MCCC to Debut New App for PR Students

Writing for Public Relations campaigns?

There’s an app for that. If not, there may be soon.

Thomas Donlan, assistant professor of speech communication at Montgomery County Community College, is featuring Apple’s iPads in his Writing for Public Relations Campaigns course this fall.

The hybrid course will be conducted mostly online, according to a MCCC press release. The course is intended to provide the social media skills students need as they either enter the communications field, update their skills in their current jobs, or as they pursue their careers.

As part of the course, students will come to class in the middle of the semester to participate in a four-session writers’ workshop, using the new Apple iPads.

“Tablet technology is a game-changer,” Donlan said in an e-mail interview. “Handheld technology like iPods and smart phones were game changers for marketing and advertising, but not so much for PR because public relations messages are still primarily text driven.”

iPads facilitate those text-driven messages.

“But they also force us to think more visually because that is the norm on tablets. Messages written for display on iPads, or any type of tablet technology require visual components to supplement the written word,” Donlan said. “Graphics are the norm.”

Tablet technology opens up the world of apps for PR practitioners, Donlan said, but it also creates opportunities for collaboration between PR students and information technology students. Donlan said he is coordinating a partnership with the college's app development class so his PR students can create ideas for their clients which might be shared with students in the app development class.

It’s one thing to teach about the principles of using social media, but allowing students to master social media in class by using iPads is more effective, he said. 

“Students need the opportunity to use the latest technology to understand it and get to know it well enough to use it successfully,” Donlan said.

The iPads were acquired thanks to a multiple-year gift from an anonymous donor. The ongoing gift will initially be used to purchase iPads and a cart to house and recharge them.

Although the course is new to MCCC, Donlan taught a similar course at Illinois State University.

“The real payoff of this course for the students and me is that students are working with clients that really need the extra help to promote their services and events," Donlan said. "At ISU, most of my students worked with nonprofit organizations that do so many great things for the community.”

Perhaps the only downside to the online courses is that students and their professor do not meet face-to-face at every class.

“I have grown used to not having regular contact with my students,” Donlan said. “While I do prefer meeting with my students regularly, the only way for the college to meet the demand for a community college education that has been created by the downturn in the economy is to offer more online and hybrid classes.”