Advice

My advice for students next semester is to try to really appreciate the amount of cool stuff we get to learn in this class. It's a lot more fun if you don't take it for granted! Also, it's a good idea to get to class a little early every day. :) Have fun!

My Picture that Lies

Before:
After:

I chose a picture of my little sister and a picture of a slope from our ski trip and combined them. They were my own pictures. I manipulated it by cutting my sister out of the parking lot background that she originally had, putting her onto the slope picture, erasing all the shadows and a skier in the background, adding a lens flare, and saturating the color in both pictures to make it brighter.

My main reason for manipulating the picture was that it's such a cute photo of my sister but she was in an ugly parking lot background, so I basically just made it look better overall. I don't think the manipulation was harmful at all because it didn't change the way she actually looks, I just put her in a more aesthetically-pleasing setting.

Presentations

I really enjoyed watching all the powerpoint presentations Tuesday, and two that really stood out to me were Aubrey's and Anne's.

My family has always been interested in personality tests like the Myers-Briggs type indicator, so it was fun for me to hear Aubrey's presentation about it. I thought she did a very good job of explaining a complex topic in an understandable way, and I really liked the graphic on her slides- it looked like a neon DNA strand or something and it went really well with her pictures and diagrams.

Anne's presentation stood out to me because I have a thing for children's books; maybe because I'm around them so much at home. I loved that she went into such detail about the Three Little Pigs and I thought all her points about its effect on children made a lot of sense. I also thought the crayola-colored theme of her presentation went well with the topic, and her wolf graphic was so cute!!

Powerpoint Presentations

I completely agree with the points made by the links in the class notes. I get really annoyed by bad powerpoint presentations sometimes, and I felt like they really highlighted some of the main reasons for that.

1. I think it's really ineffective to cover a slide with words and then proceed to read them to the audience. It's overwhelming and definitely not visually appealing or interesting to sit through.

2. It also really bothers me when people use a different slide transition for every slide and then a different animation for every element on the slide. It's kind of like when people use tons of different fonts on a Word document. It may seem like it adds interest but it just looks really unprofessional and actually makes it much more confusing.

3. Using the preset slide layouts that Microsoft provides isn't a good idea because people have seen them all before and it just ends up being another way to make things look unprofessional and unoriginal.

4. It may seem like it's more exciting to make every slide look completely different, but I think in most cases that just, again, looks unprofessional. If the slides are consistent, people pay attention to the information instead of being overwhelmed by slide design changes.

5. Probably the most important thing is to remember to keep it simple because the powerpoint should just visually enhance your presentation, not give the presentation.

CLT Lab

I'm so amazed at this CLT lab. I had no idea this place was down here and it's really awesome! I didn't even realize the library had Mac's anywhere, and it turns out they have these big pretty ones all down here. I think this lab could be really useful for any kind of media project in any subject. It's also really cool that they have a conference room where you can practice presentations and things like that. It seems like the people at the help desk down here really want to help students out with virtually any kind of project, which is good for me because I feel like I definitely don't know how to use much of this stuff on my own. Really cool place!

Microsoft Excel

I really enjoyed the portion of the course about Excel a lot more than I expected to! I barely knew anything about it before, and I thought the formulas were really cool. A lot of them will be really useful in everyday applications like budgeting, etc. I also actually really liked some of the Excel templates we looked at; I had no idea those existed and some could be very useful!

I'm definitely glad I learned this stuff at the beginning of my college career so I can utilize it further from now on!

Chris Nolan Presentation

I really enjoyed the presentation Chris Nolan gave yesterday in class. I didn’t even realize how little I knew about Google and search engines in general! The first thing that I found really interesting was his explanation of why Google is so popular. I had never really thought about it before but it’s actually a really impressive search engine for several reasons. It looks at whether your terms are in the title of a page, how frequently they appear, and how close together they are. But it sounds like the most important thing it does is look for the number of other websites that link to a site, which ensures that it’s really a relevant resource. Google is also able to take into consideration the appropriate weight of each website that links to it, so it’s a really complex system!

It was also very helpful to learn about some other aspects of Google like the many advanced search options, cached websites, and different specific domains like News or Scholar which could be really useful in a research-based setting! Also, I wasn’t really sure what a directory was before this presentation; apparently it’s a human-compiled list of sources that would be good for college-level research. They have a lot less sites than a search engine will find, but I’m sure they would still be very useful because every site has been evaluated and deemed credible.

I’m really glad we had this presentation in class because not only is it fun to learn interesting new information, but the facts Chris Nolan shared will probably be very useful in my time at Trinity!

Pictures that Lie

I chose this composite picture of two ice skaters because unlike many of the other examples of photo-doctoring, this one doesn't seem to have been editted with ill-intent. The picture originated on the cover of New York Newsday in February 1994 and it was manipulated to make it look as if these two rival skaters, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, were practicing together. The purpose of the manipulation was to raise excitement for the next day, when they would take the ice together in reality. I don't think this manipulation was very harmful because the caption clearly states that it is a composite photo with a purpose of advertising.

Jason Hardin Lecture

I learned SO much about copyright during the lecture Jason Hardin gave. Before he came and spoke to us, I was not even aware that from the moment an original creation is put in tangible form, it is protected by copyright. That’s so cool! That’s definitely one particular governmental protection that I do think is worthwhile and beneficial to society. I also thought some of the websites he told us about were pretty interesting. I had never heard of creative commons but it seems like a really neat way that anyone can help support copyright laws AND societal creative growth at the same time. He also went over the factors involved in the Fair Use (Title 17) issue. It was really good to hear because even though I had heard of Fair Use, I was really unsure about what actually constitutes an educational “fair use” defense against copyright infringement.
One thing the lecture got me thinking about was downloading music for free using limewire or a similar website. It’s an issue that has a lot of gray area, especially among college-age students. However, I’m kind of starting to see the reasons behind the laws against that free downloading. After all, the reason for copyright in the first place is partly to inspire creators and artists to work hard to make the industry better in order to make money. I feel like just because it’s really easy to get free music doesn’t really mean that the use of music should be any different than the laws that apply to all other forms of art or intellectual property.

My Trinity Network Diagram

Joe Hatch Visit

I really enjoyed Joe Hatch's visit to our Computer Skills Class because I found it both interesting and informative. He told us a lot of things about the way the network on campus works, and we got some interesting tips. I learned not to upgrade to Snow Leopard yet, how to find the groups folder on my Mac, and just how useful the Sophos Anti-Virus program is. I also found the information about CCleaner and defragmenting very interesting even though they aren't particularly useful for my own computer. Lastly, I think it was good to hear about the ways in which individuals use tools to infect computers and/or steal identities! That was definitely a good thing to think about. Altogether, it was a good lecture!

Hey, I'm Monica.

This is my first semester at Trinity and I come here from a little town in East Texas called Hallsville. In high school, I was involved in drill team, yearbook staff, art club, and two service organizations. I volunteered every Monday night babysitting kids whose parents were taking ESL classes at a local church, and it was one of the best parts of my high school years. I'm the oldest of five, so that may be why I enjoy working with kids and serving at organizations like that. I love my family and friends and one of the hardest things about being in college is that I already miss them a lot! I also really enjoyed my church youth group; I actually went on a mission trip to Chicago with them a few weeks ago, and it was a really awesome experience.

My secret fact is that I have a cat named Mouse at home. I miss her a lot!

I usually just use Word and Excel to do whatever I have to do, but I've never really played with them or tried to do anything other than necessary work. I'm looking forward to learning more that I can do with Microsoft Office because I'm sure I can definitely utilize that in my time at Trinity!

You can email me at Monica :)