PowerPoint, Good, Bad, and Ugly

PowerPoints when done well can be very effective and people can learn a lot from them. Unfortunately, there are some PowerPoints that have just gone all wrong. The thing that bugs me the most is when there is too much text on a given slide. I do not want to sit there and read a slide full of text. That makes them extremely boring! I also don’t like it when the person who is presenting the PowerPoint just reads off the slides. The slide is supposed to just have the main points and the presenter is supposed to elaborate on them. PowerPoints are not effective when the thoughts are unorganized because when they jump around it is difficult to follow. Also, because I’m a visual learner, when the PowerPoint lacks visuals it is harder for me to see what is going on in the PowerPoint. Visuals, if used effectively can make the PowerPoint very strong. Lastly, I don’t like it when there isn’t any color in the PowerPoint. Color helps to keep the audience’s attention.

Some of the best PowerPoints I have seen have minimal text with a lot of visuals. The presenter then explains the significant of the visuals and how it relates to the text. My environmental geology professor does a great job of this. They can communicate a lot of information with very few words and it can do it very efficiently. They are appropriate for a classroom or professional setting so it is important that we know how to use PowerPoint effectively.

Center for Learning and Technology

Robert Chapman spoke to us about what the center for learning and technology is and what services they provide for students at Trinity. Before this presentation I had no idea that CLT even existed. This center is equipped with 14 Macs, 12 PCs, and 11 scanners. They also have cameras that you can borrow there. The CLT is in charge of managing the Tlearn site and the technology that is in each of the class rooms. I think that its most useful assets are the people that are there to help you. It makes the process easier when you have someone to help you there who know the ropes. There are people there that know how to edit videos, use photo shop, and are willing to work with you to solve any problem that you might have. I think the thing that I will find most useful at TLC is the scanners. I think that I will end up using them for my drama class. It would have been useful the other day to know how to use them when I was asked to make a copy of a script. Because I did not know how to use them I had to ask someone else to make the copy. After the presentation I think that I will become more independent and if I do need help, I know where to find it.

I chose a picture of O.J. Simpson on the cover of Newsweek and Time magazine on June of 1994.  I chose this picture because I thought that it was a clear example of the photo alteration because you can see the before and after.  I also chose it because it shows the magazines opinion of O.J. Simpson by how they display his picture.  The picture on the cover of Newsweek I do not see any really obvious alterations, they might have touched up his picture a little bit but not enough to really notice.  However, the picture on the cover of Newsweek was altered a lot.  The image is much darker and they use shadows to give the appearance of evil.  The audience associates the darkness as a sign of “this is a bad person”.  I think of the manipulation of the photo as helpful.  Because the photo was altered this way, the audience doesn’t have to read any text to get the main idea of what the article will be about.

Excel

I started off the year not knowing anything about Excel. I had only used it once prior to coming into this class. I think it is really useful to know how to enter formulas into Excel and then to be able to copy them so I can make a bunch of calculations at once. I probable will end up using that in the future. That is much more efficient and by far the most useful thing I have learned in Excel. I have also learned how to make themes, organize my layout, and change the colors of the background. So now I can make my Excel sheets look appealing too. The only thing that makes me frustrated about this program is trying to center things that use up two cells. For some reason I can’t figure out how to do that.

Copy Right

Jason Hardin came in and talked to my class about everything copy right.  These laws date back all the way until the 1790s when the constitution was written.  There are a wide range of things that can be copy righted and they range from writings to art work to photos and basically anything that an individual creates.  He explained that the creator has the right to do what he or she wants to do with their work.  When a work is copy righted that means that no one can make a copy of the work without the creator’s consent.  That makes since but what I didn’t know is that copy right infringement is a criminal offence.

Jason make me thinks about how copy right can encourage people to be creative and innovative.  Because of people know that they can copy right something they are more likely to create knowing that their ideas cannot be taken.  They will get the credit for their work.  Something else I did not know is that the copy right lasts the entire person’s life that came up with the idea plus 70 years after they die.  This is because there can still be benefits to the work that their family or friends could capitalize on.  An interesting example that Jason gave us was about Walt Disney.  Copy rights used to have a limit of 50 years after the persons death.  After Walter died the Disney Company wrote a proposal to change the law to be 70 years because they didn’t want other people making money off of the Disney characters.  This proposal went through and the law was changed.

There are a few exceptions to copy rights.  They are called fair use and these are context based usage.  There are four provisions.  The first deals with the nature of the work you are reproducing meaning if their work exists in order to make money.  The second is why you are making a copy.  The third is how much of the work you are copying.  The last on is how it hurts the right’s holder.

Copy Right by Lauren Mercado is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Trinity's Server Room

I decided to lay out the diagram this way so that the Ruth Taylor building will be in the center of the page and make it a heart since it represents the heart of the technology system.  I chose to put the text in shapes because I think that this gives the whole page a very clean look that is easy to follow. Then in the arrows I chose to put which type of cable is used for the connection.

Trinity's Mystery Spot

I chose this location because I think that it is one of the prettiest spots on campus. It was also the first spot that my RM took my hall. I altered this photo by adding a small mouse and a duck.  I also changed the exposure and contrast of this image.  In addition, I also made the picture have more red tones.  I changed it the way that I did because I felt that this gives the photo a more distinguished look but you can still see the image.