Advice For Future Computer Skills Students

I will admit, last year I wasn't too happy about not passing the computer test and having to take Computer Skills. I didn't really have time in my schedule, and I thought I was pretty proficient in my computer abilities. Well, I was wrong. Computer Skills has proved to be a really great class that has taught me so much about Excel, Word, Photoshop, Expression Web, and more. I learned so many tricks with Excel that make things a lot easier and help me get stuff done much faster. I also learned how to navigate around the toolbars in Word and Excel, so Windows Vista no longer frustrates me! I also learned how to use Photoshop and Expression Web, which I had never used before. So, don't be bummed that you have to take this class. I'm so glad that I took it because I feel very confident in my computer skills now.
Some tips that I have for you are...
1. Go to class! This class is very straightforward and can be very easy, but if you miss class, it's hard to catch up and teach yourself whatever Ms. Belisle went over in class.
2. Do all of the assignments. The homework assignments are only worth a few points each, but they add up, so do your best to earn all the points because one or two bad homework grades can really bring your average grade down.
3. Stay on task during class. It can be tempting to get on Facebook, check your email, etc. during class, but Ms. Belisle goes through everything step-by-step, and if you miss a step you can get lost.
4. Have an open mind! Like I said, I thought I knew everything about computers that I would ever need to know, but I learned so much in this class. Ms. Belisle really knows her stuff, so pay attention and take in everything she has to teach you. It will definitely come in handy later on.

Website Comments

I was so impressed with everyone's websites! We only got to see a few in class, but the ones we saw were really great. Everyone followed the guidelines, and each website was very original, creative, and personal. One of my favorite websites was Kim's. Her site was so colorful and creative. I love how she included original comic strips, short stories, and hyperlinked pictures that she drew herself. That's awesome! Another favorite of mine was Nick's. The reason I liked Nick's website was because it was so professional. I think his black backgrounds and white font make the pages look very clean and organized. I learned a lot about Nick through his website, and I think he did a great job. Another favorite of mine was Emily's. Emily's website was also very clean and simple. I like that she included her resume, and I loved how she displayed her interests and favorite music and movies as pictures and hyperlinks. I found out that we like a lot of the same stuff! I wish we could have gotten to see everyone present their websites because it's always interesting to hear why people included what they did or why they chose certain pictures. I think everyone did a phenomenal job with their websites!
If you're interested, check my website out.... http://cs.trinity.edu/~jengel

PowerPoint Presentations Cont.

I thought the other three presentations given on Tuesday were amazing. I liked Elena's a lot because her background was so creative. I loved how she used different variations of the same picture and how the text appeared on the notepad. I thought her topic, Nanowrimo, was very interesting because I had never heard of it before. Jeff's presentation was really great. His topic was really interesting, and his visuals displayed his data really well. I also really liked Luisa's presentation. Her topic was interesting because it's actually a huge problem occurring right now. I also liked her background and the way she stacked all of her information. Good job everyone!

PowerPoint Evaluations

I thought everyone who presented last Thursday did a really great job. It seemed like everyone followed all the rules of how to create an appropriate PowerPoint. The two that I liked the most were Roxi's and Kaileigh's. I'm also in Biology, so Roxi's presentation was a great review. She presented the information clearly, and she had a great analogy about clathrin. Her slide design was neither overwhelming nor boring, and her animated gif was really cool because it wasn't just for decoration, it was also a learning tool. Kaileigh's presentation on octupuses was so interesting. Her animated gif and sound on the title slide was awesome, and the overall design of her slides was really cool. Her presentation was colorful, engaging, and her pictures were really great. Also, both girls did a really good job of not putting too much text on the slides and using just the right amount of animations and slide transitions. Good job!

PowerPoint Presentations

I've used PowerPoint a lot in the past, but I will admit that I usually wasn't following the guidelines for a "good" presentation. I usually had everything I was going to say in the presentation typed onto the slide, which basically filled the slide with text. Also, there were a few presentations where I went a little crazy with the transitions and animations. No one ever really taught me the dos and don'ts of PowerPoint, so I learned a lot from these three articles. The points made in the first article that I really liked were that it's ok and even preferable to have "white space" on your slides because the less clutter on your slides, the more powerful your message will be, and to use high-quality graphics, especially of people, instead of clipart because it's more professional and will help your audience connect with the presentation. From the second article, I liked the tip that your slides should reinforce your words, not just repeat them. The third article had a lot of very helpful tips: people usually come to a conclusion about your presentation after the second slide, so dress appropriately, speak clearly, and start strong from the beginning; create a written document of all the important points that you say (that aren't on the slides) and hand it out after the presentation so it doesn't distract during the presentation; and instead of typing out a fact or statistic, use a picture that will trigger an emotional response that will help the audience remember.
My Five Guidelines to an Effective PowerPoint:
1. Limit the amount of text (it's annoying when people just say out loud what you can already just read for yourself)
2. Use high-quality pictures, but don't go overboard (pictures that trigger emotional responses are interesting, engaging, and help the audience remember the facts, but using too many defeats the purpose)
3. Use slide transitions because they help keep people's attention (just don't use the really distracting ones because then people will be thinking about the slide transition and not about the information you're about to present)
4. Use color (make sure the colors go well with each other and that the audience will be able to read it from the overhead because sometimes colors look different on the overhead than on the computer screen)
5. Keep the other part of the presentation in mind (it's always distracting when the presentor rocks back and forth or is always messing with their hair)

Excel

I'm really glad that we spent so much time learning about Excel. Last semester I had to use Excel a lot for Chemistry and Biology, and I never felt very confident about entering equations and making graphs. Now I know exactly how to enter information into Excel to make a graph and then how to format the graph. I already knew that you could pull down the corner of the box to copy the equation to the boxes below, but I didn't know about absolute cell references. I remember a lot of times where I would drag the box down, and it wouldn't work, and now I know that all I needed was an absolute cell reference to solve the problem. Having a good understanding of how to make graphs and enter equations is going to help me in my future science classes. I also learned about ways to make the Excel page more professional through Themes and Conditional Formatting. If I ever had a job where I needed to use Excel to display data, I would definitely impress people if the page had an appropriate theme, if the data was organized in an aesthetically pleasing way, and if the data was easy to read in general. Excel is a very useful application in the banking and sales worlds because it makes it extremely easy to keep a running balance of an account. Also, if, for example, you were incharge of a group of salespeople and you needed to keep track of their sales and then figure out how much they should be paid based on how much they bring in and a certain commission rate, Excel makes this so easy to do. Basically, Excel is useful for any profession that involves data and the processing of data, as well as the presentation of data. It is a great tool to know how to use because it can cut down on time spent calculating, and it can really impress people if you know all the ins and outs. It could mean that you get a job over someone else who doesn't know how to use Excel. I'm very glad that I have a better understand of Excel because it is definitely going to come in handy in my future.

CLT

I really enjoyed our trip to the Center for Learning and Technology today. I didn't even know it existed. I think it's great that there are so many resources there, like Macs, PCs, scanners, DVD converters, and tons of software. One of the things I thought was really cool was the Video Conference Center. It is equipped with a satellite down-link and Polycom two-way video, so a class can conference with another class in a different country. That's awesome! I'm not really into things like graphic design or making movies, so I don't see myself spending alot of time down there. Since I'm currently pre-med, I don't really see any of my classes requiring work that would need to be completed with the resources the CLT has to offer. I suppose if I wanted to convert a course paper to a pdf I could use the scanners in the CLT. If we had a design project for Computer Skills, I think I would definitely go down there and take advantage of all the Mac design software. I would also love to take advantage of the DVD converters because alot of my favorite movies are in VHS. If I had time, I would like to go to the CLT and just experiment with a Mac. I've never used one before, so I probably don't even know of all the software and capabilities they have, but I would like to just see what there is. It's good that there is always someone available to help students because I would definitely need it.

Pictures That Lie

I chose this picture because it really stood out to me among the others. I like old candid photographs, especially historical ones. I didn't know who was being eliminated from the photo at first, but when I read the comments I realized it was Leon Trotsky, a communist and founder of the Red Army in the Soviet Union. The site didn't say where or when this picture originated, but Trotsky was active during the 1910s and 1920s. In the picture on the left, Trotsky is seen saluting while standing next to Vladimir Lenin, a major communist and Russian revolutionary. In the picture on the right, Trotsky has been removed from the photograph. The site says that after Trotsky ran "afoul" of the Communist Party, he was removed from photos where he is seen mingling with other officials. The manipulation is harmful in the sense that it doesn't represent history correctly. For people who are interested in Russian history this could be a hindrance, but for others the manipulation doesn't matter all that much.

Chris Nolan

Chris Nolan gave a really interesting presentation today about how to find high quality information on the web. My favorite search engine is Google, and I wasn't surprised to find out that in a nationwide search, over 60% of the population uses Google (ComScore November 2008 Search Share). I also learned some interesting facts about Google, for example, there are people who work for Google that constantly index and change search results. Google sorts its results by popularity, meaning that if many other websites link to a specific site it has higher popularity. Popularity isn't based on how many times people view the site. Popularity is also based on the type of website that links to a site, for example, if CNN links a site, then it must be good and therefore has higher popularity. Google also sorts its results by how many search words appear in the document, so if all the search words appear in the title of the webpage, it will appear towards the top. One thing I didn't know was that Google doesn't search the word "and", so it is unnecessary to type it into the search bar. But, there are other search engines that will search for the exact phrase, so it would be necessary to include "and" in that particular search. Another interesting thing I learned about was the "cached" link. Google makes a copy of every webpage, so if that webpage's server is down you can click on the "cached" link and view the copy of the webpage. It is also useful because it highlights the search words, so it is easy to find the information you want. One thing Chris Nolan talked about a lot was the importance of finding scholarly sources, or at least finding reliable sources. He pointed out that the more advertisements a webpage has, the more popular and less scholarly the webpage probably is. He also said the sites that end in ".edu" and ".gov" tend to be more scholarly, but you need to watch out for bias, and also a student project or a university newspaper article may end in ".edu" and those aren't necessarily very scholarly. I learned that it is possible to narrow your search to include results that only end in ".gov" or ".edu" by doing a Google Advanced search. Another thing that I thought was really awesome was Google Desktop. It is free to download, and it will index everything on your computer, so you can search your own documents. Chris Nolan's presentation was packed with really great information, and I enjoyed it very much.

Copyright Issues

Diane Graves’ talk today was quite interesting and very informative. I learned a lot of new facts about copyrighting and how that can affect education. The part I found most interesting, though, was illegal music downloading and file-sharing. I knew that downloading free music was bad, but I had no idea that it was violating copyright laws. Actually, any student who copies and loads music, movies, images, or text from another source onto his or her computer is most likely violating copyright laws. Downloading free music is a serious issue, and so is file-sharing. Most people don’t know that the software they use to download free music automatically sets itself on “share mode,” meaning that your music is now out there for anyone to download. Students who make music files, movies, images, or text available via file-sharing are violating copyright laws, and most students don’t even know that they are doing this. Another surprising fact that I learned was that companies, like the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA), have the ability to track down people who violate copyright laws. They can find out the file name, the date it was downloaded, the program used to download it, and the IP address of the violator. Illegal downloading and file-sharing become much much bigger issues in places of higher education because the university can be held accountable. If these companies find that students on the Trinity network are downloading illegally or file-sharing, Trinity can be sued and fined. As a student, I can understand the temptation of free music downloading. I will admit that before coming to Trinity, I downloaded free music through various programs. Young people tend to love music and not have very much money, so the only way they can get the songs they want is through programs like Gnutella and Limewire. But, it’s only right that the people involved in making the music should receive money for it. Programs like iTunes are doing their best to make music available to people for a low cost. Now, I only use iTunes when buying music. I feel that $.99 per song is very reasonable, considering I’m getting a legitimate song from a legitimate program, and I know that I’m not violating any copyright laws. This is a big issue, and it is going to be nearly impossible to eradicate illegal music downloading and file-sharing for good, but these free music download programs need to be eliminated. Recording artists and record labels are not getting the recognition and compensation they deserve. I hope that in the future illegal music downloading programs are completely done away with, but I also hope that programs like iTunes find a way to make songs cheaper.
--Jenni

Facebook

I love Facebook. I think it's a great way to connect with friends, meet people, and remain in the know. At first, I was reluctant to get a Facebook because I didn't want other people to know so much about me or to see my picture, but I realized that you can control the privacy of your profile so that only certain parts are displayed. Facebook also allows you complete control over who you friend and what your friends can see. Facebook is especially useful for college students because there are so many things happening on campus. Facebook makes it really simple to advertise, so many people can get the word out about an event they are hosting or a party that's coming up. Facebook is also a great unifier. People can create and join groups based on a particular interest, and groups also provide an easy way to relay information about meeting times or group events. Of course, Facebook isn't all good. Some people can get into trouble by posting too much information or accepting friend requests from people they don't know. Also, Facebook contributes to the growing problem of face-to-face contact associated with the younger generation. Teens are more inclined to "Facebook" someone than to call or meet him or her in person. Facebook is also a terrible time-waster. Personally, I check my Facebook at least once a day. A person can get lost in Wall-to-walls and picture albums, and it is really easy to lose track of time. Overall, Facebook is an amazing resource that makes staying connected really easy, and I think every college student should have one.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html
I really liked this article. I agreed with a lot of what it had to say.

As far as my experience with Word is concerned, I would say I know enough to get by. I've typed many papers, so I know all the basic things such as changing margins, changing the line spacing, formatting, and using spell check. But, I probably haven't used about 3/4 of the buttons on the ribbon. After reading chapters 1-3, I realized that there are so many tools available to me that I didn't know about. I think I just need some practice with the unfamiliar buttons because, as of now, I'm more inclined to stick with what I know. There are a lot of interesting aspects of Word that I would really like to become more familiar with. I would also like to learn more shortcuts that could cut down on time. I'm very excited to learn more about Word and to be able to take advantage of all the amazing tools it provides.

Hi, my name is Jenni. I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, where I've lived my entire life. If you're not familiar with Omaha, here is a link of our downtown area called the Old Market: http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=41.25542,-95.931244&spn=0.003259,0.009613&z=17

I attended a small all-girls Catholic high school, and I loved it. I love to travel, and my high school offered a lot of travel opportunities, which brings me to my secret fact. I had a hard time thinking of one, so this was the best I came up with: The summer after Junior year I spent two weeks in the Dominican Republic doing service and experiencing the culture. The other girls and I each lived with a family in the mountains, and we helped them out with several projects in their village. I suppose I picked this as my secret fact because it was the most amazing trip I have ever been on, and we started preparing for the trip and raising money about a year in advance, so it was a big part of my high school experience. I've also been to Spain, Italy, and Greece, which are beautiful countries. Actually, I hope to study abroad in Spain for a year.

I was on Varsity tennis in high school. I joined Club Tennis here at Trinity, but I have yet to go to a practice. I got kind of busy. I'm pre-med, so I have a lot of science classes and labs, but I think I want to major in Spanish, so I'm taking Spanish classes also. I'm very excited for second semester. First semester was a blast, and I met a lot of amazing people, so I'm really optimistic about my new classes and meeting new people.

As far as computer experience goes, I would say I'm average. We had a laptop program at my high school, so I've had a computer since sophomore year, but I only use it to type papers and use the internet. We occasionally did powerpoints and graphs using Excel. I would say the majority of my time spent on the computer is on iTunes and Facebook.

My email is jengel@trinity.edu.