All Good Things Come To an End - Reflecting On ALES 204

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       As we near the end of our fall term we are also ending our ALES 204 class. And it honestly just seemed like the other day when I was procrastinating what to write for my introductory blog post.  I have learned so much in this class, from using Twitter to making my own blogs – networking cites I never thought I would ever use. But using such social networking websites weren’t for personal use whatsoever; rather, we learned how to use social networking to assist in finding future employers and to connect with researchers/scientist in our fields - ways of connecting to people professionally I had never thought of before.  I learned more about social media that i had already heard of and been using but also learned about some that i never knew even existed.  This class introduced me to many sources of social networking that I had never heard of before, like LinkedIn, Audioboo, Flickr and Delicious. But I also learned about websites I used almost on a everyday basis like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google.

       But the class was not all fun social networking cites we did quite a bit about scientific papers – like how to cite them in APA, and different forms of peer review. I also had an assignment where i wrote a paper about differences between a new and 15 year old scientific journal.  The class also introduced Google Doc to me which ended up being quite a useful tool in many of my classes other than ALES.  But we were also given the opportunity to edit a Wikipedia stub to add lots of additional information - you can check out what I did here. I do have to say though i believe all the hard work did pay off from what i gained from the experience of doing most of the assignments.

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       The labs were actually fun to go to and much was learned in them as well.  At first it was a bit nerve racking to present a speech in front of the entire lab without having time to prepare what I was going to say . But after assurance from our TA’s that the speeches were just exercised but giving a speech is something we should have fun with and that none of us should be worried.  The TA’s went over the important parts of giving a speech and what mistakes we notice in speeches others gave to learn how to perfect giving a speech. In the labs I also learned how to make a presentation poster, a CV and where we practiced what we had learned about APA citing.  Having Angie and MC as TAs was great, they were very nice and were able to assist me with any questions i had about any of the assignments. But I also got helpful feedback from Angie on assignments I did.

       Overall I’m glad that this term is coming to an end. And like all good things ALES 204 must end too. But with this class ending I am taking away much more then what was preached in class about technology and how the business world around me is evolving to use social networking in a professional manner; I also took away how to use all of these networking cites.  I was able to utilize everything that Jess, my professor, had talked about and used within class too.  I took away the knowledge and power of being able to find a job in many different ways online as well as ways to stay connected to people in my field without having to spend money on magazines or journals. Thanks so much ALES 204! And to check out what classmate Samantha thought of ALES 204 check out her blog here!

Here’s a list of the others students blogs who I commented on:

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• Laura's Blog Here
• Rebecca's Blog Here
• Karissa's Blog Here
• Dana's Blog Here
• Samantha's Blog Here

The P.I.N.K Method

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For one of the blogs for my ALES 204 class I was given the option of doing a blog of my choice and I chose to do my blog on the P.I.N.K Method. Ever heard of it? You may not have heard of it since it was only released this November; but then again maybe you have heard of it from all the press it has gotten being on shows like Dr Phil and the Doctors.  I chose to write a blog about the P.I.N.K Method because it is a very unique weight loss system specifically for women; but I also chose to write about it because this is a similar idea to the business I hoped to open, which led me to pursue an education in nutrition.

Just to give a bit of background information about the P.I.N.K Method it was created by celebrity

Cynthia Pasquella
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nutritionist Cynthia Pasquella. P.I.N.K stands for Power, Intensity, Nutrition and Kardio. This weight loss system includes two different parts, the work out – which is divided into three phases- and the nutritional guide.  I am putting more focus on the nutritional guide because that’s the part that I find most important about this weight loss program. No matter how much you work out to get fit you will always run into that plateau where you will no longer lose weight or see results; but in order to see the results and push past this weight loss plateau you must change your diet too. For most people without an education in food or nutrition knowing the right sort of diet to take to overcome the weight loss plateau may be difficult. Whereas in the P.I.N.K Method they offer a 240+ page nutritional guide that offers recipes and four different types of diets to help to maximize your weight loss depending where you are in the weight loss program.

I love the idea of not only offering work out videos but a huge nutritional guide to go alongside it to help the all around weight loss formation.  But the P.I.N.K Method also utilizes their website for online

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nutritional and exercise support because support is key in weight loss - especially when it is a do it yourself weight loss program. This online community allows you to chat with an expert for help getting any questions answered that you may have; not only that but they allow you to chat with fellow women who are pursuing weight loss using the P.I.N.K Method.  The online community is an amazing way to get motivation and support by making friends with other women who are pursuing the same goal – to lose weight. They also utilize blogging and twitter to help fellow women and to spread word of their product.

Like I mentioned earlier I want to start a business similar to that of the P.I.N.K Method except it would not be a do it yourself weight loss program. The ideas I have for opening my own business is the reason why I am pursuing an education in nutrition because that knowledge will be key to maintaining my business. But after reading other classmates blogs I realized that we all have different reasons for taking nutrition – like Rebecca.  Her story is very inspirational and she has a very different reason for taking nutrition.  You should check it out here!

Writing A Wiki Stub Article

Our most recent assignment as an Ales 204 student was to add content to a Wikipedia entry or a stub. Before class I had no idea what a stub even was, and in case you were wondering too it’s a short article that needs to be expanded on.  Now being that there were thousands, maybe even millions of stubs on Wikipedia I found it very hard to decide which one to pick to expand.  Naturally I love sports so I leaned more towards something I knew, and that would give me more of an advantage to write about - but something that would also to keep me interested. After about three hours of searching and procrastinating which stub to choose I finally decided on the one stub that I kept coming back to – the Lethbridge Black Diamonds. In case you don’t know what the Lethbridge Black Diamonds are, they are a minor league baseball team in Lethbridge, Alberta, that was a farm team to the Arizona Diamondbacks. If you want to learn more I recommend you check out the page I edited to give you some more insight at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethbridge_Black_Diamonds  .

Now editing a Wiki stub is definitely not as easy as I thought it would be because you have to learn the language of Wiki markup.  And when you edit the article you’re not just writing sentences but in the sentences you add references, and all sorts of symbols to make the letter bold, or give a title to the work, or even to add bullets. Here’s a picture of what the article looks like on Wikipedia:

This is a picture of what the article looks like with references included, symbols that gave it title and make the font bold - this is the edit verson of what you see on Wikipedia:

I never knew such work went into making these sorts of articles.  There is also a certain format to make charts and add pictures – which I never could figure out to add an image so eventually I just gave up the idea of adding an image.

In the end I actually didn’t mind doing this assignment but I think it was mostly because of the pride I felt to have something I had done on the internet – better yet Wikipedia.  Also, the skills that I learned editing and adding text to the article is something that will be useful in the future for making websites or maybe editing more Wikipedia articles.

Looking at some of my fellow classmates blogs it was actually reassuring that some had had some problems along the way as well but that they felt they contributed to the internet too – like Karissa.  I also really like the layout of Karissa’s blog the way she inserted the pictures in-between the text which makes it look really good visually.



Using Facebook For Business

Since now you know a bit about me it's time to learn a bit more about me in a professional sense. You can take a look at my Professional Facebook Page that I created. It was created to be used at an online resume or business card for future employers. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lisa/119557101482111?sk=wall

Yes, I did say Professional Facebook Page! When I heard Jess, my professor in ALES204, talking about how I had to make a Professional Facebook Page I was a bit worried to say the least. I mean it's Facebook! But when I did a bit more research about using Facebook to connect to future employers it actually seemed like a very good idea. First of all as a Professional Facebook Page everything should relate to myself in a business appropriate way. The more and more I researched about it the better the idea it was; especially, because having a professional Facebook page is a great way for an employer to find you, learn about you, and look at your credentials, all before having even met you. Now even though I am not the most technology smart person doing a Facebook page versus the profile was a bit difficult for me. I actually had quite a few problems getting things to work and I'm not quite sure how to add links and such to my page. But I think will some time and learning how to add things to the page it will be a great Professional Facebook Page.

While seeing what Professional Facebook pages were about I did look at a few of my classmates blogs. I really like reading Rachaels blog (http://rradams18.blogspot.com/). I liked how she went into the details talking about why she added and did her Facebook page the way she did. And I think Rachaels blog with her Facebook page will work really well for a future employer to get to know her. 

About Me

Hi my name is Lisa, and I'm currently in my second year of Food and Nutrition; but I'm hoping to get into the Nutrition program next year. Even though this is my second year in this program its actually only my first year in Edmonton because I transferred here from Red Deer College.

Some info about me is that I actually have a diploma in fashion marketing and merchandising. When I finish this program I hope to start my own consulting company by incorporating both the nutrition and fashion together. I grew in a small town south of Calgary. I love to play and watch baseball and hockey (and yes I'm a huge flames fan).

I think that communication will play a huge role if I started my own company because I would need a easy way to connect and link with my customers and future customers. This is where twitter and facebook are really useful because its an easy way to get your name out there and have people find you. Even just within the food and nutrition program communication is a necessity to get important information out to certain people or a certain demographic.  The use of twitter and such would be a very quick way of responding to people with questions about say their diet. Communication within this field is huge as well because there needs to be a quick way for dietitians to receive new information on research as well. The use of social media is growing and I think it's a great way for people connect to professionals for advice and information.