Advice

Go to class and pay attention and you will do just fine.

Websites

My favorite webiste was Ali's, she went above and beyond the requirements. I liked the amount of pictures she had and the bitmap she used. It was informative and well thought out. It was easy to get around and had no complications. My other two favorites were Kendra Doshier's and Natalie Toto's. Both were very informative and well organized. They used a large amount of pictures that kept the viewer's attention.I also liked the videos Kendra put on her website.

PowerPoint Presentations Continued

The rest of the PowerPoint presentations were given today, including mine. The presentations today were just as good as they were last week. I learned a lot of new facts about the world around me. My favorite was probably, Maria's, her presentation was about buisness. She wants to be a buisness and foreign language major. She explained that many of the market has gone overseas and that it is very useful to know multiple languages to help gain a greater job. Her presentation was interesting and she used eye-catching backgrounds to keep the audiences attention.

PowerPoint Presentations

The two most impressive PowerPoints were the one discussing the secret Coca Cola formula and the other presentation that discussed art therapy. The reason the Coca Cola presentation was interesting was because it gave the audience a lot of facts and also integrated the video into the presentation. The presentation discussing Art therapy was very informative. It also had a solid and smooth template as well as involving music with it.

PowerPoint

The biggest thing I learned from the texts I read, was to never use the templates that are provided by PowerPoint. They are not what the audience wants to see and they are bland and boring. I before thought that they were the best templates to use and had never thought of creating my own. I think the biggest five guidelines to use are; don't use the templates that PowerPoint provides, do not use a lot of texts, try to avoid using cheesy clip art, do not use a lot of animation and sound effects and most importantly, keep it simple.

Excel

Before taking this class, I had rarely ever used Excel. I have now learned to use all the fundamental components of the program. I have learned how to make a basic spreadsheet and how to show all the information in a chart or graph. Excel can be used throughout the buisness world to help keep track of inventory, wages, profit and expenses. It can also be used in the academic world by each individual students to keep track of grades and assignments. In all, Excel is a very useful program that can be used very often.

The CLT

I learned that the CLT is on the bottom floor of the library. The computers in the CLT allow students to work with programs that allow them to edit their photographs and their videos. The staff there is to specifically help the students to use the certain types of programs to help them succeed. The CLT is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and from the looks of it, not many people are ever there.

Photograph

I chose the photograph that depicted a British soldier telling Iraqi citizens to take cover. The picture originated from two different photos taken during the invasion of Iraq. The photo combined two completley different photos, one of a British soldier in the field, and the other of Iraqi citizens taking cover. The photos were combined because the photographer said that the photo did not have proper composition and therefore replaced the image of city streets with the Iraqi citizens. The photograph is harmful because it does not properly depict a true event. It is a false representation of a certain event. The photograph is a lie to anyone who views it.

Chris Nolan's Presentation

Chris Nolan presented a lot of invaluable information about search engines and the Internet. Many of the facts that he presented I had never known. The fact that there are so many search engines on the Internet was an interesting fact because I only use Google and never realized that there were so many other search engines that could be used and might even be better. I also learned that adding different key phrases or certain symbols will help you search for a specific topic rather than the search engine returning many websites that aren't related to your topic. The knowledge that I learned from his presentation will allow me to research topics better and more efficiently .

Copyright Laws

One interesting fact that I learned the other day about copyright laws is that a copyright law stays in effect for the creator's entire lifetime and seventy years after they are deceased. The law was only fifty years after the creator was deceased until the Sunny Bono law was passed that added twenty extra years. The law was passed because Walt Disney had died and all of his creations would no longer be under copyright. I never knew this fact and that after the seventy years are up that all the creator's thoughts, ideas and products are no longer under copyright and may be used by anyone. I don't beleive in this, I think copyright of the all creations by one person should be under copyright forever. It was their creation in the first place and should not be used by anyone else even if they have been dead for seventy years. Anyone can also argue that if the author has been dead for over seventy years that all of their creations should no longer be under copyright because they no longer exist and cannot control what was once theirs, therefore all of their creations may pass into the public domain.

Facebook; Good or Bad ?

According to the website, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html, Facebook has become one of the largest social networking tool for college students across the country. I beleive that Facebook can be used in an academic setting to a certain extent. All universities know that the majority if not all their students have a profile on facebook. They most likely check their profiles a lot more than their own university email; knowing all of this campuses across the country can send out different messages, alerting the students of anything from an emergency on campus to a social gathering happening later that night on campus. The only downfall to this such action would be an invasion of privacy. If the school is allowed to look at each student's profile and finds pictures or facts about the student that could lead to suspension; can they take such actions. Deciding whether Facebook should be used in an academic setting is a slippery slope that will be debated for years to come.

Microsoft Office Skills

I had no previous experience with Microsoft Office 2007 prior to this year. Since using this new laptop I have gained a numerous amount of knowledge about Microsoft Office. I can make shapes, change colors and insert; footnotes, headnotes and text boxes. I can use all of the basic techniques on Microsoft Office.

I would like to review more about reviewing documents and exchanging documents. I would also like to further go over how to format documents and how to tab aand tab stops in a document.

My World

Hi my name is Tyler. I am currently a First Year student at Trinity University. I plan on either majoring in political science or history and continuing on to law school after I graduate. I am from the small town of Taylor, located in Central Texashttp://maps.google.com/maps?g=Taylor,+TX&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=30.607186,-97.415085&spn=0.135335,0.307617&z=12. My hometown mascot was the duck and our colors were green and white. My favorite sport is football and I am currently on the Trinity football team, this will be my seventh consecutive year playing. It is by far my favorite sport to play and also my favorite to watch. I also play tennis every once in awhile. I used to play on my high school team and I wasn't to bad but I haven't picked up a tennis racket in at least a year.

Honestly, I have no computer skills. I can only perform simple tasks on a computer such as getting online, writing a paper and checking my e-mail. I hope that by taking this class I will better understand how to operate different programs on the computer and that I will also have a better overall understanding of the computer.

If you have any questions or comments, contact me at tgraef@trinity.edu

My secret fact is.....I have a pet cow named Peanut.