New uses for Facebook

             A few years ago I decided to join facebook. My only reason was to be able to keep in touch with my family and with friends I made moving between Brazil and the US. I did not really use it for much besides looking at pictures and catching up. Today, with the guidance of the very patient TA's for ALES204, I learned a new use for facebook. It can possibly be used to find jobs! I'm not a social media expert at all. In fact, twitter is still being a little bit of a challenge for me. But it was incredibly simple to create a public page. All one needs to do is write down information like address, personal interests and maybe a resume if you wish to use it as a "business card" type of thing. Please have a look at my still under construction facebook page bellow:

                                             Slide1, a photo by marcosa22 on Flickr.

             By writing a resume, posting pictures and citing some personal interests on this public page anyone is able to see it. It would be a great way for employers to have a more detailed look into the kind of person you are. And the best thing is, they won't be able to look at the more private photos we all have in our facebook profiles. I hope that, in the future, this new feature I have learned today will help me find good jobs at places like the Calgary Zoo (http://www.calgaryzoo.org) or the Edmonton Valley Zoo (http://www.edmonton.ca/attractions_recreation/attractions/edmonton-valley-zoo.aspx).

             I'm looking forward to learn about more new tools of communication in ALES204.

A little about me...

          Hello everyone! My name is Marcos Aguiar and I’m originally from Ceara, Brazil. Since a very young age I always enjoyed working and being around animals of all kinds, so I decided to become a veterinarian. I moved to Colorado in the US to start my college education as a pre vet student. A few months into the program I found out that being a veterinarian just wasn’t for me. So I decided to go into Zoology. Although I had no idea what I would do with a Zoology degree, I figured I would work with animals at the very least.  A few months after graduation, I found out what my true passion would be. I became a Zookeeper!

                                                     (Me and Denali, the Gray Wolf)


 I started working as a zookeeper at the Alaska Zoo a few months after finishing college. It was the best experience of my life. Just being around wolves, polar bears, moose and even goats, always put a smile on my face. Sure living in the frigid cold of Alaska was a real challenge for a Brazilian, even after 4 years in Colorado. But the animals and the other zookeepers made it all so much worth it. Unfortunately nothing really lasts forever. The extreme cold would eventually catch up to me and I decided to leave Alaska. Unable to stay any longer in the US, I went back to Brazil for about a year trying to decide what to do next. I finally decided to come up to Canada to continue my studies, pursuing a degree in Animal Health and eventually getting a masters degree in Zoology. But my main goal will always become a zookeeper again.

My time working at the Alaska Zoo showed me just how important new forms of communication are to spread knowledge among a wide range of people. A very important part of being a zookeeper is educating people about the various species of wild animals. Just a few weeks before I left the zoo started using facebook. It didn't take long for facebook to become very important. The fast information dissemination allowed the zoo to make announcements about special events and new animal arrivals. It became much easier to be closer to the zoo and specially to the animals living there. One great example would be when the Alaska Zoo got a polar bear cub for the first time in about 9 years. It was after I was already in Brazil, but thanks to facebook I was able to know about the new arrival just a few minutes after the cub was there. With pictures and posts published on the zoo page I was able to follow closely the time the small bear stayed at the zoo. It was a very memorable experience. Even if I was thousands of kilometers away I felt like I was a part of that.

  This newer, faster form of communication is very important for our society. And it will become even more important as more people learn about these new tools. I too am learning about using twitter and blogging. I hope that in a near future I'll be able to use these tools to educate the public about wild animals.

Any further information about the Alaska Zoo can be found here:

- http://www.alaskazoo.org/

- http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Alaska-Zoo/136848033588