Sinan-gun Completes 'Island Village Youth Reporter School' with Google

Helping Island Village Youth Strengthen Global Network Capabilities in the Untact Era

Scenic view of Shinan-gun Office (Photo by Shinan-gun)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do conducted the ‘Island Village Youth Reporter School with Google’ program through online education using the Google Meet platform over the past four weeks.

According to Sinan-gun on the 1st, the program, in which island village youths simultaneously accessed the designated platform opened by Lee Seong-gyu, Teaching Fellow of Google Korea News Lab, and participated in non-face-to-face, interactive reporter classes, ended on the 26th of last month.

The 1st Island Village Youth Reporter School was held four times for one hour each week from the 5th to the 26th of last month, with students enrolled in high schools within Sinan-gun participating.

A total of nine students applied for this reporter school (6 from Dochodo High School, 2 from Sinan Marine Science High School, and 1 from Haewi High School), ranging from first to third grade.

The island village youth reporter school lectures were conducted in the order of Google Search and News (Creation), Fact-Checking and News (Creation), and Storytelling using Google Earth, and in the last session, an online discussion was held with the instructor and all participating students on becoming good reporters.

In particular, the reporter school students showed great interest during the ‘Fact-Checking’ session. They actively participated in learning how to distinguish countless unverified online information into objective facts using online platforms, and in the storytelling process of introducing or connecting their schools to the world using the Google Earth map-based program.

Myung Se-bin, a student attending Dochodo High School who took this island village youth reporter school, said, “Experiencing the process from fact verification to article writing using various curricula provided by Google’s global network made me feel like a reporter representing Sinan-gun.”

Teaching Fellow Lee Seong-gyu emphasized, “In today’s online information age with a flood of information, to become a good reporter, one must be faithful to the fundamental role of delivering facts as a reporter, but furthermore, it is necessary to collect chronological information from the past to the present about an incident and compare that ‘history’ to gather deep and detailed information as preparation.”

He added, “Case studies that enrich stories about facts can help readers obtain more information, and one should strive to become a journalist rather than just a reporter.”

Governor Park Woo-ryang said, “Despite the ongoing difficult situation due to the risk of COVID-19 resurgence and the busy period preparing for college entrance exams, the fact that all youth reporter school students were able to complete the course was due to their sincere hearts and passion to actively participate in the classes,” and added, “I hope this will serve as a foundation for growth through self-development.”

Sinan-gun plans to expand the scope of participants to include middle school students as well as high school students in consultation with Google Korea during the winter vacation, due to the favorable response to the 1st ‘Island Village Youth Reporter School with Google,’ and is considering opening and operating the 2nd reporter school program.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.