Tuesday, December 6, 2011

RIP ALES 204: Final Reflective Blog


Hey Everyone,

I hope this semester has treated you all well. It has been a great few past months. We have done everything from learning how to make a professional Facebook page, to writing a Wikipedia stub entry. We have learned how to use media to our advantage in a professional manner. It seems we have learned so many different techniques and for some, we have even had the opportunity to apply it to an actual business/group. My last post this semester will de dedicated to my experience with the CSL program in relation to the course work we have done in class. It will give all of you an idea of how to apply our knowledge from ALES 204 to real life events.

During my placement with Sustain SU I have had the opportunity to work on the professional Facebook page. The three of us: Kalin, Cassandra and I, were made admins for the Facebook page, allowing us to make updates and post about new events and read comment others have made. This was a great means of communicating with other Sustain SU volunteers and notifying the public about who we are and what we do.

Twitter was also a great means of communication. Rather than informing people about events, the limited amount of characters allows us to post sustainability “Did You Know” facts. This is an indirect way of making the public more aware how much we are consuming and how it is impacting the planet.

For some individuals, the Internet is not the best way to receive notifications about events. Some times students don’t have the access to a computer or don’t check updates often enough. This is where poster making came in handy. Sustain SU made posters for events such as: notebook making, the Winter bike workshop and movie nights. The tips given to us in class were very useful. Having contrasting colours, to the point information and proper font size was what made these events successful. For one of the class assignments, the poster, we were able to make it on an event Sustain SU was involved in. Kalin and I presented to our lab a poster on Sustainability Awareness Week. If you would like to see the poster and read more about the techniques we used, click here.

The tips given in creating a poster did not stop at that, they also carried over to power point presentations. Power points presentations are a large part of Sustain SU. During our first meeting a series of power points were presented to explain to us who Sustain SU was, what they are all about and what they are involved in. They can also be used during workshops, presentations and volunteer events. Pecha Kucha is a type of power point that has pictures and minimal words. It is presented as twenty slides, twenty seconds each. For our Pecha Kucha we decided to take it to the next level. We made the presentation on Prezi, which is an animated type of power point. If you would like to see our Prezi, click here. To make your own Prezi you can visit their website at www.prezi.com. We were also able to add the spoken portion of our presentation through audioboo.

Audioboo is a program that can record voices and then be shared by e-mail or embedded in a blog. It is a great way to record interviews or Podcast. Kalin, Cassandra and I were able to record an interview to talk a little more about what Sustain SU is, if you would like to check it out, click here.


Throughout the semester I had the chance to check out some of the other student's blog. Here are a few I have left comments on:


As you can see, everything we have learned this semester was applicable to the professional world outside of class. There are quite a few classes you take throughout your degree that you can say when will I ever need to know this again... other than the final. ALES 204 is not one of those classes. Why? Not because it doesn't have a final, but because it is a class that has allowed us to develop skills that will follow us for the rest of our careers. They are skills that with help us get jobs, like networking, professional profile making and resume writing. They are skills that will help us in a job, such as, E-mail etiquette, presenting and writing scientific articles. They are also skills that will help us promote our jobs, like poster making and posting on Twitter and Facebook. ALES 204 has been a very informative and fun class. So, here is a quick Thanks to Jess and all the TAs. This semester has been great and I wish you all the best! A special Thanks to my CSL TA Courtney and our CSL placement leader at Sustain SU Ian.


ALES
Cassandra, Kalin and I working on our final group project.


Have a very merry sustainable Christmas!!!

Image from:
jdesaute. (2011). ALES [digital photograph], Retrieved on December 7, 2011, from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67941823@N03/6471646941/

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Audioboo - Sustain SU interview

SUSTAIN SU (mp3)

Kalin, Cassandra and I have prepared an interview on audioboo about Sustain SU. I hope you enjoy!


Cram Time!

Hey everyone!

It's cram time - exam time! I hope the semester is ending well for all of you. It is nice we can start counting down the days until Christmas. Although, that also means we are counting down the days we have left to learn and memorize everything that we have covered this semester.



NotebookFinals can be pretty stressful. Lucky for ALES 204 we don't have a final, but we do have a final project due just around the corner. This can be equally as stressful as exams so, I have decided to make a list to help you.

Things to do before December 7th:

1. Make sure you have 5 blog posts
2. One blog post must be your Introductory Blog post
3. A second blog post must be a flickr photo of your professional Facebook profile
4. A third blog post must be the Wikipedia stub entry (not required for CSL students)
5. A fourth blog post must be a topic of your choice related to course material
6. A fifth blog post is a reflective blog post about your experience in ALES 204
7. Other additional on topic blog posts are acceptable
8. Remember to include a photo, an external link, a reference to a fellow classmates blog, be between two and four paragraphs and be on topic.
9. Cite all photos
10. Proof read all posts
11. Include your Twitter feed
12. In your final reflective blog include a link to all five comments you made on other students blogs.

Here is a link to the rubric posted on the class blog and if you need a quick link to an APA citation site here it is. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I will help you out as best I can.

Good Luck to all of you!


Image from:
Gilford, Raymond. (2007). Notebook [digital photograph], Retrieved on December 6, 2011, from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shuttercat7/628908588/

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Photos

Hey everyone!

It's Sustainability Awareness Week. I hope everyone is getting involved and enjoying what the campus has to offer. Today I attended the Sustainability fair and WON and super cool reusable glass waterbottle. I just thought I'd share a few photos I took while I was there.

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SAM_1429


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SAM_1428


SAM_1425


All Images from: jdesaute. (2011). Personal collection [digital image], retrieved on October 22, 2011, from:http://www.flickr.com/photos/

The new and improved Pecha kucha - on Prezi








SUSTAIN SU Pecha Kucha
Cassandra
SUSTAIN SU
Welcome to SUSTAIN SU, the student based sustainability group on campus.

Kalin
TIMELINE
The student sustainability service started in 2003, and was known as ECOS, the environmental coordination office of sustainability.

In 2011 the name was changed to SUSTAIN SU to encompass a broader concept of sustainability.

Jamie
QUESTION MARK
What is sustainability?

Cassandra
It is the process of living within limits of available physical, natural, and social resources.

SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, ENVIRONMENTAL

Kalin
ENVIRONMENTAL
The practice of composting around campus is an example of environmental responsibility.

Jamie
ECONOMIC
The free store is an example of economic reinforcement of sustainability. It promotes the reuse of goods rather than buying new.

Cassandra
SOCIAL
Sustain SU is a group that works with an entire social society including students and professors. They are also affiliated with several other groups on and off campus, including the Office of Sustainability.

Kalin
RAIN DROPS
Each year we work on 8 major projects.

Jamie
QUESTION MARK
Ask SUSTAIN SU allows you to ask sustainability based questions online or at the green boxes at info link. We will do the research and let you know the answer.

Cassandra
BIKE
The Bike Library offers one month bike and lock rentals for a $40 deposit. You can also bring your bike from home to receive free bike maintenance. It is located in the basement of SUB.

Kalin
FLOWER
The campus gardens are located in East Campus Village and the Education building. Organic vegetables are grown using sustainable agriculture techniques, which also promote food safety.

Jamie
CELL PHONE
Rethink drop boxes are found at info link. We recycle your ink cartridges, old cell phones, and batteries for you.

Cassandra
PLATE
The Reusable Dish Program lends dishes to all events on campus. This helps reduce waste and you can even return them dirty! We do the clean up.

Kalin
101
Sustainability 101 Seminars are held for various groups in order to induce personal change. The seminars are presented to students in lister to teach them how to live sustainably.

Jamie
ARROWS
Sustain Exchanges are forums for students to discuss sustainable concepts in a peer to peer style. We held a health, fitness, and life skills seminar this semester. We would love to see you all at the next one in January.

Cassandra
PARTY HAT
The final project includes workshops on how to travel and party sustainably

Kalin
SUSTAINABLE CAMPUS
All these projects help contribute to our sustainable campus.

Jamie
FACEBOOK, TWITTER
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for news about our upcoming events.

Cassandra
Thank you all very much, and we wish you a sustainable Christmas!


SAW POSTER (Topic of Choice for marking)

Hello once again!

Seeing as this past week was Sustainability Awareness Week (SAW), My partner Kalin and I decided it would be a great topic for our poster presentation. Due to the fact that our topic is on an event and not an article, there have been several minor changes to the format of the poster. I believe this gives you all a good example of what different posters may look like and gives insight towards communication about events in your field.

In Maria's lecture on how to create an effective poster presentation we waere able to gather a few tips such as: use an interesting but short title and use appropriate font sizes relevant to the content (i.e. author is larger than the content but not as large as the title). If you wish to check out more tips on creating an effective poster presentation you can check out her powerpoint on the class blog by clicking here. We were also able to apply some pointers from the powerpoint lecture to my poster. Keeping the text to a minimum, including photo's and noticeable titles and having contrasting colors helps keep the audience interested.
Saw poster
View more presentations from jdesaute.

As you can see we chose bright green as the background color. We have done this for two reasons, first of all, because it is bright and will initially grab someone's attention over a more plain color and secondly, I believe green is a good representative color when speaking about sustainability. Green represents new life and the environment, which one of the focuses of sustainability. Another technique we used in making the poster was using complementary, but contrasting colors for the titles. The Sustainability Awareness Week title is the actual logo for the event, from that I was able to match the colors of the event titles which were orange, brown and blue. The titles are well spaced out giving room for the eyes to rest and they vary in sizes and orientation to give it a more unique and creative look. Lastly the photos that were add were all taken by me from the event itself to give it a more personal feel and to show our involvement with the event. In order to post this poster I had to create an account on a slide share website which can be found here.

If you'd like to read more about how and why we made our poster this way, you can visit Kalin's blog and see what she has to say about it. If you have any suggestions or comments about our poster please feel free to leave a comment below. I sure do love hearing feedback from my fellow classmates.

Have a great day!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Sustainability Awareness Week

Hey Everyone!

Next week October 17th to the 23rd is Sustainability Awareness Week (SAW). Tones of events will be held throughout the campus. Some events include the SAW kick off on monday, it will be held from 11:30 am until 1:30 pm in QUAD. Sustain SU will be doing a free bike check from 1:00 pm until 4:00 pm monday at Celebration Plaza. There will be many tours held throughout the week including the University's Devonian garden, a campus sustainability tour, Net Zero Energy Home Tour, the CCIS and ECHA Green Building Tour and the Edmonton Waste Management Tour. Over ten presentations on sustainability topics will be running at various times. Tones of local food from bistros, farmers markets and cafes will be dispersed between Lister, HUB, ECHA and a few other locations. Last but not least, there will be a closing event put on by Sustain SU and Party With a Purpose on Saturday at 6pm. Not only will it be a concert it will be a SUSTAINABLE one. Like I mentioned last week, the concert will be biked powered. So cool!



Today I had the pleasure of spending another hour volunteering with Sustain SU. My task for the day was to promote the bike check Sustain SU was putting on for SAW. Here is what the flyer looks like:
IMG_0489

I went around campus posting these fliers on bikes all around campus.


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If you have a bike, go check it out! It's a great way to keep your bike tuned up so you can continue to reduce your carbon footprint.

For more information about times and events visit the Office of Sustainability.









Image from:
Top - jdesaute. (2011). Bike Flyer [digital image], retrieved on October 12, 2011 from:http://www.flickr.com/photos/67941823@N03/6239024215/
Left - jdesaute. (2011). Bike Rack [digital image], retrieved on October 12, 2011 from:http://www.flickr.com/photos/67941823@N03/6239023855/
Right - jdesaute. (2011). Bike [digital image], retrieved on October 12, 2011 from:http://www.flickr.com/photos/67941823@N03/6239542506/


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Community Service Learning (Topic of choice for marking)

Hey Everyone,

One Good / Two Bad

I hope everyone is having a good week. It is getting well into midterm season and I bet everyone is getting pretty stressed out, I know I am. It may be the middle marker in the term for some classes but in my CSL program I am just beginning. I have been placed with a fantastic group on campus called Sustain-SU, formerly know as ECOS. Our first meeting was held last Wednesday. This group focuses on social, economic and environmental sustainability. They offer student involvement through volunteering and events, services, through their 8 ongoing major projects and collaboration with other campus organizations.


bikeThe 8 projects Sustain-SU is involved in include: Ask Sustain SU, Bike Library, Campus Gardens, Rethink (E-waste), Reusable Dish Program, Sustainability 101, Sustain exchanges and workshops. Personally I will be involved in the communication portion of the group, keeping the Facebook page updated, the twitter feed live, posting posters and taking photos during events. One event I will be involved in the planning is Party With a Purpose, an exciting bike powered concert that finishes off Sustainability Awareness Week. Keep visiting my blog if you want to keep updated on this even it will be an exciting one.
I have the honor of working with two other ALES students Cassandra and Kalin for the CSL Sustain-SU program. They are both very interesting and dedicated individuals. I am very excited to work as a group on sustainability projects and I hope to learn a lot from them. They are definitely inspiring individuals. Click on their name and you will be linked to their blog where you can get to know them better and learn more about our projects with Sustain-SU. 
Green Plant


The official Sustain-SU web site is currently under construction. As soon as it is completed I will add a link. Until then you can check out their ECOS page from 2010/2011. Here you can find out more on what sustainability is all about as well as learn more about their ongoing projects.

Enjoy!



Images from:
Top - Cogdogblog. (2010). One good/ Two bad [digital photograph], retrieved on October 15, 2011, from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/5091713405/
MIddle - Uberculture. (2005). Bike [digital photograph], retrieved on October 15, 2011, from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uberculture/23086390/
Bottom - Gos, Jon. (2006). Green Plant [digital photograph], retrieved on October 15, 2011, from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jongos/319344491/

Friday, September 30, 2011

Image Upload


Hello!

       Today we had the pleasure of listening to Shannon do a presentation (on Prezi) about getting involved in leadership. Some of the options presented included: ULead, Alternative reading week in India and Cuba – Agro-Ecological Tour. If you are interested in any of these you can access more information on the ALES website under the "Events" section. Personally I would love to go to India to do some hands on projects.


                                            
PS - This was just a test to see if i can post a photo. :) 

Enjoy

Image From:
Nikkul. (2007). Taj Mahal in Agra [digital photograph], Retrieved on september 30, 2011 from: http://wikitravel.org/en/Taj_Mahal#b

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Facebook Profile

Hello again everyone,

Today I created my very first business oriented Facebook profile. It was kind of neat looking at a social media site from an employee's CV side rather than the way I often used it to casually interact with friends. I found it required a lot more planning and detail than a regular profile, as well as, more restricted content.


Picture 14

I chose to do a profile because I believe it allows me to be more creative in the content that I might want to add. I was able to include all my personal information that a future employer might want to see including: my full name, my address and my contact information. I was also able to include my work experience and my education under a separate section. Under the "about me" section I explained my
career goals, qualifications, awards
and achievements, volunteer experience, certificates and references. My friend Toni decided to go with creating a page rather than a profile, it looks great. If you want to see it, check out her blog.

A few things I plan to develop with my new online resume are: To add past employers and co-worker so I may keep them updated on successes that they helped me realize. This will also give them an opportunity to comment on my profile about their experience working with me; almost like casual letters of reference future employers may look at. I would also like to include information about my field of study under my posts on my wall to keep the public updated on nutrition and naturopathic topics.

One change I would recommend to make with Facebook is to allow the addition of different headers under the information section of the profile. This would allow for better organization when including a detailed resume rather than clumping half of it into the "about me section." If anyone has any suggestions for me on how to fix that or make it seem more flowing, please comment on this post and let me know. Thanks

Have a great week :)

Image from:
jdesaute. (2011). Professional Facebook Profile [digital image], retrieved on September 25, 2011 from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67941823@N03/6184290928/