A Semester in Review

Another semester has once again come to an end; I swear it comes quicker every year.  Looking back over everything we covered I’m starting to realize how much I actually learned. I started ALES 204 believing I understood enough about social networking to get me through life. I had a Facebook and twitter account. I knew how to look up peer reviewed scientific articles.  Wikipedia’s unreliability was not a surprise.  I had even watched RIP: a remix manifesto so creative commons was already a part of my vocabulary. To summarize this rant, I felt very secure and informed in my ability to navigate social media sites. As a result of this confidence, I walked out of ALES204 after our first class and was a tad bit flippant. Who was this young women teaching me how to use twitter!? And why on earth does more than half my class actually needs to learn this!! Dr. Jessica Laccetti soon earned my respect and attention. Not only did she introduce me to vital professional sites like LinkedIn, but Dr. Laccetti slowly began to awake my passion for the growth and future of social media. 

In attempting to write this final reflective blog post I literally “wasted” 3-4 hours. Why you may ask? Well, I really couldn’t pick one topic to focus on. As I started to look deeper and deeper into futurecasting, our final lecture, I began getting excited about all the amazing things to come. I was browsing a yahoo article that outlined the 7 things Stephen Abram, and international librarian, thinks will happen in 2012. Smartphones for all, commerce on Facebook and advertising via GPS and geotagging are just a few that blew my mind away. I don’t know if any of you have seen the move The Minority Report, but they were futurecasting in that movie. Check it out!

The Minority Report. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBaiKsYUdvg

In the above scene is an example of geotagging, aka advertising tailored to the consumer. Abram predicts that businesses will be able to write a consumer profile for us and advertise directly through our phones based on that profile. That’s unbelievable! I can only imagine the opportunities as a dietician. A quick scan on google tells me you have frequented weightloss and fitness sites and from there I can sent you promotions that suit you. A world where you could be potentially at everyones finger tips.  

But beyond the weird and wonderful, I really did learn something about professionalism and social networking. It no longer terrifies me to have more than one social profile on the Internet. Before ALES 204 I was worried I couldn’t maintain an Internet profile as professional as my performance in person. In fact, I am excited and enthusiastic about building on the basics I worked on in class. Detailing my CV, connecting to past, present and new employers on LinkedIn, blogging and discovering professional blogs related to my field,  there is a world of new job opportunities I never knew I had. Alike the picture below, I have been given the musicians to orchestrate a job profile for employers all over the world. 

Jay Starbun. (2011). Retrieved from http://socialsteak.com/2011/09/30/5-tips-for-community-managers/

Check out some blogs I found comment worthy!

1. Lina Marie Hegberg's Blog

2. Steph Nash's Blog

3. Erika Brow's Blog

4. An Apple for Your Thoughts

5. Chelsea Livingstone's Blog

Which party should I vote for?!...There's an app for that.

With the election buzz heating up and a constant mob of campaigners at ever corner, it seems only logical to write a blog post about it. I have only been of voting age for two years now and experienced one election in that time, and honestly, its just overwhelming. Not only do we need to sort through the copious campaign information from each party, but whose is to say any of these guys are being honest? Fortunately for me I ran across a twitter post linking me to an interactive interview with the four main candidates (PC, Wildrose, Liberal and NDP). The post was simple: An over-coffee interview hitting on the main issue facing Alberta. This was perfect for someone like me as I could listen to the party platforms whilst checking my emails/twitter/facebook/eclass. Unlike my mother and the majority of her generation, I didn’t read the paper, or watch the news or read pamphlets to gain party information because those things don’t really have a major role in my life. Students like myself are always on the go. My iphone is my third lung and I do everything with it so if you can get information to me via my iphone, I’m yours! Because the role of social media in politics intrigued me so much I began searching the web for some positive examples. I ran across a blog called Interactive Multimedia Technology written by Lynn Marentette. She blogs about every modern technology and social media. One of her blog posts sparked my interest.

TED talk. Jennifer Pehkla discussed her involvement in the program Code for Government and the growing use of apps to make government more efficient and effective. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang///id/1381

Code for Government encourages the use of apps to make government more effective as citizens can now take a more active role in their communities. Pehkla brings up a crucial point, ”there is a generation out there that’s grown up on the internet and they know that its not that hard to do things together you just have to architect the systems that way”. We are moving from united within a nation to united internationally; I can tweet to people in china and share photos on flickr with people in Norway. The point Pehkla is trying to get at is that my generation is pro participatory citizenship; we are just lacking the gateway (social media and technology).

Screen Shot of app created by purple forge. From iTunes. Retrieved from http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/gary-mar/id445500344?mt=8

Back to the Alberta election. I came across an interview with the Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and Liberal leader Raj Sherman. The article titled “Social Media and Technology in Alberta's Provincial Election: The Leaders View”, touched on topics such as the use of twitter and Facebook, old campaign tools vs. new campaign tools and both politicians thoughts. I was disappointed to learn that neither leader really thought social media tools were all that useful. In fact, both strongly preferred old methods such as “demon dialing”, “telephone town halls” and lawn signs. I understand the point both politicians were trying to make, that older voters still want face-to-face but the fact that technology is a mere “compliment” to their campaigns is kind of insulting. For a young generation that relies, lives, breathes on the Internet I would like to be a more important consideration. Young voters can be reached and are not self-absorbed, they are quite the opposite or why would we log in to Facebook to read about OTHER people’s lives. We are a social generation, an involved generation. But like Jennifer Pehkla said we need a government that facilitates that type of citizenship. There are companies that design apps for this type of thing one example being purple forge. How awesome would it be to, while riding the bus, pull up an app that shows the major issues of the day and allows you to directly contact your MLA. I want to know if you are closing down a school, need snow shovellers in my community, what your doing to decrease crime and drug use on stony plain road. This is where I live; and similar to the say I have when I tweet, I want to to have a say in my community and city in a way that is convenient and directly at my fingertips. 

To read about another bloggers thoughts on the growth of social media and technology check out this blog!

Wiki Woes and Revelations

This weeks lab posed to be a greater challenge than I initially expected. The instructions were simple enough, edit and improve a wikipedia stub and then post it. As a third year sciences student, researching and writing about a science topic is nothing new and I had no doubts that I would finish during the allotted lab time. Boy, I was wrong.

First of all, I never in a million years thought I would need to know how to use "old school" formatting to post anything on the net. The closest I have ever come to using this type of format is from back in the junior high days when everyone had Nexopia profiles. In case you were wondering, I got as far as creating the basic profile and messaging my friends because to post anything I had to learn the crazy Internet language of <> "" []{}~~...etc. So when I discovered that wikipedia posts used similar types of formatting I had a mini panic attack. I did manage to think my way out of this situation by using most of the previous authors formatting, BUT I did learn something new and appreciate the opportunity to expand my "language" horizons.

Prior to writing this post, I was scouring blogger.com for other ALES204 students who had completed the wiki assignment. Not only did I need some blogging inspiration but I was curious to see how there wikipedia first encounter went. I happened to stumble upon Angela Zimmerman's blog. She also was new to the wikipedia experience and, similarly to me, she wondered about the legitimacy of wikipedia if anyone (i.e. and ALES204 student) could edit and post articles. With someone to related to in my blog, and a subject to discuss I raced off to wikipedia to get a screen shot of my post about pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency. To my utter disbelief my post had been removed and the original author had reposted his original article! WHAT! I was disheartened as I had done an extensive amount of research on the topic and worked hard to put forth a user friendly document. I couldn't believe this random person could take two hours worth of hard work and basically erase it. Alas, the truth. It is as if the last two weeks of class have all come together and the light bulb has finally turned on. Creative commons, copyright, wikipedia, citing scientific articles; these are all examples of conflicting interests that internet has created. As much as I have always loved the ease and freedom of using sites like wikipedia and flickr, I was so upset by my post being declared unfit. That is, I was upset until I got this:

Personal Screen Shot

The previous author not only commended my superior knowledge on the topic but offered to help me format my article better so it was fit for wikipedia! And this is why I love wikipedia. People around the world working together to spread information.

Check out pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency to see who's edit was left standing.

Personal Screen Shots

Kelsey Trites

Resume Webified. Check!

Dear Employers,

Your internet investigations just got boring, or maybe more interesting? No longer does googling the name Kelsey Trites produced old memberships to quiz sites, photosharing sites or a lame Facebook account that proves I have no life outside of school or work. You may have begun your investigative search believing you would find some internet scandal rendering my opportunity to work for your company null. But now, walla! A Facebook page dedicated to the professional me has been created. Read away and be reassured that, yes, I am what you are looking for.*
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelsey-Trites/287065304682330?sk=info

Once again my ALES 204 course has schooled me (which is probably a good thing cause I pay them to do just that). I never realized the advantageous uses of Facebook. Previously, when I thought Facebook page I thought Meagan Fox or Skittles or, my personal favourite, Jude Law. Never did I think I could have a page dedicated to me, or that it would be to my professional advantage.  A professional page does more than purely re-state the information present on your resume, a professional page is a hub for all your other online connections. It is a quick, environmentally friendly, way for employers or really whoever is interested to get a look at Kelsey Trites (or -INSERT NAME HERE-).

Unfortunately, even as I type these epiphanous sentences my grandfathers words echo in my head. "In my day, we had one-on-one contact, we called them interviews.....cause we're real people, not a web page!" Yes, grandpa. You are right. I do miss the days where my outgoing, persuasive personality could do all the talking and the only back ground check employers could do was a legitimate police check.  But, like you also once told me "if you can't beat em', join em'"! The age of technology has come, and I would say almost gone...in the sense that we are entering into a neuvo-technilogical age. One I can't/won't even bother to try to define. So, here is me "joining 'em"!

ktreatsy

*I actually googled my name after this post and to my disappointment I don't really exist...at least not in web terms. Apparently there is a second Kelsey Trites roaming the web taking all the Kelsey Trites credit. Sorry to all. Maybe one day.

And so it begins.

Food.

Cooking. Eating. Baking. Buying. Smelling. Testing. Researching. Experimenting. 

This is no boring, "yeah I eat it everyday", subject folks. This is serious stuff. From the production to the consumption of food, there are so many elements and subjects for one to consider/study/fixate on. It literally floors me that there are not more people going cra-cra over this stuff! Hello Internet world. My name is Kelsey Trites, and I am an unpretentious* foodie.

*As in, I am not in an ostentatious hipster bubble where I dwell on my divine awesomeness for having superior taste and indieness.

Part of this obsession is due to my enrollment at the University of Alberta in a Bachelor of Food Science and Nutrition, hopefully to major in Nutrition, but currently minoring in Human Ecology. The other part due to the fact that when its -40 degrees celcius over half the year outdoor activities are hard and eating is done in the warmth of a kitchen/restaurant/café/etc. Yes I was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta which explain for the most part why I’m a bit of a nut (you would be too).

Now you know enough about me. Back to my rambling.

(personal album)

Food blogs. For one, they are awesome and extremely useful (as Brittney Stewart can attest to. Thanks for the great blog references. To see what I am talking about check out http://brittanyalesblog.blogspot.com/). For two, the world of food blogs is humongous. Like literally there are probably thousands upon thousands of food and health related blogs. From health nuts, to vegan and vegetarian enthusiasts,   to recipe perfectionists, to foodies, everyone is talking, or should I say blogging about food. And why? Because everyone eats everyday. The pure volume of blogs and websites on the Internet only perpetuate my secret fear that one day my service as a dietitian will obsolete. If one was dedicated enough and willing to put in the time commitment, they could collect enough information to create their own diet plan regardless of what ailment, or long-term disease they have. There are exceptions as with anything, but I truly believe this statement. To succeed in the 22^nd century your services must be one hundred percent accessible, regardless of where the clientele is. Weight Watchers is online, Jillian Michaels is online, Dr. Oz is online, so why should my client have to drive 1 hr., 35 mins or even 10 mins to my office when a looser waistband is a click away. Not much research on web based counseling has been done as it is a relatively new phenomenon but in Brug, Oenema and Cambell’s (2003) article, “Past, present, and future of computer-tailored nutrition education”, they discuss the benefits of computer tailored nutrition. (http://www.ajcn.org/content/77/4/1028S.full)

Computer Tailored Nutrition: “The process of computer tailoring attempts to mimic the process of personal counseling: people are surveyed or interviewed, and the results are used to develop individualized feedback and advice. In the computer-tailored interventions developed to date, the survey is generally self-administered or administered by telephone, and the survey results are keyed or automatically scanned into a data file. The tailoring expert system analyses these data and links them with a feedback and advice source. This feedback source is a message library or archive that contains appropriate feedback and advice for each survey response (Brug et al, 2003, pg. 3).”

Yes, computer tailored nutrition is an example of  the very base work if not a side dish of what a dietitian is responsible for in their day to day. But they hit on a very important point. “Personal counseling is too time-consuming and therefore too expensive to apply for every individual who, for example, has a diet high in saturated fat or low in fruits and vegetables (Brug et al, 2003, pg. 3)”. Time. Time in this day and age is more precious than money as people are working more hours, participating in more extracurriculars, are more focused on self improvement (i.e. working out, classes, esthetics for example waxing/tanning/etc.) or the improvement and development of their children.

34-year-old Linda, with a two year old and a newborn, a part time job, an active member of her community, and 10 baby weight pounds to lose does not have the TIME to see a dietitian. But imagine a world in which Linda simply took 30 mins to complete a online profile with her concerns, goals and health information and was emailed a health and wellness plan, meal and shopping guide included. Linda will lose the 10 pounds, decrease her body mass by 5%, decreases her chances of type 2 diabetes, CVD, heart attack, etc.  Basically what I am attempting to make clear is the advantage, maybe even necessity, of online communications in the health sector.  This is an instant gratification generation. This is a generation that wants to do more and live longer; therefore they have invested interests in their health. This is a generation that will not wait a month for an hour-long appointment. This is the smart phone generation, with a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips. The internet is no longer merely a fun food interests hub. It is a tool, for health professionals and patients alike. The question is, do I know how to use this tool.

ALES 204, here I come.

KTreats