Week 10: Clear

This week's lesson about Databases really amazed me, half because I knew the programs were out there to use to make them, but never knew what the name of those programs were or how they worked. The power point lectures served as a really great tool on how to get the basics down on how to use Access. Although the questions on the scavenger hunt were a bit tricky, I was able to find them and I hope that "cheat sheet" scavenger hunt paper will help me for the project! I'm a bit nervous- he said this would be the HARDEST one?! I thought the Excel one was pretty tricky.

One topic of databases that are pretty interesting are Fields. A field is a combination of one or more related characters or bytes and according to the textbook on page 518 Chapter 10, is the smallest unit of data a user accesses.

The field size often determines that maximum number of characters a field can contain. There are different types of data that can go into fields. Below is a little list I compiled using some examples from the book:

• Text: This would be letters, numbers or certain special characters
• Numeric: This would be numbers only
• Date: This would include month, day and year, and sometimes time
• Memo: This category would be long text entries
• Yes/No: Only values that are True or False
• Hyperlink: This would be an e-mail address or a web address
• Object: This could be audio, video, photo or a document like a spreadsheet
• Attachment: This would be a document or image that is attached to the field

One of this biggest fields I was having trouble understanding is the "Date/Time" field. I tried to play around with it a little in Acess myself, but still felt like I was not grasping the entire concept. I read up on it in the book, and then came across this video on eHow.com that talks a little bit more about it. Below is the link to the public video:

http://www.ehow.com/video_4983380_create-datetime-microsoft-access-field.html

Presentation and Web 2.0 Project


Here is a link to my Web 2.0 Presentation:
http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/226533/Haven-Hospice--Ashley-Horn
This project was by no means easy to me. Even though I am pretty comfortable with PowerPoint, I had never added the narration to the slides before. I must admit, the end result was pretty cool and made me look at web presentations in a whole new way. I have, however, had experience with placing a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation before. So that was easy.

Here is an evaluation of mine, according to the rubric.

I think there is a logical flow and sequence. I think I helped this by using "10 reasons YOU should donate." It helps keeps the listeners on a path to the end of my presentation: Excellent. I'm not sure I do a good job at anticipating questions, mainly because I am dishing out information on different levels, but I feel like I hit the main points well enough not to keep the auidence guessing: Meets the Minimum. I think I grab my auidnces attention, with the text style and pictures, and with the "10 reasons" heading- it keeps the listeners wondering what will be next: Excellent. I do believe I spark curiosity, with the Even pictures for one, as that is #1 on the presentation. Who does not like a good, fun event? I used that as the first point to spark questions: Excellent. I think it is clear what I am trying to present, however, beyond my control, I am curretly sick and my voice is going in and out during the presenation. It's hard to share a good presentation with poo voice narration: Meets the Minimum. I think I do a good job validating claims: Exellent. I do not believe my presentation has any unbelieveable claims or typos: Excellent. I avoid clutter, however, I could have worked on the use of white space, I just did not want to overwhelm my viewers, especially since this is to get donations: Meets the Minimum. I do think my presentation ensures readability, mainly because I did not overwhelm my slides with text: Excellent. Also, because I do not have a lot of text to just read, I think I did say and show and not read directly off the slides: Excellent.

I learned some thing critiquing someone else's project. First, it's not easy to make your own Web 2.0 presentation, so it was even harded to grade someone else's. I liked watching the other porjects, though, so it almost made evaluating them fun. Critiquing others made you really look at the content, even down to the text to check for typo's, and it made me look more thourough into mine to check for these errors.

I will definitely use this in the business envirnoment again, especially in my next internship or first job if it calls for it. I learned a lot, especially as mentioned adding the vocie narration to my PowerPoint; it was almost kind of fun to hear my voice directing the presentation. I learned that Web 2.0 presentations are effective and even fun to watch. Also, getting the copyright information was no big deal, so it made the project fun. My organization was willing to let me use photos and one video, so it made the project go by more swift.

Week 9: Clear



This week, I learned a lot more that I did not know about search engines. I think I have this automatic habit of just ALWAYS using Google, for everything. I really like the textbook information on search engines because it puts things into a more clear view.

This part of the text can be found on page 85 of the (new) textbook.

Search engines can be really helpful when locating things on the web, especially when you don't know the exact web address or you are just looking for new information. Some search engines, like Google, can narrow down your search to just images, videos, audio, news, maps and the newest one, blogs. I use Google Maps at least once a week for different ideas for travel or even for local Gainesville road searches.

There are thousands of search engines, as mentioned in the book, and with the extensive list they give on page 85, I had never even heard of a lot of these. One that rings in my head, one of the newer ones, is "Bing". I can remember the commercials- "Search one and done."

Some search engines even have search bars you can download to add to your current Internet Explorer or Mozilla or the like. Below is an example of one of those.



I currently do not have any added download bars on my Internet Explorer page, probably because I am so addicted to Google, and I like going to the page and seeing the change of the "Google" logo every now and then, changed with popular culture.

Here are some in the book that I tried out, because I had never heard of them before, and I happen to like them!

• http://www.dogpile.com/
• http://www.webcrawler.com/
• http://www.excite.com/

This website I found is called, "Search Engine Showdown." It is a HUGE graph with all the search engines listed, and everything they do for the user. I found it very interesting. It was like a continuation from what was in the book. The web site I have listed below:

http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/

Hope this helps!

Week 7: Clear

Aw, Presentations. I know this part very well from my major, Public Relations. We are taught from day one how to give a successful presentation. I really liked the part of Week 7 lessons under, "Design and Layout." There is one major thing, though, that I continue to see every time one of my fellow peers in the PR division give a presentation: TOO MUCH TEXT. I know we are told never to do this. Here are a few points thart go along with this I would like to share with you:

• Only put your main ideas on a slide, not an entire paragraph
• The example above is a BAD example of what you should NOT do
• Also, be aware of color contrast when putting text onto a PowerPoint slide

The Week 7 Lesson, Design and Layout, had some great tips on how to use images correctly during a presentation in the business envirnoment. They are as follows:

• Avoid images that are too small, distorted, pixelated and images that look accidental
• Avoid Clip Art
•  Avoid images where there is just too much going on (this reminds me of a slide with lots of text)

Other helpful points from this section of the lesson:

• Think communication and NOT decoration. So only use visuals that will really help to explain the point you are trying to make, not just decorate the slide.
• Not all empty space should be filled in on a presentation slide or area. This is where some might tend to add extra text and uneeded photos. Sometimes the extra space is okay.
• Remember this presentation is not all about you, it is about your auidence. So try to put yourself in their shoes.

Below is a great video from YouTube illustrating how to make a great PowerPoint presentation. I know all business presentations will not be in PowerPoint form, but it is technologically available at most business offices and on most computers available. And, there is lots you can do with them to make them original and cater to your company's needs. After watching "Part 1", you can move on to "Part 2" as well where they go into a little more depth.

Web site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvCPclvusAs

Enjoy!