As I watched the KentInPrague site grow and had my students choose dates for blogging while they’re in country, I decided they shouldn’t have all the fun. So… here I’ll keep track of my own observations and reactions.

“To what?” you might ask. To two weeks in Prague, Czech Republic. Let me back up and explain. Dr. Catherine Goodall and I are starting an adventure with10 students from the Schools of Communication and Information and Journalism and Mass Communication. Each has selected a topic of interest on the general theme, “Modern Media and Democracy.” Each has been exploring this for the past three weeks of daily classes on the Kent State campus and will be prepared to do more research and interviews as they produce either a final multimedia story or a research paper.

Topics range from media coverage of the Romanies (gypsies), which sounds eerily like issues with reporting about blacks in the U.S., to trust of media in the two countries, to media campaigns about smoking. The students’ ideas are intriguing, and the possibilities are endless.

That is, if we can meet the challenge of having cell phones that keep us connected — and don’t cost a gazillion dollars, if we can all get some money exchanged to Czech crowns at a decent rate, and if we can pack for everything from a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to a somewhat hands-on boot camp at a military university like the ones they conduct for soon-to-be-embedded journalists.

The trip runs from Aug. 3 – 18, but immersion in the process is in full swing. Tomorrow I’ll share the joys of packing when too many years of bicycle touring has turned me into a I-can-pack-less-than-you-can sort of snob. Well…I probably can.

Then there’s the burning question: Will I still keep the lovely leather journal I bought for this trip, or is this blog my only way to capture the moment? We’ll see…