Rob Park is the founder of the soon-to-be-launched Local Education Networked Newswire. He’ll be with us in Miami, and today he tells us about his new venture combining education and journalism:
My goal is to enhance education and journalism for a better-functioning democracy. Since most of the authority governing our schools happens at the local level, there is a disconnect with national news coverage of educational issues that grossly generalize the conditions of our local schools. Even local news fail to cover the hyper-local issues of individual schools most relevant to students, parents and tax-payers.

Local Education Networked Newswire (LENN) will provide a virtual public sphere allowing citizens to participate in the affairs of public education through Social Network Technology (SNT). Parents, students and educators will share pertinent information that explores the daily functioning of their school. This network will strengthen community bonds that revolve around each particular school, allowing for greater participation in education.

Of course, social networks and increased conversations can only lead to a better educational system if the content of the communication contains the best available data. A content-management system (CMS) will aggregate relevant information, in the form of public documents, research, news outlets, etc., enhancing these conversations.

To better effect change, LENN will also provide a professional staff of editors and journalists to create stories for a general audience. These professionals can also assist amateur journalists to create original content available to other news outlets. The staff will also provide a personal presence at the schools, encouraging participation where it is needed the most.

Original content created by journalists using the SNT and the CMS will correct the framing of traditional news media. This bottom-to-top flow of information better reflects democratic values and provides empowering information.

These systems will affect each other dynamically, providing the content generated by the CMS and SNT in a user-friendly environment managed by LENN personnel. To the user, it will feel like a clean, education-focused version of MySpace.

I hope to meet like-minded people to share information and experience. But more importantly I want to make projects happen. All the necessary communication tools are now in place. We need people to start using these tools to create a more enlightened society.

Having recently graduated with my MA in journalism/mass communications and assisting with a start-up company in interactive news media, I feel qualified to bring information to the table that may catalyze new media projects. Furthermore, I believe there are new colleagues to meet and much wisdom to be gained from this conference.