Educate, Entertain, Inform: UTM Students Leveraging Smartphones and Social Media, Creating Content as Awani Rangers

12 December 2017: A full-day training programme with Astro Awani journalist, Hilal Azmi, was carried out in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Johor Bahru to develop the necessary skills for students to become UTM Awani Rangers. The programme, which was organised by the Centre of Community and Industry Network (CCIN) in collaboration with Language Academy, aimed to provide students opportunities to enhance soft skills, gain professional media content practice, engage with community, and create content to be published on an online platform provided by Astro Awani.

A total of 86 students from 12 faculties signed up for the programme with 76 undergraduates and ten postgraduates, including 12 international students from seven countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq). WhatsApp Group Chat has been created and is in use to sustain the community of UTM Awani Rangers and to support other students who could not attend all the sessions due to classes and other academic commitments.

The programme, which was hosted at Language Academy, UTM Johor Bahru, provided students an overview of independent and mobile journalism, with self, social media and smartphone as tools. The first half of the programme also entailed students interacting with Astro Awani newscaster, Ashwad Ismail, in a live question and answer session, and culminated in the students engaging with both on and off campus communities, collecting facts and opinions, to create content in the form of texts, photos and videos, completely immersed in the role of an Awani Ranger.

In the second half of the programme, Hilal Azmi reviewed the content produced by students and engaged them into thinking and discovering other ways to make their stories better, while the Deputy Director of UTM Corporate Affairs, Dr Abdullah Mohd Nawi, briefed them about rights and responsibilities, autonomy and accountability as UTM students. The pinnacle of the event was the prize-giving and appreciation session where two UTM students were awarded the Best UTM Awani Rangers; Sakeshraj Narajah of the Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, who is also the President of the UTM Aces Toastmasters Club, won for the male category, and Nur Adnin Alwany binti Abd Razak of the Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering for the female category.

For more information on UTM Awani Rangers for UTM Johor Bahru campus, contact Associate Prof Dr Johari Surif, CCIN Director at johari_surif@utm.my, or Dr Farhana Diana Deris, Senior Lecturer, Language Academy at diana@utm.my.

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