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.