Step into the Newsroom: Using ThingLink to Teach Observational Reporting

Have you ever wanted to take your students behind the scenes of a live, bustling television network, but lacked the budget or permission to do so? As part of my initiative to bring immersive journalism into our classrooms, I have designed a new interactive digital learning object: The 360° Virtual Newsroom Experience. 
by Nathan Ulrey

Purpose and Learning Objective  
The purpose of this learning object is to provide students with a simulated field trip to a live broadcast studio, allowing them to practice observational reporting without ever leaving the computer lab. The specific learning objective is: Students will be able to identify key roles within a broadcast newsroom (e.g., anchor, floor director, teleprompter operator) and successfully record three detailed environmental observations to use in a mock news feature. 

Content and Interactivity  
Using ThingLink, I created a 360-degree interactive environment of a major news studio. As students pan around the room, they encounter glowing "hotspots." Clicking these icons reveals short, embedded descriptions, images, and videos of newsroom elements. Rather than passively watching a video about journalism, students must actively navigate the space to uncover the clues required for their reporting assignment. 

Accessibility, Reusability, and Integration  
When selecting a design tool, it was crucial to find software that catered to diverse learners. ThingLink offers accessibility features, including Microsoft’s Immersive Reader, which provides text-to-speech options and translates hotspot text into multiple languages. 

Furthermore, this tool is highly reusable. According to the ACE (2023), learning objects are most effective when they are self-contained units that can be endlessly remixed or reused without being "consumed" (p. 1). I can easily update the hotspots each semester to reflect current news stories, or change them as new sources become available. In terms of interoperability, the ThingLink object generates a simple HTML embed code, meaning it integrates flawlessly directly into our Canvas LMS (and into this blog post). Students don't need to create separate accounts or navigate away from our main course page. 

The "Why" Behind the Design  
DLOs like this are vital for transitioning to modern, student-centered teaching practices (Santos et al., 2022). By allowing students to explore the newsroom autonomously, we are doing more than just teaching vocabulary; we are providing a pedagogical hook. Research shows that interactive learning environments help clear up students' doubts and reduce their "fear of the unknown" when approaching daunting new tasks, like their first observational reporting assignment (Dumitrica & Jarmula, 2022, pp. 2-3). 

Try It Yourself!  
I would love for you to test out the simulation and consider how you might use 360-degree environments in your own subjects. 

Access Instructions:

• Click the image below. Click and drag your mouse to look around the room, and be sure to click on the blue "target" icons to interact with the content! 
• You can create your own DLO like this one with ThingLink.

​References 

American College of Education. (2023). Designing learning objects [Transcript]. Canvas. 

Dumitrica, D., & Jarmula, P. (2022). Teaching qualitative research methods in media and communication: The benefits and limitations of digital learning objects. The Qualitative Report, 27(9), 1934–1951. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5256 

Santos, A. I., Costa, A. C., Botelho, A. Z., Parente, M. I., Cascalho, J., Freitas, D., Behr, A., Rodrigues, A., & Mendes, A. B. (2022). Learning objects in the educational context: The perspective of teachers in the Azores. Education Sciences, 12(5), Article 309. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050309