Computer Skills Advice

I think it is important for new students coming into the Computer Skills course to, like in any other class, come to class and keep up with the homework because otherwise it becomes very easy to fall behind. Most importantly though, I think it would be really helpful for new students to have a positive attitude, because they really will learn a lot of useful and fun things about computers they never would have before!

Student Web Sites

This past week in computer skills we all created our own web sites. Every ones page came out really well but among my favorites were Kim, Marilou, and Emily's. All three girls had consistent backgrounds and well organized and designed pages. Also their navigation bars were easy to find and you could access each page from any of the other pages. I liked Emily's "special interests" and "entertainment" pages and the vibrant pictures Marilou used to show the Philippines. I also liked the characters Kim draws and how her nav bar had a picture of color pencils to illustrate her interests. Great job girls!
You can visit my own website at cs.trinity.edu/~ltamez

PowerPoint Presentations

Today in class we finished up the PowerPoint presentations. I really enjoyed Jenni and Elena's presentations. Elena used a very cool background  picture with old fashion pens and ink. She had just the right amount of words on each slide and the way she had them slant was a very good design choice. I had also never heard of her topic and I thought writing a novel in one month is very interesting and cool. Jenni's design was also very good. I thought the black background was simple but extremely effective. I liked how she would switch to a red font on all the last bullet points and the pictures also added emotion to the presentation. I think Doctor without Borders is a very important thing and I thought it was interesting to learn there are also jobs in non medical fields with this company.  

Great Job Girls!

PowerPoint Presentations

I found the articles on how to give a good power point presentation very interesting. They made me realize that i always put far too much information on the slides and let them give the presentation instead of myself. I think all students should be careful not to overload their presentations and instead focus on what they will be saying and how to make the slides look organized and appealing. I found the following five guidelines to be very helpful:

1) The articles mentioned to never use the pre-designed PowerPoint templates because they are over used and will be boring to the audience.
2) According to "Really Bad PowerPoint" presenters should never use more that six words per slide. "EVER"
3) Another thing all the articles mentioned and something I find very annoying when used in presentations is the use of obnoxious transitions such as spins or complicated dissolves
4) PowerPoint clip art and sound effects also look/sound "cheesy" and degrade the level of one's presentation
5) Finally I think it is important to remember that text should be at least 28 points and keep color schemes that are appealing and legible

How Microsoft Excel Can Help One Excel

Learning about Excel this semester was very beneficial. In high school I took a course that focused very much on Excel but since that course was a few years ago, this semester was a very good review and expansion because I had forgotten how to do some of the most basic things. Before this course I did not now how to use the conditional formatting or set themes so that was very interesting to learn. I am sure there will be many times in the future when it will be very useful to know how to use Excel. Keeping track of my expenses or keeping records of other such things will be much easier and organized when done in an Excel spreadsheet. Also, if you know the proper way to use Excel and which equations to enter, the program does almost all complicated calculations for you. It is especially useful for businesses or academic fields that must keep track of several expenditures made each day and their revenue, while also calculating in things such as tax or commission. Knowing how to use Excel would also be very beneficial for teachers, to keep track of all their students assignments and grades.Excel is also useful for any field in science that requires storing and calculating a lot of data. It is clear that knowing how to use Excel would be a very good thing for many versatile careers or areas of study or simply for personal use.

Field Trip to the CLT

In class on Tuesday we toured the Coates Library Center for Learning and Technology. Although I had been there a few times before, I learned many interesting things I did not know. For example I learned that this center has some of the newest technology for scanning and editing photos. Students may check out cameras and other equipment with a professors permission.  I also learned that there is a Digital Audio Lab where students can edit and record or do different things to audio clips to use in projects and presentations. The CLT can be used in our class and in any other class for assignments that require photo examples. I am in an American Musical Theater class and if i ever need to use a sound or video clip for a presentation i now now there are resources to to so in the CLT. I had no idea there were so many tools available for students to use and I really liked the emphasis placed on how willing the people who work in the CLT are to assist students in whatever they may need. 

Pictures That Lie- Oprah's Amazing Body

The picture I chose was the cover of a T.V. Guide in August 1989 showing Oprah Winfrey with a very different outfit and body that she usually is seen to have. I chose this picture because I found it funny to see Oprah displayed like this and posing in that manner, while wearing a sparkly dress. The picture was manipulated by pasting Oprah's head to the body of a 1979 publicity shot of actress Ann-Margret. The picture was most likely manipulated to show Oprah in a "good" light since the heading of the article discusses if she is "the richest woman on T.V. " and how she came about this fortune. The photo seems to be implying that Oprah has it all, including the body. The photo was harmful because neither party gave their consent for their pictures to be used, much less together in that manner. However, other than perhaps angering both Oprah and Ann-Margret and causing a possible controversy I do not think the picture caused any serious harm to anyone.