Everyone Makes Mistakes...

Everyone at some point in their school years, whether it was college, high school, or even middle school, has had to do some form of presentation. Most people usuallly do the typical written report and read word per word out loud to the audience without even making their pulses increase. For the more creative folk, when it comes to presentations, they usually turn to visual reports. That's where Microsoft Power Point comes into play. The only problem with these forms of presentations is that they are beginning to turn into the old fashioned written report. Several presentors, including myself, do not realize the mistakes that they are making in their presentations. After reading some articles on the do's and dont's of Power Point Presentations, I suddenly realized that I have had mistakes in every single presentation that I have ever given! For starters, I think that the most common error that I found in myself was using the Power Point Presentation as a teleprompter. I don't mean to do it, but as a result of adding too much information to the slides, I end up writing out everything that I wanted to say instead of just saying it myself. Some tips that I found to be extremely helpful from the articles are listed below:

• Slides in a presentation are supposed to support the speaker and are not supposed to be filled with too much unnecessary information.
• Avoid using cheesy clip-art and instead aim for using photographs that are more professional.
• Make sure that you are using the proper charts for the type of information that you are trying to convey.
• Avoid too many bullet points per slide, and instead try to narrow words down to a minimum of 6 per slide.
• Stay away from distracting backgrounds and tacky, hard to read colors and fonts.

These tips are given to help make presentations the best that they could possibly be and to avoid an audience of sleeping people. Power Point is supposed to be an aid in making the best presentations ever, but it is simply up to the presenter to make sure that that is the ending result.

Excel in school!!!

Throughout my years in high school and even in middle school, my exposure to Microsoft Excel was minimal. I never really had the opportunity to create graphs and analyze spreadsheets of data. At the beginning of the semester I felt completely overwhelmed because I lacked the basic computing skills to be able to construct data analysis and other forms of numerical presentations. With the courses of Integrative Biology, Biology Lab, and Calculus A, having these skills is vitally important to be able to complete the assignments distributed by the professors. Taking the Essential Computer Skills course has really helped me a great deal in developing my Excel skills. Before any instruction, I did not have any knowledge on how to create graphs and make functions out of the data. I know am capable of using shortcuts that will make the entire process of assignments way easier. Being able to use this program effectively is important because it is used in several workplaces as well. Aside from the fact that Excel is a program used throughout college, it is also something that can help you with careers and jobs. I personally have had to use the program in a workplace when I used to work at a doctor's office as a billing clerk. All of the patient's information and insurance information were all organized in excel spreadsheets, and my lack of experience made it difficult for me to be able to manipulate the data easily. If I would have had the experience and skills that I now hold, the entire job would have been way easier for me.

Diversity at Wisconsin University....

It is common knowledge to several people that pictures can be deceiving, but to those with an untrained eye, it could easily fool them. With today's technology and advanced computer programs, transforming a photograph or some video image can be as easy as clicking a button on the mouse. For the 2001-2002 Undergraduate Application for the University of Wisconsin, the cover photo of the application was manipulated "to make the campus appear to be more diverse". The original photograph was of a 1993 football game, which depicted several Caucasian students celebrating a possible victory over an opponent. The hidden truth behind the altered photograph is that an African American student by the name of Diallo Shabazz was photo-shopped into the background in order to make the background diverse enough for the applicants that would be applying in the upcoming school year. The student, Diallo Shabazz, was actually not even in attendance at the game. The photo of him was actually from 1994. This manipulation seems to be unharmful, compared to some of the manipulations that are running around in the media everyday, but it did in fact present some "false advertisement" ideals. While some famous actresses have their faces placed on the bodies of beautiful models to make them appear more attractive, Wisconsin University did this as well, but in a different scheme. By adding the African American student to the background that showed Wisconsin students having a great time, the University was hoping to attract more students from different ethnicities in order to accomplish this goal of diversity. Seeing this as a harmful thing could go either way, considering that a student from an under-represented ethnic group could feel out-numbered and like an outcast in a place where they alone and the only one of their kind.

The AT&T Center for Learning and Technology...

It still completely astonishes me when I look around and see how technically advanced Trinity University is. Sure, it is a university and should be able to offer it's students the best technology for their own personal educational advancements, but it has turly gone beyond that expectation. On the first floor of the Elizabeth Coate's Library, the AT&T Center for Learning and Technology can be found. It is a center with truly remarkable resources for the student's disposal. There are several work stations that vary in programs and equipment. There included the Innovation Studio, the Video Conference Center, Studios@CLT, Media Presentation Lab, and my personal favorite, the Digital Audio Lab. It is the one with which I worked with the most because it was completely entertaining to me. One could do so many things in the area since it is equipped numerous computers, a synthesizer, digital audio importing and editing hardware, access to a number of audio sources providing both digital and analog import capability, and sound editing software. I am a music fanatic, so seeing all of the recording devices was truly exciting, not to mention that it is also extrememly beneficial to Power-Point Presentations and other projects that you may encounter during your time in college. This station could be incorporated into my CS1300 class by adding special audio effects to one of my presentations or assignments in class. It is really only up to your imagination! The technology is there, we just have to take advantage of it and make the most of it.

Plagiarism...

Everyone has been told the basics of plagiarism. It has been installed into our minds since elementary school that copying someone else's ideas or work is morally wrong. We are constantly reminded by teachers that we should always cite everything that we use in our papers in order to avoid this type of fraud, but it was not until recently that I discovered that there were several other things involved in plagiarism or copyright that I had never really considered to be wrong. Of course I knew the downloading music without paying for it was wrong, but I didn't know that it could literally be tracked down by the record companies and pin-pointed to the person who commited the crime. During the presentation that we had in class concerning copyright laws and such, I was given a direct example of this happening to several of the students here on campus. Lists were being released with their names on it, accusing them of illegal downloading, and now they were being asked to stop or suffer the consequences of a lawsuit. To me personally, the students were stealing, but they justified their reasons for doing this with the fact that everyone else was doing it. This of course is partly true, but the point here was that they were the ones that got caught, therefore taking the downfall for everyone else. To the recording companies, it is completely unfair to be robbed of something that they put time, money, and effort to create, so they wanted justice and to be recompensated for their losses. I believe that this is the only far thing to do, and it teaches people to not do the wrong thing. It reallys helps to know all of this information, because it could be the determing factor when you find yourself in a situation debating whether or not to ckick that download button.