Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Another Great PowerPoint Presentation
From the four people that gave their PowerPoint presentations today, Elena's slideshow on Nanowrimo intrigued me the most. I have always had a flair for English and writing, and her topic really interested me. I was impressed that she had completed the competition, which entailed writing 50,000 words in a year. The consistent background in the slideshow was an ideal way to carry the theme throughout the presentation. Additionally, the pictures used were well-edited in black and white and complimented both her verbal presentation and her PowerPoint design. Another creative touch she added was in her bibliography slide, which many people overlook, but she used a great animation and creatively cited her sources in the lines of the notebook from her background.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Preeminent PowerPoint Presentations
All of the twelve students who presented their PowerPoint slideshows today discussed very different and interesting topics. I was truly impressed by the command that each person had over their topic and the amount of detail on each slide to support their verbal presentation. The two presentations that I liked best were Esha's "Scientific Degradation of a Progressive Diseases: Alzheimer’s" and Kim's "Dante's Guides" slideshow.
I thought Esha's backgrounds were really effective at subtly highlighting the important role of the brain in Alz
heimer's disease in addition to the verbal information she discussed. I also like the way that the bright colors in the backgrounds were well-coordinated with the text and textboxes. She approached her topic from various angles: covering the known signs, tests, and treatments as well as providing The Nun Study example and relevant statistics. This approach helped me to get a better understanding about Alzheimer's disease, which is a huge concern in the medical field today.
Kim's presentation, on the other hand, appealed to my less scientific interest of classic literature. I had read Dante's Inferno twice in high school, and both times I
was impressed by its allegorical symbolism and effective style. However, Kim's presentation taught me a lot. Her use of pictures to depict Virgil's and Beatrice's role in the comedy was really creative; it would not have occurred to me to find symbolism in the pictures, but this approach helped me better understand both Virgil's significance and how meaningful Beatrice was to Dante. Kim used a variety to tools to illustrate her topic including pictures, quotes, and a video, which was a creative way to appeal to everyone's learning styles. I also liked how the dark backgrounds complimented both the black-and-white pictures and the notable dark undertone present in the novel. Moreover, the transitions in the PowerPoint were seamless. My favorite part of her presentation was the delivery. She did a great job of using narration to communicate her topic, which was narrative.
I thought Esha's backgrounds were really effective at subtly highlighting the important role of the brain in Alz
heimer's disease in addition to the verbal information she discussed. I also like the way that the bright colors in the backgrounds were well-coordinated with the text and textboxes. She approached her topic from various angles: covering the known signs, tests, and treatments as well as providing The Nun Study example and relevant statistics. This approach helped me to get a better understanding about Alzheimer's disease, which is a huge concern in the medical field today.Kim's presentation, on the other hand, appealed to my less scientific interest of classic literature. I had read Dante's Inferno twice in high school, and both times I
was impressed by its allegorical symbolism and effective style. However, Kim's presentation taught me a lot. Her use of pictures to depict Virgil's and Beatrice's role in the comedy was really creative; it would not have occurred to me to find symbolism in the pictures, but this approach helped me better understand both Virgil's significance and how meaningful Beatrice was to Dante. Kim used a variety to tools to illustrate her topic including pictures, quotes, and a video, which was a creative way to appeal to everyone's learning styles. I also liked how the dark backgrounds complimented both the black-and-white pictures and the notable dark undertone present in the novel. Moreover, the transitions in the PowerPoint were seamless. My favorite part of her presentation was the delivery. She did a great job of using narration to communicate her topic, which was narrative.Monday, March 23, 2009
The Right Way to Use PowerPoint
PowerPoint has become the standarized norm for presenters to use in order to convey their message to an audience. However, most people who use the program have several errors within their slideshow presentation. PowerPoint's purpose is to reinforce a presentation, not reinterate the points that the presentation should expresss verbally. The online article "Top Ten Slide Tips" provides a guideline on how to create an effective powerpoint and emphasizes simplicity, straightforwardness, and quality. Similarly, the "Recommendations for Faculty on Powerpoint" offers information on how to design the presentation textually and verbally while "Really Bad PowerPoint" light-heartedly recommends utilizing slides to convey emotion.
Among the articles all expressed similar viewpoints on slides that qualify as "good" presentations and ones that were "bad." From these sources I think the five following aspects of constructing a powerpoint are most important.
- PowerPoint slides should not function as cue cards, so the information on each slide should be limited. Slides should supplement the speaker's oral presentation and, therefore, should be able to stand alone.
- The pre-designed templates, borders, and sound effects on PowerPoint should be avoided at all costs. Each presentation should have a theme, but the chances that the few already on Microsoft PowerPoint would be perfectly coordinated with the theme is rare, so it is better to create your own personalized templates.
- Transitions and animations should be used in moderation and should definitely not be present on every slide because this could easily become annoying to the audience. The "Wipe Left to Right" transition is a good option for bullet point slides, but "Move" or "Fly" are too slow and distracting for a presentation.
- The recommendation of font being at least size 28 is a good rule-of-thumb to follow. Smaller font is much too difficult to read, and the page could easily become cluttered with too much information.
- Finally, charts are an effective tool to visually communicating information. Pie charts should be used to express percentages, line charts convey trends over time, and bar charts communicate and compare quantities.
I would advise my classmates to follow the information provided in the articles and make PowerPoint presentations both visually aesthetic and to the point. As Henry Wadsworth once said, "in character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence in simplicity."
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
"Excel-ing" in Academics and Business
Before learning about Excel in CS1300, when I had an assignment that required use of the program, I would stare at all of the Ribbon tabs in the hopes of something jumping out at me with an answer. It would take me hours to compute mathematical formulas and make charts that were coherent with the assignment 
requirements. Now, I can easily maneuver through Excel. Some of the operations I learned include how to use a formula and apply it to group of cells by highlighting the desired cells, calculate a running balance, use absolute cell reference by pressing the F4 to always refer back to a single cell, sort data, freeze panes, and apply a theme to a spreadsheet.
I know that I will definitely use Excel in the future. As a Biology major, I have Biology and Chemistry labs due almost every week that require the use of program. We often make scatter or line graphs from a data set, calculate averages and standard deviation, and add best fit lines. We also need to use formulas on large sets of data, so rather than manually computing each calculation indivually, I can use Excel to do this simply by entering a formula and dragging the black cross in the bottom right of the cell down the set. Before I had struggled with these procedures and even editing the axes took a long time, but now I am much better prepared to tackle my science class assignments.
I can definitely understand how Excel can be useful in the business world. It is an excellent tool for managing payroll for employees, analyzing the business's financial growth or decline, creating an inventory system, comparing expenditure to profit, and organizing information. The success of a business could depend on the management and organization that Excel provides. I know firsthand the importance of Excel in the business world because in my job at a running store, all employees are paid by entering the number of hours worked by the hourly salary and then deducting the tax precentage.
Clearly, Excel is a vital computer program to a variety of different fields in the real-world. The information that I learned in CS1300 about Excel can be applied everyday in my classes and in my work. I am really glad that I had the opportunity to learn so many useful applications to make my life a lot easier and save time.
requirements. Now, I can easily maneuver through Excel. Some of the operations I learned include how to use a formula and apply it to group of cells by highlighting the desired cells, calculate a running balance, use absolute cell reference by pressing the F4 to always refer back to a single cell, sort data, freeze panes, and apply a theme to a spreadsheet.I know that I will definitely use Excel in the future. As a Biology major, I have Biology and Chemistry labs due almost every week that require the use of program. We often make scatter or line graphs from a data set, calculate averages and standard deviation, and add best fit lines. We also need to use formulas on large sets of data, so rather than manually computing each calculation indivually, I can use Excel to do this simply by entering a formula and dragging the black cross in the bottom right of the cell down the set. Before I had struggled with these procedures and even editing the axes took a long time, but now I am much better prepared to tackle my science class assignments.
I can definitely understand how Excel can be useful in the business world. It is an excellent tool for managing payroll for employees, analyzing the business's financial growth or decline, creating an inventory system, comparing expenditure to profit, and organizing information. The success of a business could depend on the management and organization that Excel provides. I know firsthand the importance of Excel in the business world because in my job at a running store, all employees are paid by entering the number of hours worked by the hourly salary and then deducting the tax precentage.
Clearly, Excel is a vital computer program to a variety of different fields in the real-world. The information that I learned in CS1300 about Excel can be applied everyday in my classes and in my work. I am really glad that I had the opportunity to learn so many useful applications to make my life a lot easier and save time.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
CLT: A Hidden Wealth of Resources
After visiting CLT on the first floor of the Trinity University library this morning, I was very surprised to learn about the technology available to Trinity students. Prior to this field trip, I did not even know where or what CLT was. CLT provides every technological resource you can think of: scanners, videoediting and audioediting software, devices to convert videotapes to DVDs and tapes to CDs, and programs for graphic and web design. You can even check out a camera or videocamera here. The staff is always willing to help students use the equipment and computer programs, so even if you don't know how to use these resources, you can learn.
The services that CLT offers would be useful in CS 1300 when we start creating webpages. It would be fun to add creative graphics, sound, and videos to our webpage to make the site high-quality and visually appealing. I might also use CLT for my First Year Seminar class because I have to give a presentation on the pseudoscience of graphology, and I think using the scanner to upload pictures of various handwriting samples would be a great way to visually display my examples of topic in a slideshow.
The services that CLT offers would be useful in CS 1300 when we start creating webpages. It would be fun to add creative graphics, sound, and videos to our webpage to make the site high-quality and visually appealing. I might also use CLT for my First Year Seminar class because I have to give a presentation on the pseudoscience of graphology, and I think using the scanner to upload pictures of various handwriting samples would be a great way to visually display my examples of topic in a slideshow.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Pictures That Lie: Oprah Is Not Really Oprah
On the cover of TV Guide's August 1989 edition, Oprah is pictured sitting on a huge pile of in a flashy dress, revealing her svelte body. There is one tiny problem though: it's not her body. TV Guide cropped Oprah's head and pasted it onto actress Ann-Margaret's body. Ann-Margaret had posed in the dress ten years before for a publicity shoot. The photographer seemingly doctored the picture to make Oprah look slimmer and to flaunt her wealth to illustrate the cover's title "Oprah! The Richest Woman on TV?". This picture manipulation was harmful because neither Oprah nor Ann-Margaret had agreed to this alteration. Picturing Oprah on top of a pile of money also negatively depicts her as a self-centered celebrity who basks in her fame, when clearly this is not the case. Oprah is known for donating to many charities and organizations, such as 46664 and Oprah's Angel Network. I chose to discuss this doctored photo because this phenomenon is very common among magazines because editors are trying to have a celebrity depict a certain image to the public that may be very different from what both the public and the celebrity expected. This is how rumors get started and the celebrity's career and reputation could end up in ruins.
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