Reflection

I am quite surprised how fast this class, and semester went by and cannot believe that I have emerged myself in the blogging and social media world the way I have. ALES 204 has definitely broadened my perspective on the use of social media and online communication, and I would say it is for the better. Social media and the world wide web are useful in so many ways, in saying that you do still need to be a critical observer and remind yourself that you cannot always believe what you read. 


Some highlights of the course for me were the making of our personal blogs (that was an adventure in the formatting and playing around with all the tools), using twitter in a university class (!), grasping how to make poster presentations on powerpoint, the world of pecha kucha presentations, the do's and dont's in public speaking, and all the opportunities for mistakes in email etiquette. 


At times it seemed odd to be learning all of this, because some of it seemed like common sense, but when I actually considered how this could be applied to what my future career is it made a lot of sense to learn these useful skills. The main skills that I will use out of this class for my future job endeavors will most likely be the public speaking and presentation techniques. I will, hopefully, become a teacher with my human ecology combined with education degree and need to understand proper techniques to keep a crowd interested. I will be working with adolescence's, who will obviously not have a massive attention span, or most likely care what I have to say about health education or fashion studies, so interesting presentations will be key in my success. Besides the major emphasis on the presentation techniques I will still use other skills on a daily basis, such as communicating via email with other teachers, parents, and fellow colleagues, along with the use of blogs and social media to actually form lesson plans (especially if I teach any home economics or cooking classes; food blogs!). 


At the end of it all this class has definitely expanded my knowledge with online communication, person-person communication, and social media. Im out for now, have a good summer! 

(Powers, Paige; Versailles, France; 2011.)

Below are the links to the comments I have made on other students blogs, all of the blogs I glanced and browsed around at were very well done and they all made very valid points that contributed to what we have discussed in our lectures and labs.

Comment 1

Comment 2

Comment 3

Comment 4

Comment 5

Human Ecology

The topic that I have decided to choose for my topic of interest is human ecology, because it is the program I am in and it pertains very much to my interests. I am finishing my second year in the human ecology combined with secondary education program and find it to be very interesting, mostly from all the diverse classes I am able to take. I do not have a schedule that limits me in any way, even though I do not have many "free electives" I still am able to take classes in all fields, whether it be something on human sexuality, or this class that is focused on social media. It enables me from getting bored with what classes I am in along with it keeps me motivated to attend and do the required work for the classes. Also from the wide range of classes I do get to take allows me to meet many people who are similar to what I am doing, but still have a different major or minor, such as in my first year I was able to meet my friend, Samantha Stevens, who is in human ecology, but in the clothing and textiles with interiors minor. It ended up being a small world, because we actually went to the same high school.

When I explain what degree I am taking most people do not understand what it means and how it is possible for me to take all the random classes I do take. This was me at the beginning as well, the main reason I chose this degree was from my high school fashion classes and my teacher then. She explained to me that the human ecology - clothing and textiles is what she took when she was in university, and then at the time she just had to do an after degree with education. So firstly, I was in just the human ecology program, but then I learned that there was one that was already combined with education, so I had to sign up for that. My main interest, being clothing and textiles, stems from my love for sewing when I was much younger and then once in high school I had the opportunity to take many construction classes. Along with my love for fashion, one of my favourites being Coco Chanel, which is who I researched when I was in my high school classes. Below is an image of the first ever Chanel store in Paris, France. I was fortunate enough to visit this area this past summer.

 

(Powers; Chanel Storefront, Paris, France; August 2011)

Once beginning all my classes and obtaining a grasp on what the whole concept human ecology is, I began to like it that much more. The program is so diverse that many skills learned while in school or in practicum can be applied to many different opportunities for employment. That is probably the biggest highlight and interest I have in the program, is the diversity. Overall I am very happy with what I have decided to take in school.

Wikipedia Writing

This entry pertains to my introduction into the world of wikipedia writing. I was surprised to learn about the millions of wiki-stubs that exist, and to see ones that seem like they would already be finished such as the Belgian Waffle. Another thing that was new to me was the amount of other wiki websites since I did not even really know of the term wiki except in the context of wikipedia.org. This was especially shocking since I do use wikipedia on a regular basis to search interesting and random topics. 

The amount of stubs, and stubs of interest, made the task in choosing one difficult. To explore the differences in stubs and what people chose I first went and glanced at the class blog to see what people had decided on for themselves. I eventually found myself at Chelsea Livngstone's blog and saw her stub edit on Active Living, which is completely different than what I ended up picking, but it still intrigued me to read up on it more. For my search, I first begun looking at fashion stubs, and once thinking I have found something of interest (Hugo Boss) I immediately entered that to be my choice. This decision ended up not being the best, and I soon realized that there was hardly any extra information on the great designer Hugo Boss, so maybe that is the reason it still is a stub. This then led my search to Disney stubs, since my classmate Rebecca Miller was looking at the multiple stubs that category had to offer. I skimmed through all of those, but realized it was hopeless since I really do not know that much about the Disney resorts, and do not care to research that information. I went back to the fashion stubs and considered companies instead of specific people and came across a stub that I would have originally assumed to be a finished page. Citizens of Humanity is what I ended up deciding on, it is a denim company that was launched in 2002. 

There were many reasonings in choosing Citizens of Humanity, but my main one was my love for their denim, so I figured it would be in my best interest to update something on wikipedia that is actually relevant to my life. It was interesting to learn about the ties to other denim companies and the business side of a clothing companies. The main things that I added to the article is the information on the Brand, involving the coming and going of new business partners, and a bit more on their charity (Citizenship) and where they choose to donate their money. I also added three references to the page to validate my research and even the beginning information on the page, these references include the companies website and news articles related to business changes.

Below is a screenshot of my additions to the wikipedia page.

Wikipedia Stub

Photo by: Paige Powers, 2012

Professional Facebook Page

The concept of a professional Facebook page is a smart idea, since most employers will always have Human Resources do a social media background check on potential employees. This way they can see a generic page instead of your entire personal life. The reason is it smart for me, personally, is that I would way rather have my personal Facebook page blocked to viewers other than my friends, but still have the ability for potential employers to access basic information about me. Hopefully it will benefit my chances in future career advancements. Also once I am in my future goal job, as a High School CTS teacher, this concept of a professional Facebook page could be flawless with communicating with the students, since every teenager seems to have Facebook. This way I could easily post homework or school related announcements on the page without having to personally be friends with them on Facebook. (Since that can easily start to overstep Teacher - Student boundaries) Overall I definitely think it is a tool that is useful in multiple ways and will be something that I intend to use presently and once finished school and working towards a career.

Another useful thing about it is convenience, social media has made access to useful information easier and faster than ever. Twitter, for example, can now have a greater impact than the evening news since it can be streaming as it is happening. Also, in regards to Facebook pages, it is seamless for public figures, organizations and large companies to get new plans, ideas, and concepts out to the general public. If there is any sort of announcement to be made it can simply be done through Facebook and twitter so it can access everyone at a rapid rate. One major step taken for social media is the police even using it to aid them in solving crime and protecting the community, one article has framed this concept with talking about the Windsor police to utilize this tool for their benefit.

Below I have included a screenshot of my professional Facebook page, also you can access it directly at this link Paige Powers Facebook, and while you are browsing here is a link to my friend's Rebecca Miller, along with her blog.

Photo taken by Paige Powers, 2012

Introduction

(Photo taken by Paige Powers, 2011)

My name is Paige Powers, I am currently in my second year of Human Ecology combined Secondary Education with a minor in Health Education. Before I begin to talk about communication and what role it will play in my career and life I will share a bit about myself. Firstly, the photo I have included in my post is one of my puppy. Her name is Stella and she is a true gem; always makes me happy. Some of my hobbies and interests include snowboarding, sewing, and traveling. Traveling is a big one for me, my most recent adventure was last August when I went to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. The next thing I have planned is Europe again, for all of next August, so I am pretty excited about that. Once actually thinking about social media and traveling together, they flow seamlessly. A big thing for traveling is how easy it is now to communication with work, and family while gone. I know when I go away, or for when I am planning to go away I need to make sure my iPhone is internationally equipped to make sure I can communicate with friends and family via email, Twitter and Facebook. 

Now when considering my field of work and how communication and social media play a role. Right now in the jobs that I have communication via phone and email are huge, I always need to update my manager with numbers and how the day is going through texting and phone calls. Then also email is the main form of how the district communicates about progress and business. For once I am done school and hopefully teaching CTS courses in High School, social media will play a massive role in that. One form that especially comes to mind, since it also ties my interest of food blogs into it, is blogging. I think one good way to organize a Foods CTS class is to use social media to find good baking and cooking ideas and recipes. It will give the students some freedom and allow them to explore the world of blogging. This is also something that Rebecca Miller's  main interest is in. Food blogs, which will help us both out since we are in the same program, just different minors. 

My favourite food blog is Monica's, she always has the best recipes. Another really good website and also used by Rebecca is skinnytaste.