The Power of Powerpoints

Powerpoints. I made WAY too many of these in high school. And seen too many of them done badly. Not that all of mine were good. I know that I tend to put too much text on my slides...I like to talk. ANYWAY, regardless of my experience with Powerpoint, I did learn some interesting facts when reading the articles that Ms. Belisle told us to ;-). I preferred the first two articles over that one by the sort of obnoxious "Bad Powerpoint" guy...he annoyed me a little. So without further ado, here are my 5 Guidelines for Making Powerpoint Presentations:

1. Don't EVER read directly off of the slides. I cannot STAND it when people do this. They sound like robots who have nothing else to say. Unfortunately, I have had teachers do this, too. This is oh-so-boring, so please refrain. Thank you.

2. Do not put too much text on the slides or else no one will pay attention because they are trying to read what's on the slide. I have definitely done this before. I cannot help it. Blank space to me looks like you did not put effort into the presentation. But apparently this is okay as long as you elaborate. I have to work on it...

3. Create original backgrounds. This was a new one for me. But it makes a lot of sense. Your audience gets tired of seeing the same old background over and over. It is more interesting and potentially more effective if you are creative with what you use for backgrounds.

4. Make notes for your presentation. Whether or not you hand them out to your audience afterwards, notes can be helpful for you to use when presenting because you do not have to look at the slides to cheat.

5. Do not use too many transitions or animations. While this can be a cool effect, it gets really old if you apply it to every slide. So use this sparingly.

So, if this was not clear in my entry, the quality that I think creates a bad powerpoint is when people read off of their slides. I really cannot stand it when a person reads slides to me. I can read. And I definitely learned a lot from reading the three articles, and Mr. "Bad Powerpoint" guy taught me some good tactics, even though I thought he was pretentious. Maybe I was reading the article in the wrong mindset. I apologize. I should not judge those who are trying to help me. On that note, I think I am going to end this entry. I'm starting to veer into a discussion of morals!

Oh and check out my animation! I am so proud of myself. I never thought this day would come. :-)

CLT is the Place to BE!

I was introduced to an amazing place the other day. Seriously. The Center for Learning and Technology. Did anyone know that existed?? I did not, that's for sure. What a neat surprise. Located on the bottom floor of the library, this fantastic place was created with the help of funding from AT&T. Robert Chapman, one of the workers in the CLT, introduced us to the many opportunities that are available there. To start with, CLT has both Mac and PC computers, so no arguments about which computer system the school likes better will be had down there. Whew. Secondly, there are all the latest versions of programs related to digital media installed in the computers, so we can put together really cool projects for our classes to impress our teachers (always a plus). Thirdly, there are SCANNERS down here. Yay. Fourthly, students can check out digital cameras/etc to use, which is SO convenient. Fifthly (how long should I keep this going?), the people who work in CLT are awesome--if you do not know how to use a program like Photoshop, they are ready and willing to help you out with learning the basics. That is so cool. Sixthly (now this is getting old), there is a classroom that groups can reserve for practicing presentations. I think I will come to CLT more often, especially now that I know it exists. I like to try out nice, new computers. I have a PC, so I think it would be fun to try out a Mac. Anyways, it was a lovely Thursday spent learning about CLT. :-)

I Excelled at Excel

I know, I am so punny. But seriously, I never thought I could be somewhat good at Excel. I would not say I excelled at it, but that worked for my title ;-). I'll be honest: I have never used Excel before this class, so when I list the things I've learned, it will pretty much consist of...everything? BUT the most interesting part of Excel to me was the formulas that we could enter into the spreadsheet and then drag down. How awesome is that?! A computer doing math for you without a calculator? It's like heaven for people who are not math experts (me). Also, the graphs that you can use are so neat. I wish I had known how to do those in high school instead of having to draw all the graphs. Computer generated graphs are so cool. I know that I will be using graphs like that in the future. What else? Hm. I did not know that Excel had so many different tools and functions and pretty colors. It is quite a complex system. Before this class, I thought that Excel was just some chart thing that was boring and pointless. I was quite wrong, clearly. I have learned that I was wrong in my assumption (that happens occasionally)! Oh! Another thing: that IF function is miraculous. How great is that?! You can label certain categories just by typing in a formula that's in English, not some gibberishy symbol thing you would do in computer science (no offense to people who like computer science). Excel can be used for a myriad of things (is that not the best word ever?): calculating how much you will have to pay back for loans per month, wedding budgets, showing data over the course of time, figuring out how much money you have in your account by using a running balance (I will definitely use that), and oh so much more! I could go on, but I think I am too hyper for this right now, and I need to stop before I start listing the 100 things I love about Excel. Thank you :-).

Searching the Internet with Chris Nolan

Chris Nolan came in our class Thursday to discuss searching the internet effectively. Once we discovered that every single person in our class uses Google as a search engine, Chris showed us that we were not abnormal: Google is the most commonly used search engine by the general population by a landslide. Yay! I'm normal. Anyway, we then proceeded to learn how Google worked. Apparently Google gathers and lists results according to how many times the words we put in the search engine appear on the webpage, and how many times other websites link to the website being questioned. The websites with the higher numbers in both categories are then listed as the most relevant to our search. I had no idea that Google was that...general? I guess I always figured that Google was a genius that just knew what the legitimate websites were. Apparently not. Some of the most relevant results are from completely untrustwothy sources! Well that is definitely disappointing. And did anyone know that when you click "I'm Feeling Lucky" on the search engine Google goes to the site for what it thinks is exactly what you're looking for? I had no clue. But, my favorite piece of information was probably pretty obvious to anyone else: what the ".com" and ".gov" and etc meant! I just thought websites picked which one they wanted. I never knew that they meant anything!! Sad...so apparently ".com" means that the site is meant for commercial use, ".gov" means that it is a government site (most of the time it is a federal government site), ".org" means that it is for a non-profit organization, and ".edu" means that it is an educational website. This is mind-boggling to me. I also never knew that we could do an advanced search on Google?! What a thrill. Seriously. Thank the Lord for Chris Nolan. :-)

You're Kidding Me. Seriously??

Okay, does anyone actually believe that that is Oprah's body?? Anybody? Because I am not buying it. And you know what is really sad? That is a real body...just not Oprah's. It actually belongs to actress Ann-Margaret. And to top that off, it was used without permission. I chose this picture because, as you can tell, it has quite a bit of controversy surrounding it. Not only is it manipulated, but it blatantly puts Oprah's head on the body of another woman! It is bad enough to edit a picture to make someone look skinnier, but to use another person's body entirely?! Horrible and inexcusable. This was done in very poor taste. The original photo of Ann-Margaret was taken in 1979 and then used again ten years later in this Oprah cover on TV Guide. That means the cover editors must have really been desperate. I mean, to go back ten years just to find a picture of a different body? Wow. So I think I am clear when I say that this was manipulated to make Oprah look skinny, it was done by using the body of another woman, and it was definitely harmful because not only is it one big fat lie, but it used a picture of another woman without permission, thinking no one would notice (FYI: they noticed!). I just went back and read this entry, and it looks like I'm a little worked up about this. Wow. Never knew photo editing could get a girl mad. Looks like I'm going to need some chocolate to calm down. Oh darn. :-)