Hello hello!

Hi everyone!

I'll be working as the HRCAP Summer Youth Intern Programs Coordinator for the HRM this summer, and am really excited to get plugged into this community. I've already heard a lot of great things going on across the municipality, and have started to meet people in person as well.

It's going to be an exciting summer! I'm looking forward to it.

Take care,

-Neil Bailey

Year-End Business

Well, I can't quite believe it, but we are at the end of our CAP season together!

After no responses to last week's Challenge, I think it's safe to say that everyone is pretty busy right now with year-end tasks. So this week, I won't be posting a challenge.

Rather, I ask that everyone participate in the discussion section of Glen's most recent post. What has been the primary focus of your work days during your internship?


We will, however, be announcing the WINNER!

With quality, creative submissions to nearly every challenge since she began, and a total of SIX wins..... Shona Bracken! Thank you for all of your hard work! You will be receiving an awesome prize before term-end.

Special thanks, and a mini-prize goes to Lyndsay Belair - with a total of FOUR challenge wins, and lots of other great subsmission.

Mini-prizes also for Glen Dufour and Matt Chamberlain, who have posted many interesting shared stories and discussion topics for us throughout the season.

I hope to work with many of you again in the Summer. There are great things in store!

On one last note, let's take a look at the success of our blog! Here are the stats from our final month.

Great work gang!

Hiring Students and Recent Graduates

As in many other jurisdictions, the Nova Scotia Government faces an aging population. With a large number of retirements on the horizon, the recruitment of youth into the public sector grows increasingly important.

The Career Starts program provides young Nova Scotians with practical employment experience and promotes the provincial civil service as a viable career path. The Public Service Commission funds four youth employment programs through Career Starts:

• Post Secondary Internship Program
• Co-operative Employment Program
• Summer Female Mentorship Program
• Summer Diversity Program

http://www.gov.ns.ca/psc/v2/jobCentre/careerStarts/hiring/

Reflection

As the winter term comes to an end I've been doing some reflecting over what I've been doing over the past few months. As I'm mostly doing training I went though all my records and found that my training fell into these categories:

eBooks and Audiobooks
37.5%

Computer Basics (using a mouse and keyboard, windows, desktop, internet, email, etc.)
32.5%

Facebook, Twitter, Blogging
15%

Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations
7.5%

Other
7.5%

It seems that eBooks and Audiobooks and Basics took up most of my time. Basics training has always been popular at our branch and the eBooks popularity seems to be due to the recent surge in eReader popularity during Christmas. I was surprised that Facebook training wasn't more popular. However, the people I have seen for Facebook training did not originally want anything to do with it, but felt forced into it. It seems people are still skeptical about Facebook due to privacy issues.

What did you guys find yourselves mostly doing during your internship?

Despicable Me!

We had one of our last movie nights the other week, we had a pretty good turnout of 8 kids. On the big screen we watched Despicable Me!
The kids loved the movie, Hillary and Myself also enjoyed it. We are hoping to hold another movie night before our intern ship is over with, hopefully to premiere G-Force to watch the little guinea pigs in their fierce action. :)

Challenge # 2.12: An Opinion Piece

Thank you for last week's challenge submissions. Very light-hearted in the midst of everything going on in our world. The win goes to Lyndsay for her witty ad and digital editing skills!

As I finish giggling over the past two entries, I have realized that this will be our second-last challenge of the Winter Term.

I want to let you each seek out something you're interested in, and do up a little commentary piece on it. Seems kind of like schoolwork, but when it comes down to it, being able to stay informed and articulate about current technology-related developments and events is an important skill to take away from this job.

So, choose a topic, any topic, in our current technology world, that you find interesting, and write up a commentary/letter-to-the-editor-eque piece about it.

If you need any help getting started, try checking out something like the New York Times Technology Section, or a site like Engadget.

Time to let your bright minds shine! (Well, continue shining really, after all you've done this Term)!

HarperCollins and Overdrive

For those in library settings, here is major issue currently facing the eBook format that you may or may not have heard about already.

Introducing The Mouse! (revolutionary new tool)

Tired of having to do stuff?

Having trouble turning lights on and off?

Do you wish you had a tool to help you with every aspect of your life?

Introducing the mouse!

The revolutionary new device that can do just about anything!

Use your mouse to

Challenge # 2.11: Humour Has It...

Thank you Shona, the winner of last week's challenge, for your awesome Reconnect Documentary Link! I know that Joanne saw the link and loved it - watch out for it maybe popping up elsewhere!

This week, we have a fun, less serious challenge.

Dan posted a video on his Facebook yesterday showcasing the difficulties some less-experienced technology-users may have identifying technology gadgets (i.e. a Wii remote, I-Pad, or GPS). If the technology hasn't been described to the audience via commercials or manuals, it truly can look like bizarre alien gear.

This week, post a picture of a technology gadget, and write up a humorous adverstisement description of an alternate use it could be mistaken for. Give it a name, etc. Really pitch it to us like it's an informercial!



The point of this exercise is to take the perspective of someone on the opposite side of the Digital Divide, with a funny spin.

Excited to see what hilarious things you come up with!

Almost the End

Here at the Terence Bay ROC Hillary and myself are almost finished our internship with the C@P. We're sad to leave, but hope to be here again in the summer at some point. This was a great experience for us to have, working with the kids, having Facebook workshops, and helping out at the Prospect Road Community Center. We hope the next interns will have as much of a great experience as we had. :)

CRTC decision

Apparently a Big Telecom-friendly compromise is being pushed behind closed doors. Industry Minister Clement told Parliament he will not allow the same decision to be passed by the CRTC, but has not specified whether he will accept a watered-down version of that decision.

Go to http://openmedia.ca/crtc

All you have to do is click. It's ...easy. Please copy and paste this if you care about your internet bill. This decision will effect C@P sites across the region.

tYpOgRaPhY @ St. George's YouthNet

This week at Youthnet we focused on hand rendered type that could be transferred to a digital media based program and manipulated back to paper and onto canvases to give as thank you's around the north end community within halifax for their support. In order to transfer the type: we taught each child individually how to use the scanner and bring it into a digital format.

The future of hard-copy books?

Here at Woodlawn over half of my training sessions are for the eReaders and eBooks. I teach a lot of seniors and although a lot of them are skeptical about using this new technology for reading, they quickly see the benefits of having an eReader versus buying/borrowing physical copies of books. Because of this recent shift towards digital reading, it makes me wonder about the future of physical books - especially in retail environments. For example, Borders has already filed for bankruptcy protection and is reporting large decreases in revenue. Your thoughts on this shift?

some readings I wanted to share

a few readings I wanted to share with you. . .

I have found a lot of interesting links on here already so thank you! Let's make a habit of sharing research, I love learning something new...even if it has nothing to do with anything

http://ruralco.org/

http://ruralcommunities.gov.uk/2010/08/16/the_rural_challenge/

http://books.google.ca/books?id=p1MIAQAAIAAJ&dq=changing%20places&source=gbs_book_other_versions

http://books.google.ca/books?id=kZH6AwTwZV8C&pg=PA46&dq=Entering+the+Green+Room+by+Edgar+Schein&hl=en&ei=H4FvTfyHGsG1twe8_7SEDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=31001