Exercise 1

Take any one of the research tools and use it to research a news story. Try different story types, e.g. breaking news, analysis, op-ed.

Write a short reflection on what worked and did not work. Provide us with feedback by putting your reflection into the comments below the appropriate tool.

Exercise 2

Take any one of the production tools (we suggest Storify or Timeline JS) and, using one of your own news stories or an existing news story in the world, produce an accompanying resource intended to deepens a consumer’s understanding of the range of social media responses (Storify) or the genesis and development of ideas (Timeline JS).

Send us a link to your product (or story and product) to be included in our tool reports and add to the growing body of resources.

Exercise 3

Use any one of the publicity tools to track the reach of one or your own stories or an existing news story (harder). Try to determine what kinds of stories and accompanying tweets, facebook posts, etc. get retweeted or shared.

Experiment with different forms of social media sharing and come to understand how each works using a tool. Provide us with feedback by putting your reflection into the comments below the appropriate tool.

Exercise 4

Write a tool report in the style of the research tools, production tools, or publicity tools on this site. Send it to us to be included in the growing body of resources.

Exercise 5

Use the list of science social media feeds to rapidly develop a list (with a hierarchy) of likely feeds useful for breaking or deepening three different kinds of news stories.

Write a rationale for the list member. Send us your list and rationale to be included in the growing body of resources.

Exercise 6

Use one of the research tools or publicity tools, or a news aggregation app (such as Mr Reader or Reeder for RSS, Flipboard, News360, or a social media aggregation app such as Bottlenose or Hootsuite) to create a personalised list of (a) tool news (starting with resources at the bottom of Tips on promoting your work via social media) and (b) sources (starting with the list of science social media feeds).

Write a report on (a) tracking the development of a particular story or (b) the members and rationale for your list. Send us your report to be included in the growing body of resources.