Reflective Post

  Through ALES 204 I was able to explore the social media world in it's many different aspects.Creating and designing a blog was our first task to get started through the blogging world.An introductory post was published by students of the ALES204 class in order to reveal each one's identity.I noticed many students shared the same major that I did which is Nutrition and Foods.Namely,Stace K ( http://stace-k.blogspot.ca/2012/01/introductory-blog.html?showComment= 1333926454396#c1774162180727816780).Additionally I learnt that communications skillls are valued significantly by employers of any profession.This was also stated by Christy (http://christyales204blog.blogspot.ca/2012/01/introductory-post.html?showComment =1333953470081#c2795290561924008249)Twitter was one of the main social media tools that I learned how to use and communicate with others world wide.I was able to meet and have conversations over twitter with professionals in my field of study which is nutrition. Additionally,I was able to contact diticians in order to volunteer with them over the summer.Thus I determined that Twitter is a very useful tool to be used by students and prefessionals today.My fellow class mate Julie proposed in her Introductory post about the importance of Twitter in different professionals.(http://julielacko.blogspot.ca/2012/01/introduction.html? showComment= 1333929826610# c2211285333806011331)
   Moreover,Facebook is another social media tool that could be used in a professional way in order to achieve a good reputation on the internet for emplyoers to view when searching for an individiual seeking a professional position with them.Also,Facebook could be used to promote a buisness for example as mentioned in a blog called Simply Zestly.(http://www.simplyzesty.com/facebook/running-a-promotion-on-facebook-follow-these-tips-to-make-it-rock/) Furthermore,Facebook is used internationally all over the globe.Thus there would be a more broad window of oppurtunities open for one to consider,as Shelley Du; a class mate in ALES 204 mentioned in her blog post on her Facebook page (http://shelley-du.blogspot.ca/2012/01/page.html?showComment=1333931490832#c4480548319236970255).

      (http://www.simplyzesty.com/facebook/running-a-promotion-on-facebook-follow-these-tips-to-  make-it-rock/)


The course ALES 204 also taught me how to edit a Wikipedia article or stub with the help of my TAs.This assignment specifically showed me the inaccuracey and unreliability of Wikipedia.Wikipedia is an untrusted source of information in which many people are able to edit.Thus using it as a reference is not a fine choice to adminster.It may be used for insignificant topics discussed among friends.Likewise,my class mate Loana Valdez suggested in her blog that it is very easy to modulate the information displayed in the Wikepedia articles.This was mentioned in        ( http://valdezl.blogspot.ca/2012/03/wikipedia-online-free-encyclopedia.html?showComment =1333951167077#c7216519292040186987)
  Lastly,the scientific article assignment exposed me to the different eras that a journal would pass through in order to keep up to date on the designs and information in the articles demostrated. Journals with peer reviwed articles are considered to the best source of information one can obtain in order to formulate a good scientific article.Finally,I would like to thank Dr.Leccetti for providing this ALES204 course to us,also all the TAs including Pamela Bently and Erin Dul for helping me throughout this term.

Blog Post of My Choice

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a sequence of  presentations about international perspectives on nutrition.I was acknowledged about these presentation through a post in the ALES204 class blogpage posted by Jess.(http://ales204-2012.blogspot.ca/2012/03/nutrition-without-borders.html#links).I was mostly amused by the talk presented by Valerie Friesen.

      Valerie’s research study was conducted in Ghana.More information about the event could be found at (http://www.nutritionwithoutborders.com/)

         
       The purpose of her study was to prevent under nutrition and growth stunting of children between the ages of 18 to 24 months. Thus that is when the most important time of growth and development in an individual’s life would occur, and consequently, incomplete development may lead to morbidity and mortality in one’s future life. Growth was an indicator of nutrition status in children in this study. It was shown that many children were not growing because of a deficiency in iron which has a significant role in the cognitive development of a child. Various factors seemed to influence a child’s food intake. These various factors include the quality and diversity of foods available, likewise; different foods are needed for complete child development and the prevention of deficiencies. Additionally, eating frequency and energy density of foods seemed to impact the quantity of foods consumed. As mentioned by Valerie, when energy density increases, breast milk consumption decreases which would have adverse effects on a child’s health throughout life because breast milk is needed especially in the first 18-24 months for full child development. Moreover, maternal education appeared to improve the child’s growth when mothers had an education of 5 years or more. Furthermore, culture believes and wealth seemed to be responsible for infant food intake as well. In Ghana many cultural believed that animal based foods should not be fed to infants under the age of 2.    
      Wealthy families had less stunted children with a better nutritional status. Valerie’s study was designed to determine how microfinance which are small loans from banks, relate to children’s nutritional status. Microfinances have shown to improve children’s nutrition and reduced health mortality. Many microcredits are offered through banks with an education to all the mothers on basic health, nutrition and business skills. It was determined that microcredit and education to mothers combined together improved nutritional status. The question demonstrated for future studies is whether the education or the microcredit was the factor that improved nutritional status of children.      

                                        (http://travel.mongabay.com/ghana/images/ghana_0009.html)
  
       The main objective of Valerie’s study was to determine the association between a woman’s participation in the microcredit and the nutritional status and dietary quality of children. It was exhibited that children with microcredits consumed more diverse foods including dairy, legumes and nuts which are more expensive and energy dense. Yet microcredit only slightly improved nutritional status through dietary diversity, but diversity of foods is known to increase overall health. However, children with educated mothers seemed to have better nutritional status. Overall, diversity of foods and maternal education are needed for improved nutritional status in children.

Editing Wikipedia Stubs

  Wikipedia is one of the most popular online encyclopaedias used daily by many people. This week's ALES204 assignment was to find a stub, which is an incomplete article in Wikipedia.Our task was to build upon it with information given from trusted resources. I believe this assignment was administrated to us in order to vividly allow us to view the unreliability and inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Anybody with an access to the internet would be able to create an account on Wikipedia and edit articles. This week I created an account and edited the stub of Lipase Inhibitors. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipase_inhibitors).I used trusted articles, books and webpages to address correct information about these lipase inhibitors. Yet, others may use unreliable resources and presented false information to the public.
  Likewise, my fellow classmate Lindsay Gervais edited an article in Wikipedia about Superfood. (http://lindsaygervais.blogspot.ca/2012/03/editing-wikipedia-stubs.html ).As she mentioned, that somebody has edited her article and introduced incorrect information which contradicts with the findings she gathered from accurate resources. This reveals the inconsistency and inaccuracy with the information displayed in Wikipedia articles. Additionally, as Erin stated in her lecture on Wednesday, individuals editing and creating articles in Wikipedia would shape information suiting their thoughts and believes. This could lead to a misunderstanding of information presented on a topic to the public as Jessie's blog post demonstrated. Furthermore, Erin suggested a very possible action that could take place and harm others. Pharmaceutical companies may edit information about drugs like the lipase inhibitors and deleted the side effects caused by it.
  On the other hand, the stub that I edited about lipase inhibitors in Wikipedia was deleted initially from Wikipedia by the administrators for unrevealed reasons. This may have occured considering the fact that I edited the article more than ten times in less than an hour because I was having difficulties fully publishing my gatherings from trusted journal articles. Another reason that could have been responsible for the article deletion would be that Wikipedia viewed that the article initially didn’t have references linked to the information presented. This brought to my attention the fact that Wikipedia administrators are watching the modulations that occur on this website. Yet, this reason can be invalid.

 Afterwards, I edited the lipase inhibitors stub again, but before uploading my references somebody suggested that my article has no references and needed cleaning up. Although after ten minutes the references were presented on the screen. This person’s rating could cause others to believe that this article written is invalid and inaccurate while I worked very hard to find trusted articles and webpages to display the correct information. Thus the actions permitted by Wikipedia for others to edit and rate articles causes Wikipedia to be very misleading. Wikipedia could be used by people to settle an argument on dinner but should not be trusted. In fact, while I am writing this blog post, I overheard two students arguing about how many games a famous hockey player has played in his life. One of the students searched the hockey player’s name on Wikipedia and figured out an answer.

Facebook

  Facebook is one of the very popular social media tools used today world wide.Creating a Facebook Page is a brilliant idea to advertise a business or anything in our lives.Since Facebook is one of the most used websites in our world,I believe it is the primary source of information for most people,including myself.
  I personally created a Facebook Page for myself to help employees find the information they are seeking for not found on a resume or told in an interview.Additionally,if I become a registered dietician in the near future,I would open up my own private clinic and would be able to advertise it through this Facebook Page.An example of this would be a clinic called "Diet Center Me".This business is located in Lebanon,through Facebook I was able to find their page and contact easily (.http://www.facebook.com/Dietcenterme)
  Moreover,I would be able to get introduced to the many future nutritionist in Edmonton through Facebook and share our knowledge.I would be able to search up a Facebook page for a Dietician just like my classmate and then find her blog and read it. (http://ales204nutritionstudent.blogspot.com/)

Introduction

  My name is Rima, and I'm originally from Lebanon which is very small country that sits on the beautiful Mediterranean sea.I'm a third year student at the University of Alberta,located in Edmonton,Alberta.I'm currently working towards my Bachelor of Science majoring in Nutrition and Food Sciences hoping to become a Registered Dietician.My interest in nutrition originated from viewing many people in our culture with a lack of knowledge about healthy eating,including myself at one point of time.I am willing to help and educate people about being a healthy individual.
  I believe that communication plays a major role in our lives today especially that our world is using social media tools more every day.Communication plays a very important role in my career.As a health educator,I would have to interact with people from different cultures and various ages.As an example,if I was to educate children at a school about how unhealthy carbonated beverages are,I would have to explain it to them in a simple way in order to them to understand the objective of my presentation.Just as a fellow student included in her blog we need to learn "how to dumb down what we've learned so that just about anyone can take our knowledge and apply it".(http://ales204ct.blogspot.com/ ).
  As a health educator to appropriately complete my tasks I would have to learn how to communicate with people in a professional way in person and through social media tools like websites,Facebook page and blogs.A page on Facebook for a registered dietician caught my eye last week ( http://www.facebook.com/roubaelasmarofficial?sk=photos ).This young lady is advertising her clinic,and many people know about her clinic today because she asked a celebrity to post a link to her page. Having such communication skills in social media and in person can open up job opportunities.




  
(http://static.flickr.com/44/107618552_63559c5d2f.jpg)