DepEd pushes digital literacy in campus journalism

The Department of Education will test the digital literacy of thousands of budding reporters and writers in grade schools and high schools across the country in the run-up to and during the actual conduct of the nation’s largest gathering of campus journalists in April next year. A new group competition category on “collaborative publishing" will highlight the adoption of the “Promoting Digital Literacy Through Campus Journalism" theme of the 2012 National Schools Press Conference (NSPC), which was set for April 9 – 13. Regional contingents are allowed to have up to 107 elementary school delegates and 107 high school contestants. That will bring to 3,672 the total number of student delegates from all the country’s 17 regions. The regional competitions will be held from October to December this year. Digital media In the collaborative publishing contest, teams of seven will be tasked to produce a four-page tabloid using Microsoft Publisher software. The seven group members must be delegates fielded in any of the various national individual contests. The published output of the teams will be uploaded to the official NSPC website. The 2012 NSPC (the full details of which can be found here) will have individual contests in Editorial Writing, Feature Writing, News Writing, Sports Writing, Editorial Cartooning, Photojournalism, and Copyreading & Headline Writing. The contests will have English and Filipino categories. Contest rules ban the use of digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras and other high-end cameras in the photojournalism contest. The group contest on Scriptwriting and Radio Broadcasting will also have teams of seven who will write and produce five-minutes of radio newscast. The pre-NSPC group contests for best pages will be in February next year. — TJD, GMA News