An Eye-Opening Experience

I came into this class, read that the class would be focused on the use of social media for communication and immediately became skeptical of the concept. I thought I already knew everything there was to know about social media and how it was used to communicate. I thought I would breeze through the class with no issues but I was very, very wrong. I came into the class believing that social media was for catching up with your friends online, posting silly comments about your daily activities and thoughts; generally, I thought social media was just a medium for people to be self-indulging. From where did I get this idea? Who planted this idea in my head? I’m not sure but I have a feeling it was my own prejudices towards social media and my limited knowledge about social media that led me to be so narrow minded.

Hull, D. (2009). PLoS: The Public Library of Science

 [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.

flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3928195989/

This class forced me to be open minded and I really appreciate that. In the very first week we were asked to open a Twitter account and start a blog, two things I’d never touched before this class. This was only the beginning. Every class after that I was being informed of some type of social media that I’d never heard of before such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Blog. Out of all the sites I was introduced to, I think this particular site had the largest impact on me. In class we were directed to a blog called Neurotribes which integrates science and culture. They have blog posts about many different topics but they also have a recently, reoccurring theme on Autism where they provide their views on how society is handling (or not handling) this topic. This particular blog has nothing to do with the author’s daily activities or minute-to-minute updates on their every move. This blog has everything to do with important scientific topics that are currently circulating our society. I had never known about the PLoS blog and yet upon entering this class I thought I knew it all. I was so wrong!

Once our class got to the topic of verbal communication, speeches, and presentation skills I (again) had the nerve to think I already knew everything there was to giving a great speech or presentation. You would think by this time I would have clued in not to be so presumptuous, but no, not yet. MC, a TA, opened my eyes to an entirely different way to give a speech or presentation. She spoke about the amount of information that should go on a slide as well as the importance of fonts and colors and the effects your choice can have on your audience. MC went in-depth and highlighted quite a few things I’d never given a thought. Once MC was finished her presentations I was pretty humbled by my lack of knowledge in general. I decided it was time to listen and learn.

From that point on I sat in class and learned as much as I could about the uses of different social mediums. I no longer think I know it all when it comes to using social media and I no longer believe that social media is a vacuum for self-indulgence. Yes, chatting with friends and posting updates about daily activities is one aspect of social media but, it’s not the beginning and end. Social media is used in so many aspects of business, science and culture. Our class dabbled in as much as we could in the time we had and I think it did a pretty good job. One of the biggest appreciations I have for this class was the integration of CSL. As I mentioned in my previous post, CSL gave me the opportunity to apply what I learned in this class in the community. Being able to do this further emphasized the uses of social media and opened my mind that much more. Thanks to ALES 204 for asking me to do things I wouldn’t have attempted on my own and educating me way more than I thought it could.

Finally, check out Marisa’s blog for her experience with this class.

Blogs I’ve commented on include

Kendra’s ALES 204 Blog

The Bacon Enthusiast

Social Media

Welcome

Ales 204 – Evelyn’s Blog

Green Hectares - Community Service Learning Placement

Kovacs, S. (2009). Communicate! [Photograph]. Retrieved 

from http://www.flickr.com/photos/rekasara/5535507597/

My placement with Green Hectares was a great learning experience, possibly more than I originally thought. Community Service Learning (CSL) aims to integrate learning done in classrooms with experiences in the community. My experience with CSL demonstrated this very well. Many aspects of communication I learned about in ALES 204 I integrated into my project. My placement did challenge me in many ways such as learning to use online communication tools, learning to sift through the multitudes of information on the web to find relevant and useful resources and improving my verbal communication skills. Thankfully, many of the challenges I faced in my placement were made easier by different lectures I had in ALES 204. Very early in the semester our class taught us how to use social media sites professionally as well as to search for important, relevant and reliable material. We were taught to be critically literate! This came into great use during my placement.

My coordinator, partner and I used Basecamp to communicate and bring the project together. Basecamp is an online tool used by companies to manage projects and it allows different people to collaborate on projects in progress. Although we did not look at Basecamp in our class, we did talk about the many benefits of coordinating online and how companies have been pushing for more and more online content. Basecamp is just one more way in which the online department of companies is growing. Through Basecamp we were able to work on our CSL project on our own time, in our own spaces and everyone was able to watch the project progress every step of the way. I think this way of doing the project was very valuable since university students often have packed schedules which can make it hard to do projects in groups and in person. Green Hectares also takes advantage of Facebook, Twitter, and their own website. Their website offers a great deal of information about the organization, it’s purpose and how to get involved. Their Facebook page is mostly used to share different videos, blogs and articles about agriculture, agricultural business, communication, presenting ideas and extra tidbits of information about themselves. Finally, their Twitter account offers many different links to websites designed to educate people on how to effectively communicate and pitch their ideas. This aspect was the core of our project.

Sparklefish (2006). Group work [Photograph]. 

       Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/

       38795936@N00/308014588/

Our project focused on traditional styles of communication presented through modern communication forms. We developed a tip sheet for entrepreneurs consisting of 5 points centered on in-person communication (confident, effective public speaking and presentation tools) and all points were supplemented with online resources. We searched for online resources very carefully, selecting only those that were relevant to our points and those that came from reliable resources. In our ALES 204 class we learned how to sift through information on the internet, be critical of what we find and to always dig deeper into resources we think we’ll use. I used these skills when searching for online resources to supplement my points. These points are meant to help agricultural entrepreneurs develop and present their ideas to experts but the points are also broad enough to help all aspiring entrepreneurs. I won’t give too much away here, you’ll have to watch our Pecha Kucha presentation on April 13^th in our ALES 204 class!

CSL is a very valuable aspect of the ALES 204 class and I found the project really allowed me to apply my learning to a real life experience. Had I not done the CSL portion of the class I know I would still be wondering exactly how I’d used my ALES 204 knowledge. 

In response to my last post about the Edmonton Humane Society I'd like to direct you to Lauren's blog which has a great post about Dogs with Wings (a group I've mentioned before) and how they've helped our community, just like the EHS.