Reflecting on ALES 204

Four months ago, I attended my first ALES 204 class with Dr. Jess Laccetti. I knew the class would involve social media and online presence in the modern world, but I was unaware of how I could apply this to my agriculture degree. Fast-forward to today, I am an even more prominent Twitter user with my own ALES 204 blog, a professional Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, and Flickr page. I expanded my knowledge of Wikipedia writing through editing the page on Gelbveih cattle. I learned about the importance of the Open Access movement in scientific writing through a memorandum assignment. Finally, I learned more about the power that social media has over our generation, both personally and professionally.

I believe I was a minority in this class from the beginning in that I was already using most of the social media platforms we were required to become familiar with. I joined Twitter last summer and have been operating my personal agriculture blog, Absolutely Agriculture, since May of 2011. My existing knowledge of these platforms made some of the ALES 204 classes go by fairly slow as the concepts were completely new to most of the students. However, I learned a lot more about using other platforms such as LinkedIn and Flickr which I was not previously familiar with.

Onbile. (2012). Social Media Strategies Planning. [Image]. Retreived April 10, 2012, from http://www.onbile.com/info/social-media-strategies-planning/

Now that I am equipped with such an extensive social media toolbox, I plan to use it to assist me in my future career goals. I am attending Oklahoma State University to obtain my degree in Agriculture Communications & Economics, after which I plan to find a career within the agriculture communications field. It is incredibly likely that my future positions will include social media. The action steps I plan to take are: building my LinkedIn profile and network, adding my resume/CV to my personal blog, and creating a blogging schedule over the summer to increase readership on my personal blog. ALES 204 was great motivation to continue to learn more about social media and it allowed me to try out platforms I wouldn't have tried.

I feel as though this class should focus more on professional skills in the future. Social media is important, but having the skills to build a resume, interview, and construct a PowerPoint are equally important. Although we touched on these in classes and labs, I believe it would be more effective to include these components in major assignments. Everyone in a communication class should have to stand up and speak to the class at least once! We did this in labs but I would find it more effective if it were for marks rather than simply participation. Call me competitive, but I think a lot of students would agree!

ALES 204 was a very educational and refreshingly nontraditional addition to my University of Alberta degree. I think this class would benefit from taking the student evaluations to heart with the goal to making it even more beneficial for the students of the Faculty of Agriculture, Life, and Environmental Sciences. I appreciate all the hard work done by Dr. Laccetti and the TA's in constructing and delivering course material for this class. I commented on Dani's, Hilary's, Mark's, Jessica's, and Rebecca's blog posts.

Wikipedia Article: Gelbvieh Cattle

This week, I was given the opportunity to write a Wikipedia stub article on a topic of my choice. I chose Gelbvieh cattle, a breed that is increasing in popularity in Canada. My family ranch deals primarily with Hereford and Angus breeds of cattle, so it was very educational to research a breed I have less hands-on experience with. You can view my article here. The Gelbvieh breed is relatively new to North America and has experienced great success in the show ring. This was a great chance to learn more about the history and science behind the breed.

My Wikipedia Stub Article (Rosie Templeton, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelbvieh> retrieved March 22 2012)

This project was extremely educational but did not come without challenges. My first obstacle was finding reputable sources online and compiling the facts into my own words. Thankfully, each source was fairly consistent in the history and basic information about the breed, so there were few contradictions in facts. Once I had gathered my main ideas into a document, I had to integrate it into the previous Wikipedia stub. In this case, the previous stub was poorly written and unsupported by references, so I found it best to remove the majority or their content and replace it with my findings. It was remarkably easy to do so, proving just how simply Wikipedia can be edited. I was also able to learn about linking to other Wikipedia articles through the previous editor's code. Another challenge came in the form of properly referencing my text. I added superscript reference notes using the reference template. After a few instances of trial and error, I found this method to be very easy to navigate. I liked that once I had cited a source once, I could simply pull it from the drop-down list to cite it again.

The highlights of this project were educating myself about a breed of cattle I knew little about, and learning the basics of Wikipedia editing. It's fascinating to learn how the modern North American cattle herd developed, and just how global our genetics are. I'm sure I can now impress most Gelbvieh breeders by telling them the story of how Lenness Hall visited Germany in search of new Fleckvieh bulls but instead became fascinated with the muscle capacity and length of body he saw in a Gelbvieh bull named Hass, prompting the first imports of Gelbvieh semen to America in 1971.

Gelbvieh Bull. <http://ranchers.net/forum/about47180.html> Retrieved March 22, 2012.

My classmates have also been educating me on interesting topics in agriculture, human ecology, nutrition, and the environment through their own stub articles. I was particularly interested to see my fellow ALES 204 student Hilary's page on clubroot, a common plant disease which was first identified in Alberta in 2003. I learned from Hilary's article that this is no new disease, tracing as far back as 13th century Europe.

I appreciated learning about the inner workings of Wikipedia, and how incredibly easy it is for anyone with a computer to edit content. I understand that there are quality control measures and an active editing community in place, but it still seems very simple to change content from fact to opinion or even falsify facts. There was no screening for me to acquire a username; they didn't even require my email! This project has made me much more critical of the information I find on Wikipedia. I now plan to double check any information in a Wikipedia article via a peer-reviewed article or journal. I have never cited Wikipedia as a source for an academic paper, nor do I plan to. I use it as a source to help me learn more about a topic as it is easy to navigate, but I believe it is not useful or appropriate as a reference. Overall, this assignment was very educational. All university students who use Wikipedia on a regular basis should have to complete an assignment like this one to better understand where their information is coming from.

Reading Week Trip to Oklahoma and Texas

8 days, 2 states, 3000km on the rental car and one visit to my future university.

This year's Reading Week involved very little reading but a whole lot of fun-having. My dad, Byron, and I flew to Dallas, Texas and made the drive to Stillwater, Oklahoma for the next morning. The purpose of this trip was to explore Oklahoma State University campus, meet with professors and advisers, and get everything in order for my big move to Oklahoma this fall. As it stands, everything is falling into place and I can't wait to get started as an Ag Communications and Ag Economics double major.

I look forward to this degree because it will provide practical training and education for a career that involves advocating for agriculture. Telling agriculture's story and educating the public are some of my biggest goals for my future career. The importance of primary agriculture and some common passions are well articulated in my classmate Dani's blogpost entitled "Appreciate and Educate: Primary Industry."

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, I was able to meet up with some good friends IRL (in real life) for the first time. The lovely and talented Katie Vaz was my unofficial OK State tour guide along with Professor Ferrell and Cara, showing me around campus and treating me to my first Eskimo Joe's experience.

I also got to meet up with Jessica and Levi, and that evening we had some excellent pizza and did some bowling. 

Verdict: professional bowling is not in my future. 

I fell in love with the campus. I'm sure it's not hard to see why.

I'm so happy with how everything went in Stillwater. I met friends I already knew I'd love, and was treated to some fantastic southern hospitality. I can't count how many times I was offered help for my transition to Oklahoma from new friends and contacts.

After all the paperwork was settled and we had seen the sights of Stillwater, it was time to move on. We spent a day in Oklahoma City and visited Express Ranches, the Cowboy Hall of Fame, an Oklahoma City Barons hockey game, and Cattlemen's Steakhouse in the OKC Stockyards.

Our Canadian friend Doug who manages the Express Clydesdales was kind enough to give us the grand tour.

I think these horses have better living conditions than most people!

Papa Byron and I with the Express Stagecoach

No family trip is complete without looking at cattle. Their bulls looked great.

Express was amazing. I'd heard about it countless times so it was great to finally make the visit.

From OKC we headed to Texas, and spent the next three days on a grand tour of West and North Texas and plenty of their historical points, western shops, and trailer dealers.

Palo Duro Canyon, one of Dad's big bucket list items.

Hereford, Texas in Whiteface County. Well worth the detour off the interstate.

West Texas. Flat, treeless, and beautiful.

Templeton's seem to have a problem with cowboy boot addictions. This trip was no exception.

I brought home this pair, some Corrals for my sister, and Dad found himself a pair of Lucchese's.

On our final day in Texas, we spent the evening at the Fort Worth Stockyards. This is definitely somewhere I'll be revisiting as we didn't have nearly enough time to explore. We had a delicious dinner at H3 Ranch with another Twitter friend, Mark!

I loved my time in Oklahoma and Texas. I can't wait to get the Oklahoma State this fall and do some more exploring of the southern states. It will be a big change for me and doesn't come without some pretty major sacrifices, but I know it will be one of the better decisions I ever make.

Facebook Page

Well would you look at that. I made a Facebook page. 

facebookpage, a photo by Rotempleton on Flickr.

For this week's ALES 204 assignment, I had the opportunity to create a personal Facebook page. I have had a profile for over five years, but I had never considered creating a professional page to market myself to future employers. I was able to post my personal goals and experience in a format I would want prospective employers to see. I like this format better than allowing the public to see my personal Facebook page, which is harder to manage due to a great amount of content built up over the years. 

Creating this page was very simple. I have created and managed a page before so I had no difficulty in this area. What I did find slightly more challenging was uploading the Flickr picture directly to my blog. After some trial and error, we learned how. I see a lot of potential in using Flickr to share photos and web albums, and I am going to try to use it more frequently now that I have an account. 

Screen Capture from my Facebook page. (Rosie Templeton, 2012)

Setting up this page was a good experience as many of the students in ALES 204 will have to do this in their future careers. As a professional page, I don't think the Facebook page is as effective as using LinkedIn to market yourself to employers. I enjoyed learning something new about technology and media sharing in class this week. Many of my other classmates embraced the professional Facebook page as well; check out Lauren's here.

Introduction

Hi there. My name is Rosie Templeton.

Checking Newborn Calves (Ric Swihart, 2009)

I grew up on a cattle ranch and farm near Lethbridge, Alberta. I was a 4-H member for 10 years, during which time I discovered my passion for public speaking. In 2009, I was the Alberta 4-H Champion public speaker, moving on to place 3rd at the national competition. I also served as an Alberta 4-H Ambassador for 2 years, which involved traveling the province giving presentations and workshops to 4-H members and leaders. I am currently in my second year at the University of Alberta taking a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Business Management...for now. In the fall of 2012, I plan to transfer to Oklahoma State University to pursue my dream degree, a double major in Agriculture Communications and Agriculture Economics. When I complete that degree, I plan on returning to Alberta to work for an agricultural company in a communications or policy position.

Absolutely Agriculture Blog Header (Rosie Templeton, 2011)

Communication is a very large part of my life currently, and will be even more in my future. I started my own blog last summer, Absolutely Agriculture, as part of a marketing competition for a cattle show. I placed first in the blog competition based on greatest number of hits, quality of posts, blog design, and frequency of posts. To market my blog, I started a Twitter account and began interacting with other people in agriculture. I now use Twitter more than any other social networking site, and have made numerous real-life friendships that started on Twitter. I attended the 2nd Annual AgChat Conference last summer after hearing about it on Twitter. I spent 4 days in Nashville, Tennessee networking with people in agriculture and learning how to better communicate with consumers via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my blog. This experience solidified my passion for communication in agriculture, and gave me valuable contacts for my future in this field.

I'm excited to expand my knowledge through my ALES 204 (Communication Theory and Practice) class this semester. I hope to learn more about growing my online presence and using it to market myself to future employers. I'm also excited to see what other ALES 204 students come up with, such as my now-blogging roommate Dani.

I will be participating in a Community Service Learning lab component of the course, working with the Writers Guild of Alberta to develop their social media presence. This is a very exciting placement for me, as I am always looking for opportunities to broaden my knowledge of communication and social media. Working with the Writers Guild will give me a chance to share my blogging and design abilities with an organization and learn from them as well. I am excited for this experience and the contacts I will make during my placement.