Way up in the mountains, nestled in the sleepy town of Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival shines out as an annual beacon showcasing the best of independent film in a sea of mediocre mainstream releases. Each year, filmmakers, composers, actors and marketers make the pilgrimage to Utah to soak up two weeks of workshops, networking and films. Sure, movie buffs love Sundance — but what lessons does the festival have to teach journalists? Read on.

This is one of a series of blog posts from the first ONA class of MJ Bear Fellows describing their experiences and sharing their knowledge with the community. Fellow Laura Amico, along with her husband, Chris, is the founder and editor of Homicide Watch D.C. in Washington, D.C., a website that covers every homicide in the nation’s capital, and includes news, obituaries, profiles, court documents and memorials.

On the afternoon of Dec. 30, I was sitting in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) command center with more than a dozen other journalists waiting for Chief Cathy Lanier and Mayor Vincent Gray to arrive.

They had called the New Year’s Eve press conference to talk about the year in crime and policing, and, in part, to talk about MPD’s incredible 94 percent homicide case closure in 2011. It’s a good thing the closure rate was listed in the press packet that was handed out; if it hadn’t been, I would have thought that I misheard the number.

It’s hard out here for an Android user.

All your friends with Apple products just go on and on about the eleventy-billion apps in their freaking store (425,000, to be precise). Am I using Flipboard? No! Did I download that awesome Nike women training app? No! But the bane of my existence has been Instagram, which might as well be the little app that could. Everyone loves this app that makes all your photos look cool and interesting – even if you’re just shooting a cup on a table. And they even have an e-card maker called Lovestagram, created by Kaitlyn Trigger, who (fun fact) is dating Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger.

It’s so cool! But guess what? No Instagram for Android. I’m starting to feel like the Jan Brady of the tech world. “Apple, Apple, Apple!”

This post is one of a series of blog posts from the first ONA class of MJ Bear Fellows describing their experiences, projects and sharing their knowledge with the ONA community. Fellow Lucas Timmons is a data journalist and web producer for The Edmonton Journal in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Data journalism can be very compelling. Stitched with a good narrative, it can tell one amazing story. But we can do better than that. We can also visualize the data and provide a great package. With that in mind, here are three free options for creating animated and interactive charts.

Google charts API

Google offers great, free and easy chart building tools. There are 14 different types of visualizations in all to choose from, including bar charts, bubble charts, treemaps, gauges and tables.

The charts can be made interactive or static and used in print as well as online. Google also provides a quick start guide so designers can get up and running. All the code is included — just modify it to suit your needs.

Google tries to make this very simple and accessible. Even if your knowledge of HTML and JavaScript is limited, you should be able to use Google charts easily.

City noise fills the street as you wait in line for a small box of food. An argument breaks out over the last of the food distributions. A man collapses right in front of you, and you stand there suspended in time. You can’t do a thing to help.

Created by Nonny de la Peña, “Hunger in Los Angeles” is a 3D retelling of a scene outside of a Los Angeles food bank housed in a church. It’s the kind of scene we read about every day in newspapers, but the virtual audio and visual put you right into the world, seemingly while it is happening.

The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.

• Salon sees a huge boost in traffic while publishing less.
• Lauren Wolf notes that no one is telling male reporters to stay home.
• The New York Times reports that street photographers are facing challenges shooting.

Current Location: Frederick, MD USA
Current Gig: Freelance aviation/travel journalist and blogger; spokeswoman for non-profit aviation association (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association)
Member Since: March 2010
Six-word memoir: Keep diversity in journalism despite odds
Favorite fictional character: Uhura from “Star Trek.” (In describing her character to the suits at NBC, creator Gene Roddenberry said, “I wanted to put a little color on the bridge.”
Favorite tech tool: My iPhone 4 (you’ll have to pull it from my cold, dead hand)

This is one of a series of blog posts from the first ONA class of MJ Bear Fellows describing their experiences and sharing their knowledge with the community. Fellow Lam Thuy Vo is a multimedia journalist based in New York.

Animations are in! International organizations, advocacy groups and journalists have come to embrace motion graphics as a means to explain complicated issues. And I’ve come to love them, too.

For a project on privacy issues, my friend and investigative journalist Stokely Baksh and I created this animation:

A joint collaboration between Matt Thompson of NPR, Amanda Michel of the Guardian US, Andrew Pergam of The Washington Post, ONA Board member and Webbmedia Group CEO Amy Webb, and Jenny 8. Lee, Spark Camp is a grand experiment in journalism. Taking the form of an unconference, works by inviting 50 journalists (and colleagues from other field), having them each invite one person to the conversation, and seeing what develops during a massive meet up in a select city. The invite process is fairly mysterious — the organizers work hard to find an interesting mix of people, but don’t share their secret sauce for the initial picks. Spark Camp is sponsored, so outside of travel and accommodations, the event is free.

Fueled by a desire to remake journalism (and massive amounts of sugar), Spark Campers spend 48 charged hours tackling the issues of the day. Here are four takeaways from two Spark Camps that have been held so far:

1. Choose a Theme for the Quarter

Each Spark Camp has a core theme. The first gathering in New York was called “Real Time,” and the goal was to explore how instant communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook have changed how we understand, create and source news content. The second meetup, in Texas, focused on the emerging role data plays in journalism. Selecting a theme allows for attendees to really explore a topic in depth while still allowing for a lot of different interpretations. The lesson: Working with a theme starts to center our often fragmented and frantic work lives. For a part of this year, try dedicating your career to a new theme — it could be anything from “learning to code” to “more creativity.”

The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.

• Does the Privacy Protection Act protect journalists using cloud storage?
• MSNBC’s Meg Robertson shows her mobile reporting kit.
• A breakdown of the questions asked during President Obama’s first Google+ Hangout.