Introducing…the Knight-Mozilla learning lab

Some of the lab participants (via P2PU.org)

This past week saw the launch of the learning lab — the outcome of a series of innovation challenges organized through the Knight-Mozilla partnership. I joined Mozilla’s News Innovation Specialist Phillip Smith to co-lead the four-week online course (woot!).  We are supported by a dream team of advisors:  Emily Bell, Director of Digital Journalism at Columbia U and former Director of Digital Content Director at The Guardian;  Sarah Cohen, Knight Chair in Computational Journalism at Duke U; and Rich Gordon, Professor and Director of Digital Innovation, at Northwestern U.

Like the innovation challenges which took place over the last several months, the focus of the course is to get developers and journalists to think outside the proverbial box when it comes to journalism and communications technologies.  To that end, the lab brings together technology and news visionaries who have been changing the face of the industry.

In addition to lectures and dialogues with these thought leaders, course participants are developing their own projects and pitching these as part of the final outcome of the lab. Then, Mozilla will be shortlisting 20 of these folks for a four day hackfest in Berlin.

The first week of the course featured renowned interface designer Aza Raskin,  and Burt Herman, CEO of Storify.com and founder of Hacks/Hackers,  providing tips and insight on the early stages of launching a project; then, New York Times Graphics Editor, Amanda Cox,  showed us how to creatively identify and express hidden information in large datasets, and convey it in a visually compelling way.

We’ve got 60 really outstanding participants from around the world taking part in the lab; over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging about their projects and progress, both here on my blog and on Planet MoJo.

Interested in following the course and tracking the thoughts and ideas of our bevy of brilliants? No problem! Start an account with P2PU.org and join us! All lectures are recorded and archived there.

And, you can also follow us at your favourite social sites via #MozNewsLab…we love feedback!

The Knight-Mozilla learning lab on Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU.org).