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| Picture retrieved from personal collection |
Before I took this class I was skeptical of using social media sites. I had already committed to the facebook bandwagon and didn't see any need for me to consider jumping onto other wagons to. Now I kind of car pool with many social media sites and I'm not going to go back to only using facebook and email. Within the first few days of class we were required to make a twitter account to use to tweet about our thoughts on ALES 204 so that our prof could see how we felt about the lectures. I was so against it that I didn't create a twitter account right away. I thought that twitter was just people "tweeting" about what they were wearing, where they were going, and other boring aspects of their lives that I really didn't need to know about. But I've learnt that twitter can be a great way to access information about anything. I choose who I want to follow so that I only see tweets from the people that I'm interested in knowing about. With twitter I follow many veterinarians, associations, bands, and my favourite comedians. I enjoy being kept up to date on their lives and I learn from the educational tweets. I am a new fan of twitter and will keep using it to follow tweets, even though I may not tweet very often.
I have learnt about many other different social media sites such as Blogger, Linkedin and Flickr, as well as many ways to share information, such as through Google Docs and Audioboo. I love Google Docs it makes academic life easier, I never have to worry if my file will be compatible on another computer or if I have my USB with me.On top of online communication I learnt how to more effectively communicate with other people in reality. Standing up and giving a presentation to my peers scared me so much that I would always stumble on my words and my body would shake. I'm more comfortable with presenting now because I have learnt may helpful tips from my class. I learnt how to make an effective yet interesting PowerPoint. Using a large font, minimal text, more pictures, and practicing will make your presentation better. Before actually presenting do some stretches and vocal exercises to get your body ready, if your blood is flowing your less likely to get the shakes. I also learnt how to make a poster presentation as well. who knew that you could use PowerPoint to create a poster.
Writing a scientific article has become way more easier for me! I've learnt how to utilize all of the resources that the University of Alberta has to offer to their maximum potential. Finding a relative peer review journal article only takes me minutes when before it would take me hours. I know how to search and what to look for in an article, which as a student are skills I'm very happy to now possess. If I can't find what I'm looking for I can chat with a librarian online with a click and citing all the articles I reference in my work is ridiculously easy with RefWorks. I will never write a paper and not use RefWorks ever again, it simply amazing. Along with citing I learnt about creative commons and copyright. I had no idea there was more than one creative common, I only knew plagiarism was bad and now I know why. Peer review didn't seem that important to me either, I only paid attention to whether or not the article I chose has been peer reviewed or not I never cared about the actual process. Now I know about it and can't wait for open access to become more prominent, there's nothing worse then not being able to get an article.
When the time comes for me to create my CV and go for interviews I feel confident that I can do both. Did you know that you should wear red to an interview? Wearing red will help make sure that the interviewer remembers you. If you don't know where to start with making a CV google has many helpful templates that you can use, I know I'm probably going to use them.
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| Picture retrieved from personal collection |
Check out some other ALES204 students blogs to see more points of views and different blog topics from the class. Five students whose blog I like and have commented on are:
Check them out!
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