Feel the Power...Of A Powerpoint Presentation!

In my last Computer Skills class we gave power point presentations over a topic of personal interest. Mine was over Art Therapy and I really enjoyed learning how to add music to my presentation, animating a gif image, and learning how to give an object a motion path! My classmates had INCREDIBLE presentations! Two I really enjoyed would be Katie Leonard's presentation over International Development and Kendra Doshier's presentation over majoring in Communication. Katie Leonard presented a very clean, easy to read presentation over a topic she was obviously very passionate about! I admired her spunk and her desire to help the poorest of poor! What a sweet girl! Kendra had a complex topic, but managed to make her presentation easy to read and very interesting! I loved how she animated that reel of film! My classmates are really talented at making power points!

Excelling at Excel!

I was so excited to learn how to use a paste special in my powerpoints in order to create a link to an existing document. This is really useful to me for my art portfolio power points. Whenever I edit one of my photos that has been paste special into my power point, the photo on my slide will automatically change! I can see how this would be beneficial to a firm of Architects. Whenever they update building plans on an Excel spreadsheet, the changes will automatically be made on the power point!!!

Scanners and Video Cameras and a Digital Audio Recording Lab, Oh My!

When we visited the CLT I discovered a nook of computers that had scanners and Adobe Photoshop! This is really exciting for me, as I am an art major and Adobe Photoshop is a useful art making tool! Another thing that made me really happy was the discovery of the Digital Audio Lab, where students can record monologues, songs, presentations, you nme it! My sister is visiting on March 20th and now that I've found the Audio Lab, My sister and I can play a song together (she plays the violin and I play the flute) while she's here and send it to our parents back home!

Now You See It, Now You Don't!

I chose to talk about the picture of the illustrator of "Goodnight Moon", Clement Hurd. Originally, the illustrator's picture on the dust jacket of the book showed him smoking a cigarette, but apparently Harper Collins thought his cigarette was inappropriate and PRESTO! The cigarette is gone from newer copies of the popular children's book. Now, I understand covering up sexually explicit, racy imagery, like the bare bottom on a bicycle on a Queen poster in 1974, but I feel that covering up a cigarette seems like overkill. Does Harper Collins really think that kids are going to start smoking because of the illustrator of "Goodnight Moon" does? It was an awkward edit as well, since Mr.Hurd now looks like he's awkwardly groping the air! While this wasn't a harmful change, it seems really unnecessary! In fact, this reminds me of when American poster companies removed Paul McCartney's cigarette from his hand from the famous Abbey Road picture. Here's the edited version.http://www.allposters.com/View_HighZoomResPop.asp?apn=2687971&imgloc=7-791-ATCI000Z.jpg&imgwidth=949&imgheight=632&sc=False&ct=%20Aquarius%20Images&cw=20&ch=20
And here's the original! http://www.usageorge.com/Jokes/Jokes/Beatles_Abbey-Road.jpg
For more information on this Abbey Road touch up, see this article! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2681219.stm

Oh The Tangled Websites We Weave! Thank Goodness We Have Search Engines!

I really enjoyed Christopher Nolan's presentation on search engines, I never knew what the word "cached" meant on a search result, and clicking a link for a cached website can be really handy if the original site is down or has been recently edited. Cached means that website has been saved on the search engine server. So if you can’t go to the original website because the server is down or too many people are on it, etc. you can see the website as it was when it was last saved!

I was really surprised to learn that Google can also work as a dictionary. When you type in define colon and then a word or phrase, it gives you a quick definition as well as the link to the site! Christopher Nolan's presentation has really changed the way I search now!

I was really interested in Mr.Hardin's lecture concerning the Sonny Bono Act(Mickey Mouse Protection Act), which extended the term of copyright an additional 20 years. Disney told Bono that since it was almost 50 years since Walt Disney's death, their characters were about to go into public domain, which would mean that Disney would lose their rights to their characters. He helped out by extending copyright 20 years. In 2018 Disney's characters will run the risk of becoming public domain again.
I can see the benefits of these characters becoming public domain as well as the harm. In support of these characters becoming public domain, I can see why the American people would want these beloved cartoon characters to use as their own. And by 2018, Mr.Disney will have been dead for 70 years! On the flip side, Disney's characters have become icons, and losing control over the use of these icons could be very damaging to the company, especially monetarily, since people would be allowed to use their characters on merchandise!
I am curious to see the outcome of this unusual copyright dilemma in the year 2018!

Figuring Out Facebook In an Academic Setting

I am a regular Facebook user and I feel that it really helps me stay connected with what's happening on campus. While Facebook can eat up study time and become a purgatory for procrastinators, Facebook can also be a useful tool for college students. For example, recently I lost my notes for my Italian class and was able to post a message on a classmate's wall asking if I could look over her notes. Last semester, as a HUMA student, I received messages from my peer tutors informing me of study sessions and times when they would be available. Facebook serves to help socially as well as academically. For example, last night I received a message on Facebook from my Intramural soccer team informing me of a practice at 10! With Facebook, my team captain was able to inform the team of a practice through a post to our soccer group much more rapidly than by calling us all up individually. I am really pleased with Facebook as a networking tool. I believe it enables me to stay connected both academically and socially at Trinity!