Reflective Blog Post

       How time flies, it is coming to the end of this semester. In these three months, I have learned a lot about communication from Dr.Laccetti and ALES 204 classes. When I first came to this class, I was barely using Facebook or other social media. Although I have been Canada for one year, I knew almost nothing about the social media that used by people here. The information provided in ALES 204 lecture, I would say, is exactly what our international students needed not just for academic studies, but also for our social life. The experience in ALES 204 class actually greatly improves my communication skill which is what I expected to gain from this class.

I have learned how to use Facebook to create a professional business card, and how to use twitter to gather or keep me informed about academic information that related to my area. I hadn’t noticed that there are so many tools around us that can make our study or work more efficient and comprehensive. Besides, I also realize that the social media can also be used for academic purpose, not only for entrainment or recreations. Though the course, we also had the chance to participant the creation of some social media, like the Wiki Stub assignment. I have used Wikipedia a lot for searching a variety of information, and I do know the information on it is not reliable and can be modified by anyone that has the access to the internet. However, when I actually did an entry on Wikipedia, it was not easy, but worthy it. Especially, when the stub “parboiled rice” I added finally become an article, I felt that what I have learned is recognized by others and a sense of achievement is also coming up. On the other hand, by doing this, I’m not only reinforce the knowledge I have learned from class, but also help to spread these information and make more people to know about it.

In addition to these communication tools, I also gained lots experience on academic writing and presentation. Although this is the last year of university and I have been familiar with academic studies, ALES 204 still teaches something new to me, like Refworks, which I think is powerful tool to help cite the reference properly, especially when you have hundreds of articles. The opportunity provided by the lab section for practice is extremely useful for our future studies or career. We now know how to write a good CV, how to react in a job interview and how to perform excellent presentation.

Overall, I’ d like to thank Jessica and all the TAs, it is your effort and responsibility that makes us more prepared and ready to encounter the challenge we may meet in the future. If you want to know what others have gained through Ales204 class, you can check their blogs.  

here are the five comments I have made:

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comment #5

 

Something about presentation

 Before I take ALES 204, I was quite afraid of public speaking or presentation. The reason is simple for that, since English is not my first language and it may be awkward to pronounce something wrong. However, during the lecture time of ALES204, I have learned a lot about presentation skills and how to make an efficient PowerPoint. It is not only about the knowledge I have learned from the class, but also the confidence I have gained through the practice in lab section. 
      It was not easy to fully understand those presentation skills, if you don’t practice. During the lab section, we have practiced two times and it was actually a very exciting experience. In such a short time to prepare a speech that contains lots of information. I was trying to incorporate some of the skills we have learned during class, but it doesn’t works well for me. But, the encouragement I got from our TAs, I think is more valuable to me and that makes me feel better. Just as the name of my blog “All things are difficult before they are easy”, the starting period is always so frustrating and exhausting. Although only practice twice in the lab section, it has gained enough confidence I needed and which was proved to be very indispensable to my success in my presentation of other courses. 

Here are some tips I found which is very helpful when I was doing presentation.

1. Practice Delivery Out Loud. You need to speak out clearly and in a moderate speed. Also, mental rehearse can go something wrong, since what you say may not exactly what you want to say.
2. Try to Conduct Your Practice in a Situation Similar to the Real Speaking Venue. Whenever possible, conduct your practice in a situation that closely mirrors the real presentation. Research indicates that if your practice closely mirrors your real presentation, once you are in the actual presentation your brain will think you have done this before. Besides practice, the next most important ingredient in your success is experience.
3. Practice in Front of Real People. You can practice before your family or friends and listen to what they like and dislike, which you can improve when doing a real presentation.
4. The Mirror is Your Friend. It will allow you to see and hear your delivery live and make decisions about how to enhance your style.
5. Practice with Your Props. If you are using visual aids such as a PowerPoint slide show, make sure you practice with your slides. Since you need to incorporate more information to the slide, you need to know exactly which part or which information you need to expand.
6. Do it One More Time. Practice more can relief your stress and become more accurate on the control of time. 

Also, you can find more inforamtion about presentation skill or scientific wirting on Jeremy's blog

Wikipedia Article

In this week’s ALES204 class,we were told to expand a Wikipedia “stub” by adding more information and hopefully make it become a really article. Since I’m a food science students and more familiar with food products,I decided to make some contributions about food on Wikipedia. However, I found that most of the food products or ingredients I was interested in were already in the article format instead of stubs,which is reasonable,since these are all popular products. So,I went through the stub list and finally decided to write something about parboiled rice. It is actually quite exciting to start writing something on wikipedia,because your work will be viewed millions or billions people around world.

At first, I noticed that the previous version provide some good general information about parboiled rice, but most important was it lacked some reliable reference which makes its information doubtful and inconvicing.Hence,I planed to expand this stub by combining some detailed information from journal articles and the knowledge I have learned in related classes,such as the molecular change in starch during gelatinization and retrogradation. Also, I thought it will be useful to give some background information about parboiled rice to make this stub more complete and interesting.

This is my final version of wikipedia assignment-parboiled rice,check it out. Also,I notice that someone is modifing what I have written,but all are  minor changes which make my article more tidy and organised. Through this assignment,I have learned a lot about how to edit or add a wikipedia article and by doing researches,I also gain a better underastanding about parboiled rice. Besides,my classmates ava have done her wiki articles about Chronic wasting disease.

it's quite interesting.

Introductory post

Hello, My name is Junchao Zhang and it’s my first time to blog here, still learning how to use this thing. Well, in this blog, I’d like to introduce myself and share some information about me with you guys. So, first, this year is the final year for me in Food Science and Nutrition major, what a relief, but still has last ten courses to go .For me, studying a bunch of different foods everyday can be exciting and fun. People in the world eat all kinds of different food every time and they really enjoy their foods. Thus, it is really necessary for us to know what the nutrition value of these foods and how to make them become much healthier for human consumption.

Speak to my hobbies, I like scuba diving and I have once gone to Australia for two weeks and I love the feeling to be surrounded by all kinds of colorful fishes and corals. Also, during my spare time, I may choose to work out in the gym or watch some movies.

Before I came to Canada, I have studied food science in one university in China. It is during that time, I realized how fascinating this science is. In the meantime, there was an opportunity to transfer here to continue study food science, So here I come. Well, the first thing I have to adapt is not language, food or living style,but the weather in Edmonton. In my homeland,there are four seasons during every year. While in here,I can only feel two seasons which are summer and winter. Not even mentioned the temperature during the winter here.

Communication is critical for getting information or other social functions. Especially among our university students, I not only need to communicate with our classmates or partners for academic purposes, but also need to exchange information with the world through many social media, like Facebook and twitter. And I’m getting good on it.

Until next time

Junchao

Professional Facebook profile

Hello, guys,I’m here to show you my latest professional Facebook profile. To be honest, I have just started to use Facebook recently and I had no idea there is a function like this on Facebook, which can be helpful for my future career. So, before I built my business profile, I was wondering what I’m going to do in the future and since I was studying in food science, I may find a job related to food processing. But I definitely did not want to cook something in a restaurant or that kind of jobs, which I have done enough in my own apartment. My career goal is to run my own business of food products which can be food additive, dairy product or else.

So, speak to my study area, I’d like to say that I’m a fan of grain products. It all started from a course I took one year ago, the enthusiastic lectures given by the professor was passing to me as well as his passion. Hence, I was curious about cereal products and their health claim. It will be wonderful if I can find a job that related to this part of the food area.

Not only I, but also many of my friends, like Ava, are having a great passion on agriculture area,you can check their Facebook to learn more about agriculture and their interested field.