Tips for the Babies

And now, I pass down wisdom, hard-earned after a semester, for the benefit of all you babies out there. Behold:

• Do the homework! It can be a drag sometimes, especially around the middle of the semester when all of your other classes only have the occasional paper, but really, just do it. The practice is good, and it is so not worth messing up your GPA for this class.
• Don't be too angry that you didn't test out of this class. It's pretty interesting, and even if you are sure you know everything, chances are, you really don't.
• Ms. Belisle is really into design, so take an extra few minutes when you finish a project to make sure it looks nice!
• Keep up with your grades on Blackboard- it's an interesting tool to have at your disposal, plus there are random point bonuses a few times if you keep up with it.
• For exams: look over the course outlines a day or two before. Pretty much everything you need is contained within these pages! Whatever you don't understand, that's what the TA is for!
• Please note that most of the campus computers don't have Photoshop readily available- it is worth the download time to get the trial version.

Websites

I was really impressed by all of the websites that I saw, but I'll point out a few favorites:

1. Katie Doucet's. First, I love that she made a site for her brother's band! Also, I love the layout, and the design work she did. The biography is hilarious, and I like the way she made some words stand out. The layout of the pictures page is unusual but spiffy.
   
2. Lindsay Marotta's. The color work she did with her page! I particularly like how she matched her text colors with the colors of the glass that bars the opening page. I also enjoyed looking through her artwork.
   
3. Hae-Won Kim's. Her layout was very easy to follow and interesting. And, a purple fan myself, I absolutely adored the background! I also approve of the way she laid out her photos.
   

You can find my website and critique it at cs.trinity.edu/~egrout

PowerPoint Presentations

I thought everyone had really interesting PowerPoint presentations on Tuesday. There was really good use of color in all of them. I liked the way Jeff's sort of looked like a video game, with the font choices and general color scheme. I was also impressed with his graphs! Luisa had such a snazzy background, and I liked the rich, earthy colorings she used, and that she gave us information on a relevant current topic. As a fellow International Studies major, I approved! And the flawless transitions were pretty great too. 

And then there was Jenni's- I LOVED it. Really, I go into raptures. I left a huge comment for her going into detail, but there is so much to talk about! The topic was neat, of course, but I really loved all of her aesthetic choices. It looks like she got the striking color scheme from the logo for Doctors Without Borders, which I thought was a really neat way of working it in. The slide where she showed the pictures with the key words was really amazing- the way she layered in the second picture, and when one of the words was red as an extra emphasis. I also liked that she added the video. 

Making a Point About PowerPoint

The big piece of advice I picked up from the various articles and tips on creating effective PowerPoint presentations was to limit the amount of information on each slide. Apparently, when not used to aid students with taking notes in class, a PowerPoint presentation by itself shouldn't actually tell the audience much. That part is up to you, the presenter. Because the PowerPoint is only the visual aid to the presentation, not the presentation itself, I found the following pieces of advice to be the most helpful and/or intriguing:

• Use no more than two fonts in a single presentation, and make sure they are both from the same font type (Serif and Sans-Serif)
• Alter your pictures as they fulfill different purposes in the slide. For a picture that is the main point of the slide, keep it defined, make it interesting, and place it prominently. For a picture that serves as a piece of interest on a slide with other information, make it less obtrusive with techniques like upping the transparency and fading the edges, so it doesn't jump out at you.
• Don't load up on animations and cartoon images and the like. Just because it comes standard with PowerPoint doesn't mean that it is ideal for a presentation. Keep the slide transitions simple and avoid cartoony clip art. Everyone has seen it before. Instead, try using striking, high-quality photographs. 
• Do use video! It can add visual interest, new information, and generally keep the presentation from getting monotonous. 
• Under no circumstances are you to use your PowerPoint as a teleprompter! Have highlights of what you will say, or better yet, representations that will highlight what you have to say, not actually tell the people the information. Limited text is a very good thing. One of the articles recommended no more than 6 words on a slide! Another even said to include none, if possible. 

My biggest PowerPoint pet peeve isn't actually the incredibly enthusiastic use of transitions and the like, though they can be annoying enough. I really dislike it when people don't proofread. We can't see your notes, so what little text we do see up there had better be correct! Random grammar mistakes, typos, incorrect dates, pictures that fly in and cover up half of the text- all things that could be corrected if you just ran through the presentation with your roommate once. 

To "Excel" at One's Vocation....

I have learned a lot about Excel over the past month or so. I confess my experience and expertise with the program before the be quite lacking. I like to use it to make lists, but that's about it. The fact that it does math for me endears it to me greatly, as math is one of the great scourges of my life.

I'm not certain the extent to which my new found knowledge of Excel will play a role in my future, but it certainly can't hurt! I am much more of a creative than business type, and the thought of handling my own finances, for example, scares the bejeezus out of me, so I strongly envision hiring someone for that express purpose. However, as I am first starting out, or for smaller, less official things, I can definitely see myself using the spreadsheet skills I have learned.

I suppose what I am trying to get at is that while I don't think knowing how to create a functioning spreadsheet has suddenly imbued me with the desire to keep track of all of my finances and really anything that has to do with numbers in my life, there is a comfort in knowing that I could. Plus, I have a touch of the geek in me- I like to know about and how to do as many things as possible, just for the heck of it.

Confessions of a Bookaholic

This isn't any sort of official blog for the class, but I thought this was interesting and relevant. 

I personally am in two minds about putting all books ever made online. In the short-run, I think it would be lovely to have easy access like that. However, in the long-run, I would hate for printed books to go away. I LOVE books. I love bookstores. I don't want these to become obsolete! I remember reading a short story in elementary school about a society where books no longer existed- stories were flashed across a computer screen and never re-read. Someone discovered a "book," and people were flabbergasted at the concept of a physical book that could be reread and the like. This seems like it could lead to an eerily similar situation, which I don't approve of. 

Creation in Progress...

I was quite enamored with the CLT! I had known vaguely that it was there and wandered in/by a few times early on in the school year, but I never got a proper tour or learned about all it could do. I have plans to spend a great deal of time there!

I for the most part see my future use of the CLT as personal and recreational, but I can see a few more practical, school-related (though to be fair, those two don't always coincide) uses as well. 

For our CS1300 class, I believe we will be making websites, or at least pages, at some point near the end of the semester, if I remember the syllabus right (if not, this entire argument goes out the window). I would imagine the nice techies in the CLT would be quite useful in spiffing up my page- helping me create and imbed little videos, have nice, creative layouts rather than that which shows up from the most basic HTML coding, etc. 

For other classes (I can think specifically of my Comparing Countries class), they can help me put together visually stimulating and impressive presentations- getting a little flashier than your standard powerpoint! Having decent points and information are of course up to me, but I think it is safe to assume that if I am willing to spend several hours learning how to use the fancy technology to make my pretty presentation, I will be invested enough in the presentation to have good facts and arguments. 

More often than not, however, I think I will use the CLT for my own projects and amusement. I am an amateur (future professional) filmmaker, but I have always absolutely abhorred the editing process, mainly because I sort of fail at it. I am excited that I now have an excellent resource to learn how to do this, and fabulous equipment and software with which to do it! Also, I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about the VHS-to-DVD conversion thing they have going.