Advice

For future students of this class, don't take computers for granted! No matter how much you think you know, there is always more to learn. This class has taught me so much and has been such fun! In all honesty, I was really shocked when I didn't test out of this class and thought this class would be easy and a little bit of a waste of time. I was COMPLETELY WRONG! I had soooo much to learn and I am really glad I took this class and you will be too! 

 - Eva Thompson 

   ethomps4@trinity.edu 

Class Websites

Wow! We did an awesome job! All the websites we made were so professional looking and detailed. I was so impressed. I really think that we have learned so much from Prof. Belisle, Mattina, and all the guest speakers we have heard from this semester in our computer skills class. Having said that, there were three websites that I thought were especially great :)

Hye-Won Kim's website was the first website that I really liked. The purple background and great homepage picture were so eye catching! The whole website was clean and that is very important for a good website. And all those pictures! There were so many and they were beautiful! I especially liked that if you clicked on them you were led to an enlarged version of the photograph, that was a great touch!

I also loved Ellen Desmarais's website! Her job of creating those titles for the places she wants to visit out of photos of the place itself was such an awesome idea and it looks so beautiful! That must have taken her a lot of time and effort. I also enjoyed how thorough she was when giving information on the places she wants to go. She provided so much useful information, and her page layouts were great.

Robert Buckreis had the most interesting topic for a website to me. Making a website for martial arts was so original! I had always wondered about the different "colored belts" and what they meant and now I know! He also provided useful information, probably the most I saw, about martial arts. He must have spent a lot of time researching!

I would just like to say that although these three are my favorites, I thought everyone did a wonderful job on their websites! If you'd like to see mine, just visit http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~ethomps4/

Thanks everyone!
Eva Thompson
ethomps4@trinity.edu

More Great Powerpoints!!!

So our class is pretty awesome as far as these powerpoint presentations go! Everyone else who presented today did a fabulous job. Another thing that really interests me about our class is how different our interests are! I don't think any two people presented on the same topic.

My favorite presentation this time was the one done by Robert Buckreis on Epilepsy, seizures etc. I have a cousin who suffers from seizures and I never understood much about what causes them or how to stop them, but this presentation taught me so much! I know that these mental conditions are popular topics, but Robert did a wonderful job of bringing them into a calmer light and explaining them. Not only was his information great, but his presentation format was simple yet eye-catching. He also knew his subject very well and did very little reading off slides or notes.

Another presentation I particularly enjoyed this class was Carmel Tajonera's presentation on cooking and kids. First off, I love how passionate she was about her topic and how long she has thought about persuing it. So many people change their minds about what they want to do, and it is really impressive to see someone so committed. Her presentation was so pretty and simple, yet it touched on valid points and solidified her interest in cooking and working with children.

That's all I got folks!
Thanks,
Eva Thompson
ethomps4@trinity.edu

My Favorite Powerpoints!

Hi there, 

Last thursday, the class presented powerpoints on a topic within their intended major or interest.  Let me just say that all of the presentations I saw in class were interesting and well done! I was really impressed! But, if I have to pick two favorites, they are Adan Gonzalez & Hye-Won Kim. 

 

Adan's presentation was obviously made using powerpoint XP and not Vista, so it was much simpler than most of the other presentations. In a way, that only made the information more powerful. It was obvious in his presentation that he has a strong passion for producing music. I never saw him look at notes once! He spouted the information like he'd been studying it for weeks. Not only did the powerpoint exhibit knowledge on the meaning of producing music, but he also provided lots of background information on the history of the music producing business, including its pioneers and most famous leaders.  The information provided established that Adan knows this topic forward and backward, and is well on his way to making it a career. 

 

The other powerpoint I liked best was Hye-Won's. Her layout was simple yet neat and pleasing to the eye. I loved the background picture of the gavel in black and white, it made it very dramatic (which I love :) The sound of the gavel striking the sounding block (yes, that's what it's called. I googled it) in the first slide was also very effective. Her information was also really interesting. I had no idea what to major in if you are hoping to go to law school, but now I do! I also found it truly helpful that she put instructions on applying to law schools, this shows that she has given the process a lot of thought. 

Everyone did a really awesome job, those are just my favorites! 

- Eva Thompson

ethomps4@trinity.edu 

Steps to a Great Powerpoint Presentation

After having read the three articles about how to improve powerpoint presentations,  "Top Ten Slide Tips", "Recommendations for Faculty on Powerpoint" and  "Really Bad Powerpoint - and How to Avoid It" really interesting. Granted that most of the information was the same for all three, it is still important to review helpful tips. The last article  "Really Bad Powerpoint - and How to Avoid It" was probably the most helpful to me since it corrected a lot of the ideas I had about making presentations "fancy". "Top Ten Slide Tips" seemed more general and "Recommendations for Faculty on Powerpoint" seemed to be geared towards, as it says, faculty, and was a little more professionally founded then I have real need for. 

I still think that anyone who uses powerpoint habitually should give these articles a good read, just so that they understand what is important to know about making presentations. These are my personal rules for making an effective presentation: 

1)Decide what Information You Need to Relay

Before worrying about slide transitions or effects, make sure that the facts that you need are included. On that note, you may have more information then you really need, so if you find that is the case, cut and condense anything that seems extraneous. 

2) Be Knowledgeable on Your Subject

Make sure that you aren't just reading the text off of your presentation. Your audience can read, they don't need you to do it for them. Instead, have extra facts, opinions, quotes, experiences or questions that you can use to keep your audience interested. 

3) Make Eye-Pleasing Format Choices

Choose layouts and color schemes that complement, and not clash with, each other. There is nothing more distracting in a presentation then badly-chosen text color that conflicts with the background color or image. Make it easier for your audience to see by giving them nice colors to look at ;) 

4) Use Sound and Pictures with Discretion 

A sound clip or photograph can do wonders for a presentation, if they are professional and relevant to the topic. Do not riddle your presentation with them however, because they will come off as a gimmick instead of valid points to your topic. 

5) Be Mindful of Your Audience

Know the people you are talking to. For instance, a presentation for your classmates should differ from one that would be for a prospective boss or client. Use words and phrasing that apply to your topic and to the people you are trying to appeal to. 

These are rules that I gathered from the articles I read, and from my personal experiences with powerpoint. I hope they are helpful & thanks! 

     - Eva Thompson

     ethomps4@trinity.edu 

Hi Everybody!

Using excel this semester has been really fun! I won't lie, I thought it was going to be really boring. I took a computer class in high school where we learned about excel, and it did not excite me at all.
But, I learned so many interesting things about excel, like I had no idea you could link excel spreadsheets to other programs like word documents and powerpoint presentations. Not only can you link them, but if the original spreadsheet is edited, the revised form shows up in the other program it is linked to!
I also really enjoyed all the options and design patterns that excel with Vista has to choose from. I always like having lots of choices :) It is really interesting to me that something like math or graphs or charts can be made personal.
I think my favorite part of using excel is all of the formulas that are available. Any tool that helps me avoid doing math is completely awesome in my book!
I have really enjoyed learning about excel in this class and just this class in general! I'm also really looking forward to working with photoshop and powerpoint!

Thanks,
Eva Thompson
ethomps4@trinity.edu

CLT Tour

On our tour of The AT&T Center for Learning and Technology, AKA the CLT labs, Rob Chapman told us so many interesting things. The digital audio lab and the media presentation lab were very impressive, but I most enjoyed the computers in the main studio at CLT.

            Rob told us that some of those computers are equipped with Final Cut Pro software, a program that edits video. I worked with Final Cut all of my senior year in high school in my Media Technology class. We would film, log & capture, and edit our films using the program and I am so excited that I can check out a video camera and make movies & use the computers in the CLT lab.

             I could make movie or documentary for a class project in our computer class, or in one of my theatre classes. If someone writes a script that they want turned into a film on campus, we can use the Final Cut Pro software to edit the film. I so enjoyed our tour, and will definitely be utilizing the resources provided by the CLT staff and labs.