Powerpoint

The Five things I hate about PPT presentations:

1. when the presentation has pictures up that don't make sense with the slides
2. when there is too much information on the slides
3. when you can't read the text because the text is colored with light, bright colors
4. when there are too many animations and sound effects that distract from the main argument
5. when the order of the slides do not make sense

PowerPoints presentations are very useful in today's business world.  Professional looking templates can give consistency to a slide, and different effects can cause the audience to focus on main points.  Key points can be highlighted by increasing font size and organizing the text by bullets.  A perfect situation would be if you were to give a proposal of cutting down waste in an office.  You can use graphs to compare how much money is saved versus how much money is wasted weekly, monthly, and yearly and input it into the slideshow.  Color schemes and templates can catch the eye of even the most distracted audience members.  It's safe to say that a powerpoint presentation is a great communication tool. 

CLT

I was not able to visit CLT because I was not feeling well that day, but I did read Andrew, Autumn, and Katie’s blog entries describing the trip.  I learned that I never knew the location of CLT until I read up on it and found out that it is on the first floor of the Trinity library.  Robert Chapman, an employee for the Center for Learning and Technology (CLT), spoke to the students about the many resources CLT has to offer.  CLT has both Macs and PCs for students to use.  There is a recording studio and there are many computers specialized for specific uses.  For editing pictures, some computers have an advanced version of Photoshop.  For recording videos, there is special software installed in some computers.  This center can be used for many of my classes.  In our computer class using Photoshop is the next section. I can come to the CLT to edit my photos and do my assignments on either a Mac or a PC with advanced software.  There are also employees working in the CLT to provide assistance with anything I need.  As for my other classes I can use the recording studio to create video projects for my senior thesis classes in Biology.  As for my everyday uses, I can edit my pictures and take out any red-eyes or bad shading so that I can show my friends where I went this summer.  Basically this place is great for studying, recording music and videos, and editing photos.  And I will definitely come use it for school.

Photoshop

This original picture is Trotsky seen with other Communist officials. The altered picture is Trotsky removed from the picture after he ran into conflict with the party. I chose this picture because I think it is interesting how the Soviet regime used the art of photo manipulation even before the invention of photoshop. Even today, governments are using different techniques to manipulate the truth in photographs. The manipulation was harmful because the Soviets were trying to cover up Trotsky's association with the Communist party. They covered him up, so that people would think he never even existed in the party, which is quite misleading considering how integral he was to the creation of the party.

To conclude this is the dove self-esteem campaign video. It shows how our modern world has used make-up, and especially photoshop to distort the image of what is beautiful today. Women everywhere look at this manipulated picture and want to be exactly like the woman in the picture, but they really do not know that many advertisements and pictures are manipulated for women who have low self-esteem. I saw this video many years ago, and I still think its as powerful as it was then. Women and men should be aware of photoshop and how today's society has manipulated our own image to satisfy our own desire, but in reality everyone is beautiful. I chose this video because it sheds light on a problem that is seen throughout our culture. This "fake beauty" is revealed here...

Excel Entry

I have really enjoyed the excel homework and class assignments thus far.  I have learned how to copy down formulas, merge cells, format cells, and numerous of other functions in excel. This has actually helped me in my classes now (Chemistry lab), and I know it will help me in future labs as well.  It will also help me in the "real life" because most jobs and internships require their employess to know how to use excel (knowing how to copy down formulas would be quite useful here).  I dislike that the program is not the same in MACs, but I do love how the new excels are so much easier to use with their menu being so simple.  I can see the menu bar clearly on the top of my screen, which is really helpful for finding formatting tools and different functions.  I also really enjoy the built in tables as well, which allows the used to insert data in a pre-made table.

Jason Hardin Copyright Lecture

The other day Jason Hardin, who is the manager of access services, came into our computer class to talk about copyright laws.  I found his lecture quite informative and interesting.  I particularly found his lecture to be interesting when he described that plagiarism is usually just a moral sin or an academic crime rather than a federal one.  Copyright means government recognition of an intellectual property.  That means that the government is actually protecting your work from being copied.  He discussed that the moment a work is saved, published, or finished it is protected by the law, and is protected for the author's lifetime plus 70 years.  I found out that Disney is the reason that this law has been passed by Congress.  In order for them to retain ownership after Walt Disney's death, the Disney Corporation had to lobby Congress to increase the amount of years works can be copyrighted. 

It was good to know all of this information, so that I can myself be knowledgeable of copyright laws if I was to ever make my own published work. I was a bit frustrated to hear that a big corporation manipulated lobbyists to control the law.  Even though I am frustrated to hear that, I believe that the amount of time a work can be retained by the author should be much longer, since it is an original work, but Congress itself should pass it rather than a large corporation.  

I think Joe Hardin did an excellent job on keeping the class engaged by making his lecture interactive allowing the class to ask questions through out his presentation as well as using clicker to quiz the class and feed them interesting topics.

Trinity Network Diagram

Hopefully my diagram will prove to be insightful for anyone trying to learn about the Trinity Network.  I found the tour In hassel very helpful in making this diagram, and through making this diagram I have learned much about the complexity of Trinity's connections.