Computer Skills Class Advice

My advice for other computer skills classes:

DO THE HOMEWORK!
This is such an important part of the class and if you miss one you miss out on learning how to work with the taught material and your grade will suffer. I know it can take a long time sometimes but trust me you will greatly benefit if you just do it.

Also GO TO CLASS!
You will suffer greatly if you miss class because there are so many complex things that we go over and each class goes over A LOT of information. It sucks to miss class becuase then you struggle so much with the homework and work to come after it because a lot of it builds upon formerly learned material.

This class may take some time you don't want to give but I promise if you put in some effort, do the work, and come to class you will succeed!!!!
GOOD LUCK!

Websites!!!

Everyone's websites are so cool! Its really cool to learn more about people. I feel like a lot of projects we have done in this class have taught us all more about each other, its pretty amazing!

Anyways, so my top 3 favorites were:

1. Ali's page- the creativity and the designs are amazing. Her image map is so incredible, it looks professional. And the jagged edges of her text boxes on her home page. And the decreased opacity on the picture on the page representing her home in California is so beautiful. I wish I had the eye to create such amazing designs and images. 

2. Lindsey's page- I love the little animated thing in the bottom left corner its really clever and eye catching, great idea! The thumbnails of all her artwork and glasswork are amazing, such a good idea to promote her work and make them thumbnails so we could see the full size of each image.

3. Katie's page- I love all the content of her website! There are so many random things that I love on there! Its so cool to see all of Katie's friends and then her "things" page is my favorite! Oh man those desserts look so amazing my mouth was watering! 

You can visit my site at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~ntoto

The rest of the presentations were great. Its cool to see everyone's interests!
My favorite of the final presentations was Maria's! Her pictures were so eye-catching and her information was so interesting. It was great, I was glued to the screen.

Powerpoint Presentations

My favorite presentation was Lindsey's Art Therapy presentation. She is the only one so far who used music throughout the presentation. The music and the design perfectly complimented the relaxing nature of art therapy. The soft color tones complimented the examples of art that she used in her presentation. It was beautifully done.
My second favorite presentation was Maddy's presentation on Business Management and Marketing using Neimans as an example. Maddy's was great becuase the design was very sophisticated and complimented the face of Neimans that was presented in the pictures she used from the website. It was mainly the design and the elegance of the color schemes that made me like this presentation.

Presentation Tips

I thought the different articles on good and bad presentations gave some great advice, a lot of it I knew already and some of it helped me realize some bad things I had been doing in presentation as well. Here are 5 main points I think are the most important when giving a powerpoint presentation: 

1) Do not read off the slides

2) Don't use distracting backgrounds

3) Only use about 3-4 bullet points on a slide

4) Use appropriate charts and keep them simple-less than 5 pieces of data per chart

5) Make text at least 28 pt. font

Excel Blog

I'm really glad we learned how to use Excel so well. At first I didn't think it would be that useful for me but learning all the shortcuts, functions, and uses for Excel. I don't know if I will exactly get to use all these skills in the immediate future but I'm glad I have these skills for the future, either for managing my money once I have my own bank account or doing a project for school, who knows! I'm sure I'll find many uses for it now that I know I don't have to calculate lists by hand. I hate being inefficient and our skills in Excel guarantee efficiency! I can't wait to find something to use Excel for, I just love pulling down that formula. . . I'm a nerd. In conclusion I'm glad we spent so much time learning about Excel. 

Help in CLT

I'm pretty excited about our trip down to CLT today. I think that after all I learned about the opportunities with the technology there and the importance of keeping up with technology, I think I'm going to try to visit there a couple times before the semester is over to learn some new things. In this class it seems as though we are about to be working with photos and photoshop and it seems like I would be able to get a lot of good help with photoshop down there. Also I'm a vocal performance major so the recording lab seems like it will be really useful to me if I ever need to record audition tapes, my piano skills homework, or any compositions for the composition class I'll probably take next year! I'm really excited about all the cool things I can learn and do in CLT.