is seeing at any moment. Another example, Hernandez said, could be taking video recordings of user experiences and incorporating those into news coverage.

Students in the Glass Journalism course will work in teams to develop news apps, according to the course’s syllabus. The apps will then be user-tested and published at the send of the semester.

“This class is a sandbox for journalism, technology, and creativity,” the syllabus reads.

While Google Glass has been praised as an innovate step forward in wearable computing, it has also been criticized due to privacy concerns. Journalists in particular have been quick to characterize the device as intrusive, or even as simply being too dorky.

Glasshole” has become a popular descriptor and Twitter hashtag among technologists and reporters to describe the technology’s early users.

Hernandez said some of that negativity has been directed at him, but he said journalists shouldn’t be so quick to judge Glass.

“When have we, as a journalism industry, ever benefited from dismissing emerging technologies?” he said.

Follow Jake New on Twitter at @eCN_Jake.

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