Why social, interactive communication is every student's imperative
I find myself looking back at the progress made in the ALES 204 Communication course with new-found appreciation and insights that I believe will carry me forward more successfully in my career. Looking back at my first ALES 204 class blog comment, I get a good chuckle and am clearly able to see the positive effects of this experience. In September I wrote:
Today I can appreciate that my communication scope and skills have broadened remarkably over this term, particularly in the area of social media. Through experiences like creating this e-portfolio, ALES 204 has taken us students to the current and cutting edge! As I reflect, I see three exciting and overlapping areas to carry my new found communication skills forward:
1) For self-promotion and for establishing social connections and collaborations within my field. Now with the use of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, I can distribute my CV and profile to a large number of people, contact and follow people and groups in my field, and receive notices and updates of job opportunities.
2) For creating online teaching tools and disseminating information. For the dissemination of information, open publishing certainly opens many doors. With the help of what we’ve learned in the ALES course, I’ve completed a first draft of my own volunteer website for the Brookview Community League (please visit the website at www.brookviewcommunityleague.ca).
I've also published my first informative nutritional article on Wikipedia (see earlier blog post) and am looking forward to publishing more. I plan to take this e-Portfolio blog forward by incorporating it into my own nutrition-teaching website in the future. Tools we learned such as Flickr, Slideshare, and AudioBoo will be useful for this endeavor. Learning management systems (discussed by Ian in lecture http://ales204ian.blogspot.com/) also look like very promising teaching tools to explore.
3) For my own research. Clearly technology has made data collection and analysis and information storage and retrieval much simpler. Tools we’ve used this term such as online databases for searches and Refworks for citation management will be useful for this purpose. For collaborative work, Google Docs has proven itself an incredible tool. I'm looking forward to further engaging pre- and post publication open-peer review (as contributor or reviewer). My first submission for peer review (Wikipedia article on Dexatrim) is still awaiting a response!
The biggest pearl I’ve taken from this course is an openness and fearlessness to try different media for getting out and communicating and connecting with people. ALES 204 focused on the broader picture-- not only the importance of learning, but also the importance of sharing what we’ve learned either on- or offline.
I met some wonderful students in my faculty and got the opportunity to see what they were thinking and talking about and to engage discussion in their blogs. Please see:
I am confident that some time in the future, the contacts made with people in my ALES 204 class will bring forth various collaborative efforts!
All the best to Dr.Laccetti, my TA, Marie-Claude, and all my classmates!
