English 311

Future English 311 students, pay attention because this course has a lot to offer. Unlike your previous writing courses wit long essays, this course entails much shorter documents like emails, memorandums, resumes and reports. There is still a great deal of research but the primary focus is on creating professional and effective documents for good communication in the workplace. Utilizing the skills you learn in this course with benefit you in you job hunting and getting ahead in your desired profession. Knowing your profession is one thing, but looking and acting the part is most important.

Service Learning Outcome

Working with the Baker Donora Center has been a challenging experience. I have become much more familiar with Microsoft Publisher in which I had very little experience with prior to this project. It is a very useful tool that can be used with various types of applications. I have learned how important communication with others is in the real world. Communication with your partners is very important to ensure that you are both on the same page. It is not something you can start and simply not finish; it has a purpose and your partners are counting on you to provide a professional document. It was challenging and I did not receive all the information needed, but I had learned that sometimes you need to take control do what is needed in order to meet your deadlines.

The project has allowed me to make progress on my long-term goals by stepping outside of my comfort zone. I had to meet with people I was unfamiliar with and take on responsibility. It has been a stepping stone toward giving back to the community. My community has given me so much and it is only fair that I give back in return.

My Community

Though my sevice learning project I have learned a great deal about my community and myself. There are many great non-profit organizations located right in our very one neighborhoods that are dedicated to helping others. Before this project I had not realized how busy not-profit organizations were. They tackle many activities at one time and can use all the help they can get. I have done community service before but I had not thought about the option of volunteering the knowledge I have learned in school to benefit the center. It is a great feeling knowing that my hard work is paying off, not money wise, but by creating a great service to others in my very own community. Even though it was hard work, I plan to volunteer my knowlege as much as possible because it was such a great experience.

Virtual Collaboration Project

Virtual collaboration is a way for campanies to develope an online identity and create areas for their members to contact and work with each other over the internet. There are thousands of ways to accomplish this; including blogs, wikis, websites and networking sites. Recently I was teamed up with my fellow classmates Brice and Damian for a virtual collaboration project. My group developed a pretend night club that would use various types of collaboration. Brice created a twitter account, Damian created a WetFeet account and I created a blogspot. We worked very well together. We utilized our time in class to discuss what needed to be done and contacted each other various times through email and the discussion board (both are types of virtual collaboration). The project was very productive and all our samples were great for advertisement, however if we had more time we could have created more in depth samples. The project taught me how cheap yet effective virtual collaboration can be. There are so many options out there that a company can benifit from and should take advantage of. It is a great way to allow employees to communicate with each other, as well as communicating with the public.

My Service Learning Partner

I am partnering up with Baker Donora Center for my service learning project. The center is conveniently located on the corner of Baker St. and Donora St., one block west of Pennsylvania Ave. The mission of the center is, "improving the quality of life in our neighborhood". They partner with public and private sectors, as well as community residents, to improve the quality of the neighborhood. They are also involved in a Health Outreach to inform and help residents with many resources, such as: Plan First, Quit Smoking, Child Immunizations, Food Resources, My Child, Parenting Resources, Homeownership, and several others. The center also provides and "Extreme Street Makeover" every year, in which they improve the curb appeal of several homes along a particular street.

Baker Donora has asked me to provide them with their next newsletter. Their newsletter typically covers the months activities and services; however, the upcoming months have several important events planned. Therefore, they would like to cover the next couple of months in one newsletter. This will create a good challenge, but I am always willing to tackle a challenge. My partners plan to aid me in anyway and provide me with as much information as possible. This will be a promising experience and can't wait to get started.

Effective Page Design

Effective page design is so important because you want others develop an interest in your document. Documents that are too cluttered and overload on information may quickly loose the interest of their readers. On the other hand documents with too little information may not clearly promote the message you are trying to pass on. You want to disregard any irrelevant information and highlight the important information for a clear message. It must be usable, meaning the content and design should be relevant to your audience and easy for the reader to understand and follow.

An effective page design will have an eye catcher that will draw the individuals attention from across the room to spark an interest. A catchy phrase or picture that relates to your message is a good way to gain this interest. Throughout the document you must keep you target audience in mind to make a connection and keep them reading. A good layout will allow your readers to go with the flow of the document and maintain interest. White space, bold letters and italics will help highlight the key information, but be careful not to use to many variations of font styles because it can be hard on the readers eyes.

Overall an effective page design will help keep the readers interest and develop a clear message. It may be short and simple, however it will be attractive, get straight to the point and keep your readers from guessing what the document intends to say. The primary goal is communication and the audience should always be kept in mind.

Initial Understanding of Service Learning

Service learning and community service are very similar, however there is a difference. The most distinctive difference is that community service emphasises on skills and habits of volunteering, where as service learning allows the student to apply their knowledge and skills developed in school to some real world problems.

Service learning allows the student to be in control of their own project. The project allows the student to reach beyond their comfort levels, learn responsibility, and benefit the community. The student can put their own personal touches on the project and gain a certain satisfaction of learning while helping those in need.

This project will allow me to meet many new people, develope personal growth and responsibiliy. Knowing the the time and effort I put into my project will help those in need will provide me with a great sense of satisfaction.