An online teaching guru told educators Friday that it doesn’t take a Web-savvy staff to teach Web journalism. Instead, Melinda 'Mindy' McAdams says educators just need to know what’s going on and make the distinction between what’s good and what’s bad.

Educators have to ask themselves "'What's the good journalism? What's a good way to tell a journalistic story?’ And then they have to teach the kids how to do that," said McAdams, the Knight chair for journalism technologies at the University of Florida. "And if the faculty does not know these things, either they have to learn or [the school has] to get more faculty."

McAdams, whose blog, "Teaching Online Journalism," received more than 8,000 hits per month in the "slow" summer, says the most common concern among educators is training and resources. McAdams said that, in addition to weak curricula, many of her readers are frustrated with ill-equipped departments and unsupportive administrations.

Readers are constantly saying, We don’t know how to do this stuff, so how can we teach it?" she said. "And the other thing is, 'We don’t have these cameras. We don’t have these audio recorders. We don’t have these microphones. We don’t have a lab. We don’t have the software. And we have no budget.'"

McAdams says departments will eventually overcome those obstacles by requiring students to buy less books and more equipment. Such a measure would allow students to apply equipment expenses to their financial aid packages and let educators focus on building stronger journalists.

-- Ashley Southall