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This communication presents the results of a project funded by the University of the Basque Country and developed by the group specialized in educational innovation (KZBerri), focused on the teaching-learning processes in subjects related to cyber journalism. This professional and knowledge field represents one of the main engines of the advancement and pedagogical renewal that the curricula in Communication have been experiencing in the last two decades, reform that in Europe was materialized in 2010 with the implementation of the European Space of Higher Education (EHEA). The University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU) was a pioneer in this renovation by introducing the optional subject “Electronic Journalism” in 1996 and, later, in 2010, the subject “Cyber ​​Journalistic Writing”, common for its three grades in Social Communication (Journalism, Advertising and Audiovisual Communication). This course-subject has become a nursery of didactic innovation and since 2017 it has been subject to the application of various innovative teaching methodologies. The paper examines one of these methodologies, based on the virtual international collaboration between UPV / EHU students and students from leading Ibero-American universities in cyber journalism, specifically, the Brazilian Mato Grosso do Sul and Pirauí, and the Portuguese Beira Interior and Porto . During the first semester of the 2018/2019 academic year, these students were organized into five working groups, each consisting of two Brazilian students, two Portuguese and one Basque, who jointly and in depth developed information coverages for development. of multimedia web only stories. For the analysis of the experience, several qualitative methods have been applied (student and teacher surveys, discussion group and interaction analysis for virtual collaboration). The results offered by the paper shed light to understand the advantages and disadvantages derived from the introduction of factors such as virtual collaboration for internationalization at home (IaH) (Crowther et al., 2000; Harrison, 2005; Knight, 2007; Holmes & O’Neill, 2012) and the promotion of multilingualism (Ishikura, 2015) in an area such as cyber journalism. Fundamentally, they allow us to recognize whether, as in other areas, the teaching of cyber journalism can converge today at the international level (Latin America) and in what aspects.

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This paper focuses on the challenges of teaching Internet-based communications, an inherently difficult task given the rapid pace of technological innovation in the discipline. The analysis it offers has been based on the findings of empirical studies conducted over the past five years by KZBerri, a University of the Basque Country-based research group focused on teaching innovation in Web journalism courses that form part of the curricula of the school’s undergraduate journalism, audiovisual communication, and advertising and public relations degree programmes. The authors highlight two online journalism teaching innovation initiatives, one entailing a collaboration between students and media professionals, and the other entailing online collaboration between groups of students pursuing undergraduate communication degrees at universities located in Spain, Portugal and Brazil.

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This paper includes the results of two Teaching Innovation Projects in the field of Journalism, in which, in order to develop internationalization skills in the subject “On-line Journalistic Writing”, students from different universities have worked together to create multimedia reports.

In the first edition, in the academic year 2017/2018, the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS, Brazil) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU, Spain) took part in this project; in the second year -2018/2019- three more universities  joined: Universidad Federal do Piauí (Brazil), Universidad da Beira Interior and Universidade do Porto (Portugal).

The objectives of this project have been to develop students’ journalistic criteria and writing skills, and  to train their online community management and multimedia language abilities. Likewise, the project has sought to provide students with an international learning experience, following “internalization at home” (IaH) experiences. This relatively new concept in academia (Harrison, 2015) puts students in the mind of having an international experience without taking part in a mobility program. The first definitions were based on the promotion of plurality and interculturality (Crowther et al., 2000), but broadly speaking, it is also understood as any international minded experience at university, excluding mobility (Nilsson, 2003).

Among the main outcomes of these projects, and in accordance with the surveys carried out by the students, we can conclude that this internationalization experience contributes to achieve competences and skills of the subject, helping students to interact with remote audiences, and increasing their motivation and activity. Moreover, developing a common multimedia report in virtual groups with students of five universities has helped to include (or strengthen) the international or intercultural competencies in their curriculum.

ECREA Education Trial and Error Conference Salzburg 2019

The changes that are taking place in society and higher education in recent years require innovative teaching methodologies, so that students go beyond memorizing concepts or ideas and can perform analysis in a critical or responsible way (Mujica, 2012). Moreover, when these changes occur equally in the development of the profession to which our students aspire to reach.

Often, proposals for educational innovation are limited to the introduction of digital tools in learning processes (Sánchez and Fernández, 2015), although some people criticize that it is limited to the incorporation of ICTs into the education system (Lafuente y Lara, 2013). As pointed out by Magro y Cabello (2013), although technology plays an important role in this change, the main role will be played by people, more specifically, students.

Beyond tools and new technologies, it is necessary to apply training itineraries according to the social and cultural changes derived from the technological and the digital. This new context allows students a way of working oriented to achieve goals (Himanen, 2004) and their greater involvement in the tasks (Del Moral et al, 2014), assuming the responsibility of their learning and at the same time maintaining the motivation through different strategies (Winne, 1995, Wolters, 1998). Educating in this new scenario means developing in the students competences linked to social and ethical elements (Folgueiras and Martínez, 2009, Martínez, 2010), through a collaborative learning that emphasizes the construction of knowledge and not its simple transmission (Keating, 1998).

This communication analyses the application of the methodology of Project-Based Learning (PBL) as a new strategy for the subject “Online Journalistic Writing”, and the opinion that students have of its application in class. This subject focuses on the formation of a specific journalistic criterion for work in the cybermedia and in the development of editorial skills complementary to those of print and audiovisual media. In this way, it gives special relevance to the capacity and ability to plan and produce messages according to the differentiating characteristics of the cyberjournalistic language (hypertextuality, multimedia and interactivity) and to the conventions, principles and narrative functions of journalistic genres on the Internet.

PBL is a teaching strategy in which students, organized in groups, develop projects based on real situations (Boss and Krauss, 2007, Bender, 2012, Patton, 2012, Garrigós and Valero-García, 2012). They plan, develop and evaluate projects that go beyond the classroom and aim to have an impact in the real world.

ECREA Education Trial and Error Conference Salzburg 2019