The Colorful World of Power Point Presentations...

Despite having several favorites in our class PowerPoint presentations I epically enjoyed Jessica's, Luisa's, and Emily's. All three of their presentations were fascinating to me because they employed an effective use of visuals. Their presentations also contained concise and purposeful points that were effectively used as a reference for the audience. I believe that these presentations were effective because I already had some preexisting interest in the subjects. I am fascinated with history, ancient culture, and mythology and I it was also one of my dreams to open a wine vineyard in Tuscany or California. Furthermore, I have been keeping track of the drug wars that have been going on in Mexico and only wish for the violence to stop and the government to succeed. The speakers also lectured with confidence and made the material understandable. Finally, the genuinely of the speakers added a hint of emotional fondness to their presentation which made them fun and interesting to me.

Great job lady's bravo, bravo!

Pointers for Power Point...

Though the articles on PowerPoint were helpful, I found them quite demanding. For example, one said that there should be "no more than 6 words no a slide EVER!" I find this quite a spectacular demand but it makes a good point, PowerPoint's shouldn't reflect mass amounts of information but should be short, sweet, illustrative, and to the point; leave the details to an essay or report if necessary. Much like the authors of these articles, I find that PowerPoint's that are long paragraphs of text are boring and put me to sleep. Furthermore, the one thing I can't stand about presentations is if a presenter just reads of their slide, don't include pictures in their presentation, or put annoying "generic" Microsoft sounds on their presentation. Five Power Point pointers I could give to all you readers out there as well as my classmates is:

1) Don't read from your slides! If there is a picture being displayed and you want to point something out then that's fine but NEVER read from your slides.

2) Make your presentation original. Generic templates are boring, mix up the design of your presentation a bit but keep it professional.

3) Visuals are important, text is not. Stimulate the mind of your audience with high resolution pictures and relevant video not boring paragraphs.

4) If you must have text stick to the point. You must be direct with your text in the light that it should be short and sweet.

5)Don't have to many slides. To many times I've seen people change slides every fifteen seconds in order to keep pace with their dialogue; this is not only a distraction to the audience it doesn't allow them to truly take in a visual if it is on display. Furthermore, changing slides that often is not what you need to be doing during the presentation (orating takes precedence).


Simplicity is golden!

An experience with Excel...

Microsoft Excel was a mystery to me before this class, even though it turned out that I knew more and could do more with Excel than I originally thought I could I was still "in the dark." Then of course Ms. Belisle showed me the light, after about four or five weeks of tutelage, on this strange spread sheet software. I learned many things about Excel that I could definitely see myself using in the future. Such thing as how to put together absolute and relative cell references in order to compute just about any information (currency conversions, simple/complex calculations) with relative ease, how to "freeze" the spread sheet so you could browse large amounts of information, and how to make the spread sheet presentable by adding color, refined title founts, and other smooth looking attributes. All of these things previously listed I could see my self continually using (especially the equations and color formatting) for future school projects (perhaps accounting and economics) and other presentations (like any anthropological presentations that require the calculation of demographic data). Excel is extremely useful in the academic and business world because it allows one individual to manage a massive amount of information and make it presentable. I could see Accounting and Financial firms using this software to present data on company profits or company auditing and I could also see the academic world using this as a tool to display a grade distributions at a particular school or university in a presentable way. Even though Excel can seem like a mountain to conquer when you first experience it, once you get to know its intricacies and details it proves to be an invaluable tool to your presentation and data manipulating exploits.

Go from chaos to order in a snap with Microsoft Excel!

CLT, the Technological Bastion...

CLT or Center for Learning and Technology is truly a place of helpful technologies and services. One may do anything they wish within the confines of this tech concentrated place. CLT possesses the video editing software Vegas Pro which allow a student to edit and cut video any way they wish. This software could be useful for putting together video presentations and short clips with sound bites for classes as well as cutting video for a website. Any student/teacher may check out digital cameras, video recorders, Mp3 players, and laptops. This access to technology is useful to everyone because it allows one to complete digital projects for cl assess and allows the gathering and manipulation of digital data in a useful constructive way, again for class projects or presentations. At CLT's Innovation Studio one may give video or electronic presentations on the massive projector or interactive television screen housed in this area which can be very useful for serving as a meeting place or presentation location for any student or teacher. In CLT's Audio Studio a student may burn CD's, DVD's, as well as record and edit music. This studio could be useful for classes where one needed to present a clip off of a DVD or sample of music for a project. CLT has a wide variety of scanners which enables a student to scan any document onto their computer and even a scanner that converts physical documents into digital PDF files. This feature can be useful for presentations or editing pages of documents and books that you do not own. CLT has a wide range of resources that any student and teacher may draw on and learn from. From this bastion of technology many intellectual fruits will spring.