Powerpoint Presentations

As we have not seen every ones presentation yet and all were very good and different there were 2 that I found very creative and exceptional. The first one that stood out was Lindsay Marotta's presentation on art therapy. As she was going thought this unfamiliar topic to me I almost felt as if I was going through art therapy at the moment. With all the pictures and the descriptions of the process along with the subtle background music you got a very pleasant helpful vibe that she was trying to portray that this therapy does to you. The graphics and designs also fit well and make it a very smooth presentation as well as her showing her up most passion for the topic during the presentation.
A huge sign for me of a great presentation is when you don't feel like the speaker cares what is being said behind them on the screen and actually presents the topic. Lachlan Fogarty did a great job with this and he made me feel his passion for the conservation of beaches and started to make me think about me helping out. Also the visual evidence, pictures, that he presented made you feel good about the positive effects and bad about the negative effects. Also the design was very smooth and made it look very professional.

Powerpoint

After reviewing the article it became very obvious to me what the themes for making a good presentation were. All of the articles seemed to focus on themes of making it easy for the reader to understand, visually appealing, and functional with the presentation that is being given. Here are my 5 guidelines to a successful powerpoint.

1.) Make it concise. Get to the point through you talking. Don't let the slide be all that is there to be said and elaborate on the slide.

2.) Don't overly complicate it. Make the slides simple but visually apealling without too much going on. You don't want the slides to drag the audiences attention away from your speech.

3.) Keep the transitions and movement to a minimal. It makes it seem tacky, corny, and elementary.

4.) Make it interesting by adding nice pictures, charts, videos, etc. You don't want your presentation to get repetitive and bland. 

5.) Make the font large enough that you can read from far away. You don't want the reader to feel uncomfortable with being able to read the slides.

Excel

After learning about and practicing with excel in class, I am now much more capable and efficient with my excel skills. One of the coolest things that I learned was absolute cell reference. In some past experiences with excel for various projects, I would always struggle when making my spreadsheets to make the data correct. I knew that you could pull the number down to make it the function for all them, but it would always be faulty. The use of the F4 and absolute cell reference function now saves me so much time as I don't have to individually do each formula and also takes out a lot of human error as well. 

As I plan to pursue a job in business the experience I have learned from excel will make me much better at my job and more proficient. In business you will always be using information and trying to get organized. Excel is the perfect way to easily access data, to make easy to use graphs and other visible organization functions, and also to make sure you have a safe reliable storage place. With the new knowledge of excel from class, I will enter the "real world" a little more ready and capable which will make the transition a lot easier. I will use excel for not only work but also for personal things too. Since I was 12 I have been helping my dad make NCAA tournament brackets every March, so this will help me make them quicker as well as more functional and better looking.

Robert Chapman and the CLT

The first time I entered the CLT I was blown away. I didn't realize how many computers and cool gadgets would be down there, but never really understood the functions of them until today. Robert Chapman presentation made me understand the diversity and functionality of the center. I found computers with Vista, Mac, and XP. I know that doesn't sound like much but when performing complex tasks having these different programs and the functionality of using all 3 in such an environment can be extremely useful. I also found out there is a sound studio and lots of cool music making and editing devices that really interest me as I thoroughly enjoy music. The CLT will be useful for many different purposes. For this class I can use the different programs on each to design projects such as a website and can get help from the people working there too! It will also help in other classes with projects and papers or just any time I want to be creative.

Manipulation of Photos

I chose the image of the British soldier gesturing Iraq citizens in 2003 during the war to take cover. I chose this as this war has impacted our lives in the US for many years and I always looked at pictures and was curious the interaction between the soldiers and civilians. This picture originated in April of 2003 on the cover of the LA Times shortly after the US led an invasion of Iraq. The picture was manipulated by the author combining two different photos from the war to make it look as if the soldier was being compassionate and extremely helpful and caring towards the civilians of Iraq. The photo was manipulated to "improve" the composition of the picture and to portray a different image than actually happened. This image was made this way to show that we were helping the poor people that weren't fighting us and were just caught up in the war, except this image was false. The manipulation was harmful on many levels as the author was fired after 30 years in the business and it portrayed a false image of helpfulness that wasn't actually happening. Thus leading US and allied citizens into believing we were giving hope and help to those caught in the actions while the photo wasn't true and was harmful to our thoughts and notions on what actually was happening.