Advice to others in Compskills

To all those who are taking this class in the future i have a few tips for you to use. First always do your work and keep your grades up to date. This doesnt take much time but will pay off when the semester comes to the end and when you get extra points for keeping up with my grades. In addition it is always good to find shortcuts to make your work goes quicker. And besides that just use what you learn to have fun because you can use your skills for many tasks. THis class should be fun as long as you do the work.

My Picture that Lies

My picture that I chose was one taken by a friend of us at Halloween. I decided on this picture becuase one of my friend looked as if he didnt fit and was getting made fun of it on facebook. This Picture I downloaded straight from my facebook from a photo I was tagged in. The first thing i did to maipulate the photos is change the Hue Saturatuion and contrast to darken it a little so that the blemishishes are harder to see. Then i took out the background and inserted a black one behind. Then i took out Ryan, who had a really creepy smile. Finally i added orange text saying happy Halloween. This manipulation potentially could have been harmful if i put it online again but I asked him if it was ok to edit him in the photo and he said yes.

Powerpoints I Liked

In the class there were many great powerpoint. There were some real complicated and some extremely simple with only the bear minimum. I tended to like the simpler ones and George's was probably my favorite. It was simple, stayed on task and looked professional which paralleled his topic. In addition to that one i liked Elle's powerpoint on Bee's. It was simple but very interesting. I learned the most from her powerpoint.

Powerpoint tips

On the first website I visited it contained many similar tips on keeping the powerpoint simple. I think this is key because it is the presenter job to give the information rather than have the audience read it. In addition i like the idea of having clear and complex pictures because they can add to the presentation. In the address to professors it reiterated the basic ideas of powerpoint but i like the idea of having size 28 font as the smallest because this forces the slides to be summary. The third website just shows a need for balance for creating a interesting powerpoint that is not over the top or boring. It also goes over basic powerpoint faults.

Important

1) Do not use a blank background

2) Have interesting pictures (no simple cartoon pictures)

3) No more than 5 bullets per page

4) One sentence per bullet

5) Change the color of the text

CLT

The CLT or the Center for learning and technology is a great rescource. This center has both Macs and Pc's which makes using all the technology alot easier. It is located on the first floor of the library. In the center they have Photoshop which can be useful in our class but they also have things for recording and manipulating audio and video files. The staff is friendly and eager to help. I have used this center once for an english project but besides that i plan on using it for rental of camera's or equipment i do not have. However as we progress into more image manipulation there is a good chance i will come back to this center.

learning from Excel

In excel i have always been able to accomplish my task. From inserting formulas to making calculations i already undertood how to accomplish those. However when I would accomplish these task it would take me a bit of time. Through this class i learned many useful shortcuts such as dragging formulas across by clicking the bottom right hand corner. In addition by pressing F4 so that i can have an absolute cell reference really sped the proccess of inserting multiple formulas on a balance because it made it easier. Along withe these shortcuts I learned how to insert designs which adds to the appeal of typically boring information. However what i found most useful is the conditional cell referencing. This allows the reader to highlight the information into what is important. Now that i know every aspect of excel it is easier to accomplish all tasks while making them look better.

In Chris Nowlan's presentation I learned that google is a valid search tool. Because it is so expansive it has a lot of good information. I learned how Google searches by title, the actual information, and how many websites are linked to it. This not only ensures quality but also the quantity of the information provided. In addition it has many option so that specific documents can be found; such as books and scholarly journals. While google can be a useful tool it should be used more for the first search engine. Other search engines have more information on each specific topic which is better for research. Also there is a difference between how each search engine views sites. Some may put more emphasis on the three different categories. My favorite part of google is how it can be personalized. From changing the terminology to things to pirate lingo or any a lot of other interesting lingo.