First of all, I thought Twitter was just Facebook statuses like "At the park with my dog", "Eating the most delicious ice cream!", etc. and I did not feel like having that added into my internet time. But as ALES 204 taught me that there is a lot more to it, there are many businesses and professionals with Twitter accounts and their tweets are actually worth reading. They contain news or interesting information. Twitter is a good way to make connections within your respective career field, something that I am currently building on. I am presently following Pioneer Hi-Bred, AFAC, CFA, AB Pulse Growers and Alberta Beef. They are all agricultural organizations and two of them I had applied to for a summer job. Jami also discusses her similar adjustment to Twitter in her blog and how she warmed up to it and started creating connections to other people in her field. Another thing that I found valuable was the lectures on professionalism. I found this very relevant and useful because I was applying for summer jobs and wanted my resumes and email to make me sound a step above the other applicants. The tips shown on what to include in a CV and/or resume was great, because it showed me changes that I should make to mine to make me sound better and make the flow of the document smoother.
Thirdly, there were the lectures and labs on presentations. These were slightly helpful because they pointed out a couple neat tips on being a better public speaker and making presentations more interesting. I have had plenty of experience with public speaking with 4-H, and feel that I am an alright public speaker, but even with this background, MC had plenty to teach me with her lecture. In her PowerPoint, she debunks myths about public speaking and how to improve the effectiveness of a speech. MC also did a lecture on PowerPoint presentations, demonstrating how the use of colors and the background can be distracting or hard to read, thus disengaging the audience. This was a great tip! When you are young, you like using bright colors and interesting backgrounds, but these things are actually very distracting and draw the audiences attention away from what the presenter is really speaking about.
Finally, is this blog. It was a different, intimidating experience to write your thoughts and opinions on a blog where you know that ANYONE can read it. But as I wrote a couple posts and read other classmates blogs, I gained confidence and grew more comfortable writing my thoughts about the topics. This experience has made me want to create my own blog for our family farm or maybe even a website (need to learn how first). This way we could communicate with our consumers more effectively and also could keep them updated on what is happening on our farm. Spring Creek Ranch has created a website, available here, to conduct business, share information (like recipes) and keep consumers informed as to whats new. Our farm would not need something so developed at the present because we are not as large as Spring Creek, but we would exploit its uses similarly.
Throughout the winter semester I have also commented on fellow students blogs. I usually chose ones that I could relate to or taught me something interesting. My comments are on Evelyn, Brittany, Julie, Kandice and Cassandra's blogs.
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| Figure 1: Sunset Photo courtesy of Jessica Carlyon (2012) |
Good bye ALES 204...
