Speaking on Radio Taught Online

Written by Dr. Marcela Moyano

Miramar –Students of the Communications and Mass Media program of United International College enrolled in the Speaking on Radio course during the Summer term and embarked on a challenging journey to learn how to announce and manage their voice through UIC’s distance learning modality due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“When I was offered to teach this course, I immediately knew it was going to be a challenge. I teach audio editing and voice announcing in this course. I was excited about embracing this challenge and getting the best out of it” Dr. Marcela Moyano, course’s professor. 

UIC has an audio studio equipped with a radio station for students to practice their learning. Since this group of students was not going to enjoy the benefits of learning in this state of the art facility, UIC’s communications program administration had to ensure that students would have all necessary equipment to learn. 

Therefore, each student enrolled in the course received by mail a USB Cardioid Digital Condenser Microphone for their practice and production work. In addition, they all were given access to the Adobe Creative Cloud All Application and downloaded Adobe Audition CC for their audio editing needs. 

The course began and Dr. Moyano started teaching them through UIC’s Online Campus successfully instructing breathing and voice management techniques, and audio editing. The course methodology implemented exceeded students’ expectations and students were excited to have their own equipment at home. 

Week seven of the eleven-week course, was a memorable one. Students premiered their South Florida Mosaic radio show, in which pieces of News were featured by Martha Rodriguez, Arts by Daniela del Valle, and Culture by Carolina Portilla. The show was live streamed on Facebook and had five episodes. The show also featured Stephany Jimenez, the creator of The Bird Movement; Santiago del Valle, Production Manager; and Valentina Bilbao, a world acclaimed visual artist. The South Florida Mosaic concluded with live streaming of students’ audio stories on the last episode of the season. 

The South Florida Mosaic Season

Also, the charismatic radio talent Tamara Gant, mostly known in South Florida as Tamara G. and co-host of mornings on 101.5 Lite FM with Julie Guy, known for their long running show as “Those Two Girls in the Morning,” visited the virtual class and inspired the students to follow a career on the radio industry. Tamara shared with students her experience and passion on radio and demonstrated some announcing techniques she had implemented that same week. Students applied some of her news writing and announcing tips in the upcoming radio shows. 

 

 

The course concluded with an hour session with WLRN anchor and voice talent Christine DiMattei. In preparation for her lecture, she shared with Dr. Moyano scripts to be distributed to each student. On the day of her class, students role play being professional announcers with DiMattei. She introduced them as reporters and they would read each of the scripts. Then, she would critique their delivery and emphasize ways of improvement. At the end of the class, students were confident and excited that they had received a private lesson from a talented, acclaimed, and numerous award winning professional. 

UIC’s focus is on hands-on education and this course is a clear example of how UIC embraces technology and creativity to provide students with most enriching learning experiences. 

Learn more about the Communications and Mass Media program


Crafting a Public Relations Campaign Proposal

Miramar, FL- On April 6, 2020, seven UIC students started taking PUR 301: Introduction to Public Relations taught by Dr. Marcela Moyano. The course began only two weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine and was delivered online through UIC’s Online Campus.

The first weeks of the course students learned the fundamental concepts of Public Relations, which prepared them to develop a Public Relations Campaign Proposal for their startups or a client’s company.

Students carefully identified a Campaign Overarching Objective, the publics that were going to be targeted in this campaign and specific goals, strategies, tactics and key messages. They developed a campaign budget and calendar, and finalized their campaigns with an evaluation instrument to assess the success of their campaign.

On May 4th, Jessica Levy, founder and president of Levy, a public relations, events, and social media agency, virtually visited the class and shared with UIC students her experience as an expert in the field. She shared with them examples of initiatives executed with her clients that demonstrated the value of public relations. As a result of this talk with Jessica, students were able to understand the nature of the field and picture themselves as PR practitioners.

On May 25, students submitted the first part of the P.R. Campaign Proposal. They continued editing their work and adding to their proposal on a weekly basis. On June 15, they were ready to deliver their final presentations. Daniela Del Valle, prepared a campaign for her audio visual company, DVSA Corp, and invited her partner, Santiago Del Valle to listen to her final presentation and give her feedback.

Martha Rodriguez prepared a campaign for ATR Group, a real estate agency. After much thought and feedback from the professor and classmates, she successfully completed her campaign. On the day of her presentation, she shared with the class that ATR Group was already implementing some of the proposed tactics in her campaign.

“I am a graphic designer and now I study Communications & Media at United International College. This term I took the Public Relations class with Professor Marcela Moyano. I am so impressed because I had never imagined how much I could learn. For the final project we had to make a public relations campaign proposal for a company, I chose to do it for a team of real estate agents. It was incredible and hard work because I had to do a careful investigation of the team on its public, competitors, mission, vision, and then design the proposal with a main objective and three goals with excellent strategies, tactics and messages to reach them. I really enjoyed doing it. I was able to learn more than I ever imagined.”

Renata Diniz, developed a P.R. Campaign Proposal on her company Tasty Bites. As most of the students, she also did a wonderful job crafting her tactics and coming up with creative ideas to engage new customers.

All the course was delivered through UIC’s online classroom, The Big Blue Button, which facilitated and enhanced student interaction through break out rooms.  Students truly embraced technology and excelled at it! This can be appreciated through their public relations campaign proposals.

Learn more about UIC Communications and Mass Media Programs 


Stichiz Talks to UIC Communication Students on Radio Unilatina USA 

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Post by  Alix Paez

Stichiz Talks to UIC Communication Students on Radio Unilatina USA 

On May 04, 2019, the Communication and Mass Media students of UIC enrolled in the Speaking on Radio course with Professor Michael Greci interviewed Stichiz for their radio show. Stichiz is a trilingual international award-winning entertainer and artist on the rise published across the globe. Stichiz is passionate about music and is an amazing radio personality.

During her visit to UIC, students not only learned about radio related topics, but also were inspired to strive toward achieving their goals at all cost. They were also motivated to be more creative in the ways to become successful.

Students were honored by receiving her amazing book “Tu Es Belle: You Are Beautiful: Abby’s Great Day” as a gift, which has positive messages for kids and adults as well. This extraordinary book is available through Amazon.

Students were able to learn about her and her personality through her interview on the radio show. She said that she started writing since she was 9 year old and she is already planning to write another great book.

Listen to her Radio Interview