Final Send Off

Thank you so much everyone for coming today to our final class.

Thank to you the CSL students who bravely gave wonderful presentations (using Prezzie!) about their placements. They all taught us a lot about not-for-profits organizations and what goes on at the University and in the local area.

Thank you also to the three students, Kelsey, Annalise and Julianna, who created a visual and musical wrap-up of the term using social media! Amazing work!

Lecture 31: Google Docs

Lecture 31: Google Docs

View more presentations from Jessica Laccetti.

Social Media and ALES204 Students

In academia there continues to be a lot (a lot!) of discussion about the pros and cons of allowing (or enabling?!) students to use social media in class. There are quite a few (the majority it seems) of professors and teachers who think students should NOT use laptops or smartphones in class. They are a distraction is the oft' touted reason. Well students of #ALES204, you know I think differently! And, in many of our lectures I've tried to highlight why it is so important that we all learn to become digitally literate. It is more than just using Facebook, but learning to use it for specific purposes (like to promote oneself for a job) and learning to make some aspects of our profiles private. We're also learning that tweeting about research-related information can generate new connections - possibly even with future employees.

So, it is with this in mind that I share with you an infographic sent to me from Jenica Rhee. It is called The Digital Promise. What do you think?

Lecture 23: Wikis & Writing

IMPORTANT: Online class on Wednesday so you can work on your Wikipedia assignment!!

Note: As discussed in class, after choosing your stub article, check the revision history to make sure no one is currently (as of today) working on the stub. Then, add an edit (perhaps a quotation or reference) so that anyone can see that the stub article is now being worked on. Also, if you wish, you can add a comment on today's blog post noting (with a link) which stub article you are working on.

Although Wikipedia does use a WYSIWYG editor, you might want to use Wiki MarkUp. You can find out more about Wiki MarkUp Language (in order to add bulleted lists or bold and italicise your work), look here and here.

Read about our Wikipedia assignment here. But here is a short summary:

In this assignment, each student will update one "stub," or incomplete article in Wikipedia, to a complete encyclopedic article. Ideally, we would like your article to qualify for "Good Article" status. For reference, less than 1% of the articles on Wikipedia achieve this status, so this is no small feat!
Here a few caveats to keep in mind for this assignment:

• You will need to learn some basic wiki code. The code is not difficult, and there is a graphical editor with buttons to insert links and the like.
• Others can (and will) alter your contribution. In most cases, other users will add to and occasionally correct your work. But your work could be vandalized or deleted. You can always change the page back to what it was before, but such "revert wars" are frowned upon.
• The entire Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means you do not own the articles you work on.
• There is no standard length for a Wikipedia article. For the purposes of this assignment, a reasonable article will contain 300-600 words, which correspond to 1.5-3 pages of standard double-space text.

Part 1: Select a stub (needs to be done BEFORE your lab)

• Read the Wikipedia Getting Started page.
• Create an account .
• Find a "stub" that you would like to complete to a full article. Here is a list of stubs. Particular stub categories that may be of interest include Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disease
•  stubs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Endocrine,_nutritional_and_metabolic_disease_stubs) and the Alberta Research Council stub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Research_Council) . Here are tips for picking a good stub.

Lecture 23 Wikis & Writing

View more presentations from Jessica Laccetti

Social Media & Student Use

I just want to say how proud I am of all of you and how well you're harnessing social media to further your learning and collaboration.

I thought I would highlight student work when it is brought to my attention. Here is a great example of an ALES204 students (Julianna Damer) using YouTube to broadcast her thoughts and connect with other classmates. Feel free to comment here to start a discussion with Julianna and/or to let me know what you've been up to. Perhaps you've made a video or a google doc that you'd like me to share with the class?

Poster Competition!

The Students’ Union Undergraduate Research Symposium is taking place on November 17-18, with the poster competition taking place in the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences from the morning to early afternoon on November 18.

Originally, the deadline for students’ abstract submissions was on October 28; however, the deadline has been extended to Wednesday November 2 at 5pm. Although the deadline has been extended, please endeavour to submit abstracts as soon as possible (submitting them by October 28 is ideal).

The submission form can be found at  http://www.su.ualberta.ca/governance/executives/projects/urs/. Questions may be directed to the SU Vice-President Academic e-mail at vp.academic@su.ualberta.ca.

Employability & Social Media Use

Students should find this infographic very informative!

Infographic by Reppler via Mashable.

Undergraduate Research Symposium

A GREAT way to get involved in the research scene:

Abstracts are being accepted for the Students' Union's upcoming Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is being held in conjunction with the newly-launched Undergraduate Research Initiative, and with partners such as the Alumni Association. The symposium, which takes place November 17 and 18, is set to become one of Canada's largest and preeminent undergraduate research symposiums, with over 100 undergraduate research presentations in a November 18 poster competition, and over $10,000 in award funding for outstanding undergraduate research projects.

In order to increase the awareness of this event, I would be grateful if you could forward this e-mail to undergraduate students that currently or recently participated in undergraduate research. The symposium is open to current undergraduate students in all disciplines at the University of Alberta. A link to the Students' Union undergraduate research page can be found by going to su.ualberta.ca and http://www.su.ualberta.ca/governance/executives/projects/urs/.

Abstract submissions are due by October 28 at the end of the day. Students must submit a 250-word maximum abstract and explain their research in basic terms. Moreover, University of Alberta Libraries has provided guidelines for students preparing abstracts and posters through an online resource athttp://guides.library.ualberta.ca/undergraduateresearch. There is no cost for undergraduate students entering the symposium.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at vp.academic@su.ualberta.ca or at 780.492.4236. I look forward to seeing your ALES undergraduate students at the inaugural Students' Union and University of Alberta Undergraduate Research Symposium. 

Twitter Alias Spreadsheet

Can everyone please find their name on the following spreadsheet (it's a google doc) and fill in the column with your twitter alias? I would like to cross-reference this with my information.

You can also access the google doc here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjsIVysTrCWkdGZjR1ZmRUxMdmJ3TThyQzRIbTg4Wnc&hl=en_US#gid=0

If you can fill this in by the end of Friday's online class (9:50am), that would be very helpful.

Thanks.





https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjsIVysTrCWkdGZjR1ZmRUxMdmJ3TThyQzRIbTg4Wnc&hl=en_US#gid=0