Richard's Public Summary

My summer job at FACTSnet has been eventful and multifaceted. My position can be effectively summarized as a combination of tech lead and ESL assistant, placed within the tech and ESL Mandarin Calgary teams. Primarily, I have worked with many technology related and miscellaneous tasks, including setting up working folders and timesheets for new employees this summer. The most notable projects I developed this summer are reworking and creating a demo version for the Career & Personal Development Assessment Sheet, editing and publishing public-facing posts/pages across multiple FACTSnet Blogger websites, working with the ESL team with editing and translating the Workability handbook, as well as assisting the PBF team with document scanning and searching solutions.

My contributions to the Career & Personal Development Assessment Sheet are mainly based off formatting and cleaning up the previous incoherent and fragmented version that resulted in confusion and ineffectiveness amongst its users. I reformatted and cleaned up its layout, set and verified calculations present on the sheet, and incorporated protected ranges to prevent accidental modification to critical elements. Furthermore, I distributed this cleaned-up version of the assessment sheet to the Calgary Summer team to use as their Assignment #2, rather than the broken version before. In addition to this year’s goal of improving the ease of comprehension of the Workability curriculum for ESL students, I added comments or descriptions for each subtopic on the three major topics of the assessment sheet. These comments are intended to explain concepts that are otherwise difficult to explain or comprehend. They are also kept in simple English to disencourage reliance on translations. Lastly, I assisted the ESL team in writing instructions on how to operate the assessment sheet written in both English and Mandarin. These instructions are provided alongside a DEMO Career & Personal Development Assessment Sheet for use by summer employees and ESL students to hopefully help with the often complex and overwhelming nature of spreadsheet software.

Great responsibility and reliance upon my abilities in working with technology were expected, most prominently in regards to web development. FACTSnet currently operates and maintains a sizeable number of Blogger websites across multiple accounts, and thus, a significant amount of coherence and uniformity is required. Initially, I was tasked with migrating sections of the Workability workbook after the ESL team has finished improving and editing it. However, my dependence on its completion eventually timed out as many members of the ESL team were reassigned, resulting in slow progress. I was able to properly align the theme of the newly created FACTSnet Careers website to all other FACTSnet websites using consultation with Michelle A. Details on continuing with this project will be outlined below. Excluding work on that website, I published book info and their tables of contents on the Transcendent Biblical Spirituality Networks website. Additionally, I edited and fixed the layout of the Creed Topics post, reorganized course descriptions on the CIN website, added individuals’ and teams’ public summaries to the FACTSnet Opportunities website, and composed instructions for searching the PBF archive. Lastly, I created the Intern 2019–20 Reporting Template and Master Interns 2019–20 Reporting documents with updated layouts and descriptions to alleviate confusion.

I am very grateful for this incredible opportunity to gain leadership experience and develop technical skills in a workplace environment. I never thought that this would fill my summer and help my personal development, rather than allow mindless dwelling at home all day. It is great to hear the motivation behind this, which is to improve the next generation by incorporating traditional values; I truly respect that. Not only did this position provide me with invaluable work experience, it also allowed me to work in fields that I prefer.

Lance's Public Summary

Being with FACTSnet for the summer assisted my personal and career development while contributing to the projects in the organization. I was offered the opportunity to further hone my own career-related skills and supported, participated, and managed ESL related projects. The main objective of the ESL Project is to aid people with limited English literacy in English-dominant societies like Canada by:

• developing English writing and speaking capabilities,
• understanding English concepts and forms, and
• reintegrating them into the norms in the society they live in.

I am mainly involved in the development and finalization of the ESL Curriculum and the Career Assessment Sheet. I organized and managed the completion of the Workability Workbook Supplement initialized by the Edmonton Team. Thanks to the efforts of the ESL team and the whole FACTSnet organization, the experience allowed me to see the issues with ESL today and understand what I need to do to be of assistance.

My work is detailed below. I have completed ESL projects while some are still requiring further improvement. Completed tasks include:

• Completion of the Career Assessment Sheet Instruction Document in English and the ESL English Version
• Organizing, coordinating and editing of the Workability Workbook Supplement Material
• Completion of the 9th ESL Curriculum Topic: Using Documents, Numeracy and Computer Skills

Continuous improvement is the key to having high-quality work. At the end of my term, there are still tasks that require further work, such as the Personal Example Document for Workability Workbook, and all the other ESL Curriculum Topics. In terms of personal development, I have completed the assigned tasks given by the organization. I have completed a soul-wellness topic called Priorities, which was given to the PBF Team. 

My wonderful time in FACTSnet has been a blessing. I met people with huge dreams and goals. It gave me guidance on what I needed to do as I go on in life. Although this organization is still in its infancy, I believe it will continue to grow and have its purpose realized soon.

J's Public Summary

As an admin, I was in charge of checking on others by regularly checking on their progress reports and time sheets daily as well as doing more detailed checks weekly, every Friday. In addition to this, the Calgary team were responsible for attending weekly Monday meetings in which we update each other on our progress and answer any outstanding questions.

For the Architectural Collection, I had researched through various architectural organizations in Calgary, Stony Plain, Spruce Grove, and Parkland County to collect information from each one of them. I had also helped with the Mental Health division through working on a paper by simplifying the introduction section of a paper that was written from the previous year. In addition, I also summarized each reference used in a separate document and linking it to the working document of the paper for those who want more information regarding the articles that were used.

Jing's Public Summary

My summer internship with FACTSnet began with working and completing 3 of the career and personal development assignments. I researched and wrote about the topic “meaning” for the global spiritual inventory, I assessed my workplace skills through the Career & Personal Assessment sheet, and added suggestions on the wording to every subtopic of each criteria to the original assessment sheet to help newcomers understand each topic better. I also completed the job career plan which helped me to narrow down my career options for the future.

I was assigned to be apart of the Prophetic Berean Foothills (PBF) team. I contributed most of my time scanning historical archives, labelling each document, and later organizing the documents into folders so it is easier to find and access them on the index. The files I scanned consisted of old Berean yearbooks, Mary Macomber archives, and Reverend Cyril Hutchinson archives. My tasks were very direct and straightforward, and I enjoyed completing the tasks for my team.

Overall, I appreciate having the opportunity to work for FACTSnet this summer, my internship has helped me gain experience that will be beneficial for my future. I wrote a guide for high school students, to give students an idea of what it is like to employed at FACTSnet. I would recommend anyone to check out what FACTSnet does and apply for an internship.

Khayre

House Safety report, 

Career and Personal Development Work

Career and Personal Development Self-Assessment 

Research background for a collection on islamic global soul-wellness

Job Shadowing

Ibrahim

Career and Development Work

Finished all the 3 workability topics. Which consist of Readings skills, Building a vision, courtesy. 

I learned some new Reading skills. For example, I learned how to organize and daily reading schedule  How to read a textbook 

Equine Organizations reviews 

Learned what Equine organizations were about

Googled Equine organizations in Edmonton and started doing research 

After the research, I had to collect specific information

Finished equine reviews 

Islamic soul wellness

Learned how to explain Islam the simplest way possible than I can 

Learned how to find the proper information

Explained the basics of Islam

Learned how present as a group 

Email for schools: for the businesses  

Saadiq

During my time at FACTS as a web collections assistant I was able to work on various projects and assignments. I was lucky to gain lots of skills and experience that will help me reach my goals and be able to lead on my own. I learned lots of employable skills, lots of leadership and most of all punctuality. 

Workability 

Concern for quality

Skills in accepting feedback

What kind of skills you need when it comes to dealing with unfairness

Soul Wellness

Meaning of life

Islamic Soul Wellness Presentation

Workplace Safety

Safety Report

Career Development 

Career Assessment

My experience at FACTSnet helped me learn a lot about myself. It helped me develop clear career goals and figure out how I can achieve them. Also helped me to get better with everything that I do when it comes to being a teacher and being responsible. Working from home is one of the hardest and nicest things to do but it takes lots of planning to make it work. It allowed me to work with my team members on numerous projects. It helped me develop research and presentation skills, as well as discipline and time management skills which are all amazing things for me as a teacher. 

Jung Min

For my summer job the main focus was creating ESL curriculum. I created curriculum for newcomers to Canada, those who are speaking English as a second language. The curriculum topics were based on the Workability workbook, which includes attitudes and skills needed in the workplace. I also worked on personal development including a career plan and taking Job Trek workshop.

Overall, my summer job with FACTSnet allowed me to build my researching skills and personal development.

Chase

From July 8th, 2019 to August 29th, 2019, I worked as a data collector, which meant that I was responsible for compiling data into short, easy-to-understand documents.   

Another responsibility I had was to manage my schedule. At first, I found this to be challenging because time-management and self-discipline were one of my weaknesses, so figuring out how to allocate 30 hours, minimum, in seven days can be difficult. But after time went by, time allocation and management felt more natural and therefore less challenging. The strengthening of my barely pre-existing self-discipline and time management skills will benefit me in my personal and professional aspects of life.

Below, I will spell out the purpose of the corresponding assignment and what knowledge I’ve obtained from it. The assignments are not listed in chronological order. 

Midterm Report

Similar if not identical to the purpose of this document, I spelt out what assignments I had completed up to that point and how I completed them. The only identifiable difference between the midterm report and this one is that this one isn't in point form. 

20%

Although the vast majority of my 20% was spent on reading a book on missing and murdered indigenous women, I partook in a short mentorship with my aunt Sara. She taught me about the significance of lesson planning, how to lesson plan (simplified version) and how to overcome my fears of public speaking. 

She lives in Calgary so she mentored me through FaceTime, which isn't any less efficient than in person. 

Collections File 

I created a collections file about my faculty. More specifically, why it's great, the degree options, and the career options available with the corresponding degree. I also mentioned some of the resources available for aboriginal students on campus.   

Conclusion 

Although my physical presence with FACTsnet was short-lived, the impact it has had on my life will last a very long time. The responsibility of reading articles and translating them into short documents has further strengthened my research and writing skills. Having such skills serves as a foundational element in my role as a history and social science student in academia. 

Unfortunately, I did not complete everything that I would’ve liked to, and the work I finished was satisfactory according to my standards of quality. Despite having said that, FACTSnet has made a meaningful mark on the imprint of my life and the things I have learned will stay with me forever (until my memory fades at least, if it ever does! *knock on wood*) 

Emmie

Work Attitude Topic:

• Summary of work attitudes from the ALIS workability workbook 
• Summary of verbal communication, work interview skills, and developing personal strengths topics and reasons of why and how to improve on them
• Improvement techniques and strategies to improve verbal communication skills
• Plan for career and personal improvement in regards to actions and behaviours that are mindful and productive towards verbal communication improvement

Life Skills Topic:

• Summary of verbal communication topic from the ALIS workability workbook
• Improvement techniques and strategies to improve verbal communication skills
• Plan for career and personal improvement in regards to actions and behaviours that are mindful and productive towards verbal communication improvement

Work Skill Topic:

• Summary of courtesy work skill topic from the ALIS workability workbook
• Improvement techniques and strategies to improve verbal communication skills
• Plan for career and personal development in regards to courteous actions and behaviours

PTSD Mental Health Topic:

•  Summary of PTSD definition, symptoms, risk factors, treatment options, and resources

Anxiety Mental Health Topic

• Summary of types of anxiety disorders definition, symptoms, prevention, risk factors, treatment options, and resources

Tolerance Assignment 2:

• Tolerance definition
• How to develop and improve tolerance
• How tolerance is related to morals, empathy, priorities and values in individuals lives and how it differs from individual to individual

Assignment 3:

• Career development plan including where I’m at now, where I want to go, how I can get there, who can help and a goal summary.

Research and Notes for preschool collections project (curriculum research, reading and notes for preschools in resource sheet, and started research for city educational preschool programs)

Nicole C.

My summer job with FACTS was primarily data collections and using it for the purpose of career development. I had acquired a teaching job for the upcoming school year, FACTS allowed me the time I needed to start preparing my teaching materials. For part of my time at FACTS I was asked to perform some administrative tasks including: daily and weekly detailed checks for other employees. 

My summer job with FACTS provided me with valuable opportunities to prepare for my upcoming teaching year. It gave me the time I needed to finish courses and plan that I may not have had somewhere else. It also gives people the opportunity to take on leadership positions, and gain experience working with a team.

Edmonton Team

Nicole C.
Read about her time at FACTSnet.

Emmie
Read about her time at FACTSnet.

Chase
Read about his time at FACTSnet.

Jung Min
Read about his time at FACTSnet.

Saadiq
Read about his time at FACTSnet.

Ibrahim
Read about his time at FACTSnet.

Khayre
Read about his time at FACTSnet.

Peter's Public Summary

My work with FACTnet this summer can be divided into four categories. I begun by

completing the Career and Personal Development assignments. They reminded me of important work-related skills and attributes. It also allowed me to critically judge my work skills and knowledge. It was a good opportunity to re-examine my goals and skills, and come up with further short-term and long-term goals

After finishing the Career and Personal Development assignments, I began working with the Prophetic Berean Foothills team. The goal of the project itself was to archive any historical materials regarding Prophetic Berean Foothills. There were two departments for the team; 1) the archiving team who scanned yearbooks, photos, diaries, etc, and 2) the research team who searched for any history and articles regarding PBF. I was in the research team, researching the history of PBF and how it shaped the culture of Calgary. 

The second project I worked on was the ESL English project. The goal of the project was to make FACTSnet’s documents ESL friendly, using simpler terms and re-formatting the documents for easier access. I mostly work on the (WIP v1) Career Development Project - Workability Workbook - ESL Editing document, which consisted of researching, formatting, and editing the document. The document itself consisted of numerous work-related skills, how they are described in the Alias Alberta Workability Workbook, and suggest practical ways to actualize such skills in reality. 

The third and final project I worked on was the Christian Soul Wellness project. The objective of the project was to compile a document, which would allow easy access to numerous topics in relationship to the well being of one’s soul in a Christian perspective. It was a good reminder of how our lifestyle affects our soul, and how being aware of one’s soul’s wellbeing changes one’s perspective in life.

Overall, my time and work with FACTSnet were very positive, and I obtained several practical life skills and work skills. All the people I worked with were blessings, and I was able to observe and obtain several good qualities from my peers and supervisors. I learned different perspectives, ways to work, ways to communicate, and ways to achieve goals. I have many thanks and gratitude for my supervisor and peers, and I hope I have been of service to them.

Danielle's Public Summary

At FACTSnet I helped coordinate projects for the Prophetic Berean Foothills team. This involved scanning historical archives relevant to Calgary’s Bible institutes, organizing and indexing the current archives and doing online research about its founding members and the impact it had made to the Christian/ Evangelist community across the prairies in Alberta. I focused on scanning documents from individuals such as Reverend Cyril Hutchinson and Mary Macomber who were one of the first members of the Berean Institute. Additionally we scanned Berean yearbooks that had been missing within the archives. 

See PBF Project 

Apart from the project, I was assigned administrative tasks that involved checking employee time sheets, progress reports and planning documents and ensured that every member had a constant flow of tasks throughout their summer term. Furthermore, I also attended meetings with David and the rest of the team to discuss each others projects and what to improve upon  for that week. As a team lead, it was also my duty to provide training and orientation to new members and help smoothly integrate them to completing project tasks after their assignments.

Leo's Public Summary

My experience with FACTSnet begin in the summer of 2019. I was assigned to be the administrator of the ESL team which is a team that focuses on helping immigrant with limited English speaking and writing skills to become more accommodated to the Canadian society. The end goal is helping immigrants to improve their English skills and their “workability” skills. Workability skills can be translated to a set of skills and rule sets that can help people to find jobs and keep their jobs after they found them. I was immediately attracted to these ideas and our team worked together to develop a basis of resources and curriculums to help the immigrants to learn about the Canadian culture and work environment. The team has finished on editing the Workability Workbook to put in additional details and examples and finished the translation on the Workability Workbook into Mandarin. 

For my personal administration work, it includes performing daily checking on the team members’ progress and reports and give them feedback and a rating based on their performances. The ESL team also had weekly meetings with the other teams and supervisors to update each other on their progress and the plan for the following week. We also completed a workshop on the ESL curriculum for future immigrants to allow them to understand how to work in the Canadian companies by teaching them 20 important topics from the workability workbook. 

I had a wonderful time with FACTSnet and I look forward to seeing the future development of FACTSnet and the ESL curriculum for immigrants. I learned so much from my teammates and co-workers and supervisors and I would recommend anyone to work for FACTSnet.

Anna's Public Summary

This summer I worked on a few projects with FACTS. The first project that I worked on were the Career and Personal Development projects. I spent time evaluating my personal workplace skills, by personal career goals, and my spiritual development. Although this is an area that I have spent a great deal working through with personal mentor and those that I have worked with through my university, it was useful to spend significant time dedicated to spending time creating and evaluating specific goals for the future of my professional and academic career.

Following this I focused my time on the PBF project, scanning and organizing documents relating to the Prophetic, Berean, and Foothills Bible Institutes. Documents I was involved in scanning and processing were the Mary Macomber files, the Cyril Hutchinson files, and several Berean yearbooks. A few days of my time on this project were dedicated to beginning some research looking into the history of musical education and practice in the PBF bible institutes, corresponding to my own interest in music history and pedagogy. This involved reviewing the scanned textbooks and making detailed notes on references to their music education changed over the years. Very little research was done in this area as was moved to the Soul Wellness Project while that research was in early stages.

The last section of my summer was dedicated to the Global Christian Soul Wellness project. The goal of this project was to create a document that gave provided resources in summaries of important aspects of Christian Spirituality, and care for the Soul from a Christian Perspective. Most of my time was spent complete the topic summary pages that make up the bulk of the index document we created, including three chapter summaries from Rob Reimer’s Soul Care, and 3 topics covered in the Spiritual Resilience Booklet. I also added many references to resources recommended by David Ibsen and descriptions of this, and an introduction to the document itself.

I also had the opportunity to pursue one of my own personal projects this summer. I created and prepared a program of 14 classical vocal works for the internationally recognized Classical Voice Competition hosted by the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the NATS Artist Awards. I work on learning these songs under the direction of Dr. Rachel Goldenberg, one of my Professors at Ambrose University and president of the Southern Alberta Chapter of NATS. Over the course of the summer I learned 12 of these 14 to working standard and will continue to work these pieces until the time of the competition in November.

Tricia's Public Summary

My summer job consisted of archiving numerous websites and recording them to their corresponding school and business reports. My internship hours and summer hours overlapped after school and the bulk of it included my research on recycling (and other practices) and outdoor education (and other practices that can improve learning); these researches were summarized in google documents.

I also did research on the science curriculum for each school in Calgary (Private, Public, and Catholic Middle Schools and High Schools). From this, I also updated their corresponding cut and pastes. Some reports were missing for Calgary Public Middle School and I spent the time to create them (about half of Calgary Middle Schools). I also used the School board websites about outdoor education and recycling programs but there wasn’t any information about how they implement this. This task helped me understand the science curriculum and, with collaboration with my mentor, we devised different strategies to improve this delivery, i.e. outdoor education.

Since my internship and summer job overlapped, I also did work on the businesses in Calgary, Parkland County, and Spruce Grove by researching the policies for each region; and see how they implement different practices and what residents need to do for proper disposal of trash. I made reports for each region, giving detailed information on their policies and implementation. Each region presented to have visions and values regarding this topic.

Through my research for both science curriculums, and recycling programs and policies, I have gained a better understanding of policymaking and its implementation in different regions. This connects to my interests in environmental science and research that goes with it. I was also able to improve my collaboration skills during the research process for outdoor education. During my employment, I also practiced my writing and computer skills. Not only that, but I also improved my time management skills and independence in the process. Overall, my time with FACTSnet has been a very enriching and positive experience that I believe to be relevant for my career path.

I finished all these reports before my time ended; research, archiving, editing and updating. I created a master document for summer 2019 where all relevant files for this year were linked.

Kari's Public Summary

My work with FACTS this year had me continuing my past project by writing summary papers about brain development from notes I had taken previously, along with editing and improving them afterwards. However, I did not manage to finish giving them intros and doing the final editing, so I’ll be finishing that up during my next internship. Both my internship and summer job involved attending and leading many meetings. Tasks in these meetings included, but were not limited to, getting new people started, answering any questions they had, discussing with people what direction to take projects in, and helping organize and supervise people. I learned a lot about leading teams, working independently, and managing my time effectively, along with coordinating with others through these meetings. These are all skills I know I will be putting to good use in my future career, regardless of what it turns out to be.

While my internship mostly involved meetings with a little bit of project work, my summer job was a lot more project-related. I wrote summaries from my notes, did a round of editing, then began adding intros and conclusions to help the papers flow better and edited again. A large portion of time was also spent tracking down resources that had been moved or deleted from the online course I got them from originally. I also began a second project that focused on nutrition’s effects on the brain, but only got as far as gathering a few resources for it.

My research and papers on the brain are really relevant to my interest in psychology, as research is a big part of many occupations and schooling in that area. It also gives me a big head start on a lot of course information I will be learning in my post-secondary education. By doing a lot of writing I was also able to develop my writing skills and ability to use APA formatting properly.

Celina's Public Summary

During my employment with FACTSnet, I had been given the opportunity to work with hard-working people. In addition to my individual assignments (Career and Personal Development), I was part of three projects for this summer; PBF Team, ESL Team working on the Workability document, and ESL curriculum project. Though my time was short with this team, I started my employment with the Prophetic Berean Foothills team where I checked the archived yearbooks for duplicates. I then focused on the Career and Personal Development assignments where it taught me different skills I can have in both the workplace and my personal life.

The second part of my employment focused on ESL Team’s Workability Document. I researched content and did several checks on the rest of the team’s sections. Near the end, two members of our team were taken to a new group; this slowed the process of accomplishing the Workability document. This document focused on the skills and attitude to have in the workplace and in personal life. This taught me that I can improve my skills and focus on getting better at something, either a strength or a weakness and use these to my benefit.

The third project was also completed with the ESL Team, it was the ESL Curriculum Project. In this project, I focused on a couple of skills and created skill-building exercises and information for students to improve on these schools. I have been given a list of tasks in order to deliver the information relevant to my chosen skills.

Through my extensive research in all of my projects; Personal and Career Development Assessments, Workability, and ES Curriculum Project, I was able to improve on several key skills that are important in my development as a person. Specifically, I believe I mainly improved my writing and basic computer skills. Since I worked with a team, I was also able to work independently and collaborate with a team of like-minded people. Since I will be graduating this year (2019), the skills I gained during my employment will be essential for my career pathfinding.