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.