Power point

PowerPoints are easy, exciting ways to make a presentation. They can be fun but also can be tricky. These informative articles bring up some very interesting points concerning PowerPoint tricks and tools of the trade that can make every user successful. These readings help us to investigate other options and steer clear of potential problems that we see every day in PowerPoint.

1. Stay consistent and to-the-point. Although it is important to use different effects, I hate it when people use 10 different effects on one slide… because sometimes this makes it confusing and hard for people to follow.
2. Come prepared, even for the worst. I can’t even remember how many times a presentation hasn’t gone exactly as someone planned, and, because of this, the person was lost. I think you must come prepared, whether it’s free-hand notes or print-outs, be ready for anything because you never know what could happen.
3. Moderate your slides and avoid clutter. I hate it when people overload a particular slide with information. Sometimes it is hard enough to follow a presentation, and packing a slide with a lot of info just adds the difficulty to this sticky situation.
4. Integrate pictures, images, and clips. Be awarethough because just enough os these will solve your problems but too much will kill you. I think it’s important to use the capabilities that we have learned about in class, but be careful because this could make or break the flow of a presentation.
5. Finally, be confident in your work. If you have worked hard on a presentation, then act like it! We all know how difficult public speaking can be… but we all put a ton of hard work and effort into the presentations. So, in light of this, we need to be assured in our ability to convey whatever message we are bringing to class.

CLT

The trip to the CLT was a very informative experience. I knew that the CLT existed, but only because I had to be down there for an English presentation. After going down with the class, I learned alot more about the CLT and what goes on down there. When I first went I didn't pay attention to the different assortment of computers, such as Macs and PCs, or the different areas of the CLT that had different programs or special uses. I learned that there are many different programs for editing videos and pictures that are made available to me in the CLT. Now that I know more the CLT, I will definitely be down there using the different tools that are provided. For our Computer Skills class, I will definitely be using the photoshop element from the CLT. I don't have 500 or 600 dollars to spend on photoshop and since I can use photoshop for free I will take advantage of that. Another things I might use from the CLT is their checkout of cameras. I didn't have a personal camera and use of a digital or video camera may come in use for our class. As for other classes I might use different editing tools for videos as well as photoshop for different projects that I might need to use. On my own time I play the piano and sometimes I like to practice or just play for fun. I didn't know that they had the recording studio that is open to anyone. I may not be recording anything but just playing and having a place to play is all I need. Overall the I learned alot and have definitely been opened to this beautiful multi-million dollar facility all for me to use.

Excel

I really enjoyed the entire excel unit over the last three weeks or so. Coming in to the class I had relatively no knowledge of how to use a spreadsheet to do different things. I knew that lots of different things, like formulas and functions, could be used to set up a running balance or budget but didn't necessarily know how to make it work for me. I probably could have sat at a computer for hours trying to learn everything on my own; however, with as much stuff as there is to know about excel i would have been just wasting my time. I never would have learned anything on my own. The thing that I really loved about excel is the absolute and relative cell references. I never knew that a simple drag of the mouse could allow you to drag the same formula to as many different cells as you need. Before I might have to type in each formula in each different cell but this allows me to make life so much easier. I also loved all the cell formatting as well as conditional formatting. This allows me to organize different sets of data that i might need and display them in a way that anyone can understand. I have already used this different things in my biology lab in which we are using spreadsheets to organize our data from our experiment. This has helped enormously making the excel sheet very easy. I also will use excel to keep a running balance for my checking account. I like that I wouldn't have to write it out and the computer automatically does the math for me. Overall this was a great unit and I learned more in this unit than I did anywhere else before.

Chris Nolan

Since I was gone on Thursday because of a soccer trip, I happen to miss out on a very informative lecture by Chris Nolan to the rest of the class. I have read a few of my classmates blog’s and have noticed that the common theme that he lectured about was about search engines, especially Google, as well as URL’s and the significance from them. I learned from reading that the internet that was once dominated by the likes of Yahoo and AOL has been overtaken by the Google phenomenon. Many people prefer Google over any other search engine. I also learned how search engine actually works. There are many factors that influence the actual search like frequency of words and popularity if the sites that appear. It is very interesting many factors go into a search to find the best website for you. In reading other blogs, I learned that the domain names actually can have more validity than others, such as “.edu” and “.gov”. To show there validity the scholarly sources place, throughout their articles, different links to resources that they used while conducting their research. I found reading these different blogs very interesting and only wish that I could have been there to hear the lecture myself.

Lying Picture

I chose the "Fire On Ice" picture with Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan skating together. I chose this picture because it looked interesting and also after reading it has an interesting story to the picture. The picture was the cover of New York Newsday in February 1994, and was manipulated by placing two pictures together to make one combined picture to show the two girls skating together even though they are competitors. It was manipulated because only a few days before one of the associates of Harding made an attack on Kerrigan, which I'm sure led to a feud between the two. They were fierce rivals skating together the day before an event; that would never happen especially since they were angry at each other from the attacking comments a few days before. I don't think this manipulation would be harmful to anyone because it just shows the girls practicing with each other and not doing anything bad to harm each other or themselves.