Introduction

My name is Danielle Becker and I am a second-year student in the faculty of ALES. I am taking Pre-Vet through the Animal Health Program. I was raised on an acreage north-east of Edmonton. I was always very active and juggled lots of extracurricular activities - many centring around horses. At 17, I moved to Wales on scholarship to The United World College of the Atlantic (UWC-AC) (http://www.atlanticcollege.org/?force=1) to complete high school. I remained at UWC-AC for two years. During my time at the school, I met friends from around the world.

 My friends from Albania, Iran and Ireland and myself.

Modern forms of communication are becoming a very large part of daily life. From our personal to professional live, social media is taking over. As people travel more and more, the world is shrinking, and with it there is a greatly increased demand for 'hi-tech' methods of communication. We can now instantaneously communicate with friends and family anywhere in the world. Personally, this was very important for me when I moved to Wales, alone, at 17; I found it comforting to know that I would be able to communicate with my family and friends back home through emails, skype and facebook. Now that I've returned to Alberta, I spend many an hour conversing with my friends around the world on skype, seeing what they've been up to on Facebook and reading about their adventures on their blogs.

Professionally, social media is also become an important tool. For example, LinkedIn can work to not only help you become connected to professionals in your field and find that 'perfect job', it is also incredibly valuable for recruiters and those looking for the 'perfect employee'. (http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/24/technology/linkedin_social_networking.fortune/). For anyone who is in the public service sector, Twitter and Facebook are great resources to raise awareness, advertise and alert patrons to new event, opportunities or promotions.

I also find it very interesting how social media can provide you with many opportunities to expand your resume. A member of our class, Rosie Templeton, (http://rosie-ales.blogspot.com/) did this when she won a cattle show marketing blog competition.

I look forward to more discussion about social media in ALES 204!