Advice for New Students

Looking back on the class, it was a great experience and I learned so much that I did not know about computers. You will learn a lot too. My advice is to come to class as much as you can and do all of the homework assignments in a timely manner. Good luck next year!

Websites

Last week, we began presenting websites. All of the sites I managed to visit looked great. In particular, I really liked Esha's site, Kim's site, and Justin's site. Esha was really creative with her site's layout and design. Kim had a really neat site filled with drawings and comics. Justin had some great pictures and a nice design. You can visit my own website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~nlilly/default.htm.

Second Day of PowerPoint Presentations

Yesterday, the rest of the class did their presentations.  I liked Jeff's presentation in particular since he chose to talk about Nintendo for his topic. Since video games are also one of my hobbies, I paid close attention to his presentation and I was able to learn a lot. I really liked the statistics on sales he added to his presentation. Overall, everyone did a great job with these presentations and I enjoyed watching all of them.

First Day of PowerPoint Presentations

On Thursday, we began presenting short presentations to the class on topics related to our majors or of interest to us. I liked Justin's presentation on Fusion Energy a lot. Most of the content he presented was not on his slides, which suggested that he understood the material really well. Also, he had some really good photos in his presentation that kept my attention. Second, I liked Esha's presentation on Alzheimer's Disease. Again, the pictures were really good. It is a really pressing medical issue in today's world and I feel like the presentation helped me understand the subject a lot better. Overall, everyone has done a good job with their presentations so far.

PowerPoint Tips

Since we are beginning to work with Microsoft PowerPoint, it was meaningful to read these articles to get an understanding of how to create a quality presentation. The "Top Ten Slide Tips" article discussed how keeping it simple, using limited bullet points, and adding graphics to a presentation help immensely. The "Pedagogical Value of PowerPoint" article, designed for TU faculty, gives tips on how to present information to students in order to help them successfully learn the material and keep them interested. The last article reinforced the idea of how to avoid making a presentation bad.

I would advise as a top priority to make sure that the student understands what they are presenting to the teacher or class. Communication is key in a presentation. Second, the presentation should be organized and somewhat brief (no longer than 10 minutes). Third, the PowerPoint presentation should look nice to keep the viewer's attention. Fourth, go easy on the graphics and sound effects. A few help substantially but don't get carried away. Lastly, do not ever print the presentation and hand it out since you are responsible for presenting the information to your audience. 

My Experience with Excel

Now that we have finished working with Microsoft Excel, I can do so many new things with the program that I couldn't do before. With this spreadsheet application, I can now enter formulas and create graphs or charts that reflect the information I put in the spreadsheet. I also know how to design my work to make it look neat and professional. These tools will undoubtedly help me in my future classes. Next time I have to make a spreadsheet, I will know how to do everything my teacher asks and I will be able to get the work done in a reasonable amount of time. For some academic fields and businesses, Microsoft Excel has proven itself to be very useful. With Excel, it is extremely easy to analyze business data. In many accounting and statistics classes, the teachers often require their students to analyze business data via Excel and make their own spreadsheets on Excel. I am confident that with my new knowledge, I will be able to succeed in my future endeavors with Microsoft Excel.

CLT

Before today, I didn't know what the Center for Learning and Technology was or where it was located. There are many resources for projects and schoolwork, including computers, printers, and scanners. Its location on the bottom floor of the library makes it a much more quiet place to study as well. It has a digital audio lab and media presentation lab for student and faculty use. Also, the school community can rent laptops and digital cameras from the CLT. In the future, I will definitely rent a digital camera for future assignments in this class or any of my other classes. I also plan on visiting regularly to study for other classes. I am glad that I learned about the CLT and how it can help make my schoolwork less stressful.