This blog will function as a portal, which will connect viewers to the lastest information about online communication, the typical life of a university student, and some interesting information on resource and production economics.
I think that Wikipedia is such a great example of how the combined intellect of a group can be used for a lot of good. Anyone can add content to Wikipedia and that is great because knowledge and understanding is always changing. Everyone in Ales204 edited a Wikipedia stub, I chose to update a stub on Djent, a new emerging style of music that I've come to adore. Above is a screenshot of my work.
It took me while to get used to all the coding and referencing barriers but soon realized it was pretty simple. I was amazed how easy it is for someone to jump in and change and update knowledge on wikipedia. I use Wikipedia all the time in my day to day life so I was happy to contribute.
In the future I will search for topics not adequately covered by Wikipedia and add what I can to them. Wikipedia is in line with my belief that open access to knowledge should be available to everyone, it furthers society!!
I was very interested in the variety of topics covered by students in Ales204. Christina Luong updated an article on the heart and stroke foundation of Canada.
If any of you are interested in what Djent even is, below is a video giving a complete explaination:
In class we talked a lot about open access and it's affect on the world of science research. Before taking Ales204 I had no idea how much free peer-reviewed information was available at my fingertips when I was connected to the web. This was very helpful when I completed my production economics term paper. I used several science journal articles as references from open access websites such as PubMed and the public library of science (PLoS.)
I suppose that open access poses threats to researchers in the fact they their research could be potentially stolen and claimed as original from new upcoming researchers. I believe though that because open access retains the same copyright rights as traditional journalism publishing, this is not such a grand fear.
I think that open access is going to continue to grow in the coming years and become the standard of scholarly journal publishing. This is because institutions cannot keep up with the costs of expensive journal subscriptions, especially when the sheer volume of scholarly journal online publishing is increasing at an almost exponential rate.
Here I've posted a link to the Public Library of Science, there are tons of great open access articles to read on a variety of interesting topics. Since discovering open access, I've read a lot of material on health, nutrition, and mental well being.
I've also posted a TED talk that I thought was very interesting on open-source cancer research and it's advantages and opportunities!
A fellow classmate of mine, Yuan Shi, posted another really neat TED talk on the importance of social media communication in society. Very cool! Check it out.
I cannot believe how fast the time has flew by this semester. It seems just a few weeks ago I was sitting in my first classes of the semester, wondering what was in store for me. I am pleased to report that I have learned a lot of useful information this semester that will give me an advantage in my future career search.What I value most from my classes in Ales 204, is the skills I learned from using Google Docs. Previously, when I had been working in a group on a single assignment, I as well as the rest of the group, would simultaneously work on the same word document. Of course this meant that every time new material was added to the document, the revised version had to emailed to the whole group. This wasted a lot of time that could have been used to add new input. Now anytime I am working on a project, and would like input from other people, I simply make a Google Document and share the link with the workers. Then we can add and share in real time, and even chat about the new revisions.
Lastly I am very glad I jumped into the Twittersphere. Previously to taking Ales204, I had never used Twitter. I assumed that Twitter was basically a clone of Facebook with a 140 character limit. Soon I realized that it was so much more than that. Now I'm constantly searching for people, groups, and businesses that interest me, so I can keep up to date with their activities. I am glad that I don't have to go through the awkward process of friend requests to follow them. Currently I follow many newspapers, health journals, motivational groups, and comedians on Twitter. As well, when I am participating in an event that other social media users are viewing, I check the hash tag for that event to see what they have to say about the event. I found that Twitter was very valuable for in-classroom use, checking the hashtag #ales204 gave me a summary of all the points Dr. Laccetti had made during lecture, many of the those points I would not have retained from just sitting and listening in lecture.
I posted on some classmates blog in Ales204, they had lots of interesting things to say about the class and their programs. Links to my comments are as follows, and from the links you can easily navigate to their blogs.
Because I was so excited about being versed in using Twitter, I added a Twitter tool to this blog. The tool will keep you viewers up to date with my Twitter activity. Feel free to follow me: @Greggins. I will be posting a lot of interesting new findings that I've come across in regards to social media and communications. I encourage you to comment on your thoughts on Social Media's place in the business world, and to share your favorite users to follow on Twitter. Below, Hans Vestberg shares his thoughts on a completely networked society. I'm very interested in his vision.
