PowerPoint Tips and Tricks

So PowerPoint is the greatest thing since sliced bread, for some people at least. It's a great tool for organizing your ideas into a presentation and sharing it with others. But what makes a successful PowerPoint presentation? Everyone likes pretty colors and funny pictures, but you don't want that in a PowerPoint presentation. You want your presentation to be simple yet informative enough to grab your viewers attention. You also want to avoid wordy slides because then your viewers will only be reading what is on the slide and not listening to a word you are saying. Another good thing to remember is to lay off the flashy slide transitions and how text is introduced to the slide. People love graphics. Period. Throw in some charts and graphs showing change over time and progress and you're golden, only if the chart is easy to understand. Along with the idea of not using flashy things, avoid flashy fonts such as cursive fonts that are too hard to read, people don't like that. I think that a solid combination including all of these elements should make for an intriguing PowerPoint presentation.

CLT

The Center For Learning and Technology is a great tool for every student at Trinity. If you’re looking for equipment for advanced photo editing or video manipulation, this is the place for you. Each computer is fitted with the best video and photo editing software available. CLT has a help desk for those who need assistance with any of the programs. To be honest, I have only used CLT to rent a camera and watch the occasional football game on those boring Sunday nights in the library on their nice high definition TV. CLT is a great spot for our class because it’s so highly devoted to image editing and the artistic side of computing which is what we are working on now.

Excel thoughts...

Excel is by far my favorite program to use out of my self proclaimed "extensive" knowledge of computer programs. It has so many features and its capabilities are endless. I knew a bit about excel coming into the class but that was only with the older version of excel. I was so surprised to learn all of the new features in the new version of excel and how much easier it is to navigate and perform simple tasks such as chart making. One thing I was really surprised to see is actually how many different functions there really were. I always thought that there were maybe fifteen different functions but there are well over that number. Each one does something unique and different. I think that learning how to use excel is incredibly crucial when going into the business world. Pretty much all business plans are driven from excel spreadsheets and knowledge of how to manipulate excel to get a number you want is invaluable. I know that my new knowledge of excel will truly come in handy when I graduate and find myself sitting behind a desk taking orders from the man in charge.

Chris Nolan part I

Chris Nolan came and spoke to our class today about using Google search, among other things. I always thought I was pretty versed with using Google. I could just type pretty much anything my heart desired into the search box and then I would be instantly gratified with bountiful information ripe for my picking. But according to Chris, there is so much more than that! You can throw in all sorts of different types of symbols and even use something called "advanced search"...spooky I know. But it all truly was incredibly helpful. One thing he mentioned was that when you search for something, Google displays the item based on popularity. So the popular articles are going to be on top, which include Wikipedia and the like. As you scroll down the search options, the articles become more scholarly. I had no idea about this! This new tid-bit of information just made my researching for papers just that much more easy. No longer and I going to have to use Wikipedia for my research papers...not that I do anyway. Another really handy trick that I learned was using the minus sign (-). If you put the minus sign after what you are searching for, you can exclude certain items. For example, if you are looking for facts about Mexico, you can use the minus sign trick to get rid of words such as "New Mexico". Also, he showed us that Google can find movie times!

Jackalope

I chose this picture of the fabled “jackalope”. It’s clearly a fake picture of a rabbit with what looks like deer antlers on its head. I like this picture because I see it everywhere in every gas station in Texas that has postcards. It’s meant to be a comical image and that’s what it conveys to its viewers. Everyone knows that it is doctored unless you’re really detached from the world. The picture is from Colorado so I would assume that it originated in the South; maybe in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, or Arizona. The image itself was photoshopped by putting deer antlers on top of the rabbits head to make it look like it has antlers. It was manipulated because it is hilarious. Just imagine a furry and friendly little rabbit with antlers. Not so friendly now, huh? I don’t think that the manipulation was harmful at all. It’s made to be funny and it doesn’t hurt anyone by creating a false image of a rabbit. The rabbit isn’t going to file a lawsuit against the creator so it’s safe.