About "Essential Computer Skills" class..

Well hello!

I just wanted to talk about how much I really appreciate this class I took this semester, Essential Computer Skills.
I was actually quite upset when I found out that I had to take this class because I failed the exam all first years had to take at the beginning of the year.

However, I am actually glad I took this course because I learned 'everything' about Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Expression Web.
Oh, I cannot forget about Photoshop Elements!
Sometimes the workload stressed me a little, but it was all worth it.

Everything I've learned this semester gave me useful knowledge in life getting internships or jobs and I actually had so much fun doing it!

I strongly recommend this class and also with Dr. Belisle.
She is very helpful inside and outside of class.
She emails you back as soon as possible and is very understanding.

You don't have to worry if you are lost in class because she will go over the material again until ALL the students understand what they are doing.

Thank you!

hkim1@trinity.edu

Building my own website!

Hello there,

I have not posted a blog in awhile and I hope everyone has been doing great with last few weeks of school.

Today, I would like to talk about three websites that are my favorite and were made by my classmates in Essential Computer Skills class.

Three of my favorite websites were Hannah Linn's, Erin Camp's, and Eva Thompson's.

I have to say Hannah Linn's website has the best design out of all websites I have seen in my class. She is very creative with every single page and her pictures are very organized. Her background colors for all the pages match with pictures and other items she has very well.

I just love the background of Erin Camp's website. It is an interesting drawing and happens to match most pictures she has on her website.

Eva Thompson's pictures were very organized and her black background and purple color match very well! I love her photos because they look professional.

Please visit my website at http://cs.trinity.edu/~hkim1.

Thank you.

hkim1@trinity.edu

Presentation 2!

The second time we had a presentation, my favorite one was Erin Camp's presentation.

Her background color and her picture of Socrates fit perfectly. She knew all the information about her major. She had a fun animated graphic and suitable font. I liked her design a lot. It was not messy and fit the subject of "philosophy." When she gave different examples, she also had suitable pictures or figures to describe the examples much better.

Thank you.

hkim1@trinity.edu

Favorite PowerPoint Presentations!

Hello there,

today we has the whole class to check out other classmates' presentations about what their majors are or what area they are interested in.

Two of my favorite ones I examined today were John Runge's and Hannah Linn's presentations. First, I will talk about why I liked John's presentation a lot. His design was very neat. He had a picture of a basketball court for his title slide. Then he had reddish colored background for the other slides so they would be suitable with the title slide. He also memorized all the notes he wrote down so he seemed very professional and prepared because he did not look down at the notes to explain about the topic of his presentation. His animation he made with PhotoShop Elements was neat as well. (The bowling ball!)

The other one I liked a lot was Hannah's presentation. Her design was extremely creative and amazingly made! I was actually very impressed by her presentation. Hannah is interested in majoring in Communications. Her entire presentation fit her major very well because she made it seem as she was turning on the television and changing the channels as she went on. Her design was excellent once again! She also had different entertaining videos that are appropriate for her topic. She kept the audience amused the whole time. She also delivered her topic very well.

The other classmates also did a very great job!

Thank you.

hkim1@trinity.edu

PowerPoint?!

Microsoft PowerPoint is a useful program for presentations.

The articles Dr. Belisle provided for the class are very helpful for good presentations. They talk about how to make effective presentations for what you are trying to deliver to the audience. There are several points that all the articles have made.

First, do not make your presentations wordy.

If your presentations have too many words, it is not only hard to read while presenting your point, but also the audience can be easily bored by your presentation.

Second, do not use cheesy clip arts that Microsoft already has provided.

More graphic and professional pictures are better for the presentation instead of cheesy clip arts.

Third, do not give out your hand-outs for the presentation at the beginning.

Seth Godin who wrote "Bad PowerPoint" made a very good point in his article. If you give out the hand-outs ahead, the audience will read them and ignore what you say or try to deliver.

Fourth, use visual items for your presentation.

Using videos and audio is good for examples to bold your point in the presentation. However, be aware when you use sounds that have already been made by Microsoft because they may not be suitable.

Finally, use correct charts for your presentation.

Using appropriate charts can be very effective. Garrreynolds.com provided some information about different charts. For example, pie charts are the best to show the percentages.

The most annoying thing about bad PowerPoint presentations is that they are too wordy and have awful audio. For example, when I was being trained to be an intramural basketball referee, the presentation was very wordy at first. So everyone in the room was getting extremely bored and tired of it. However, it used different videos for different situations and helped us understand the rules much better. 

Thank you.

hkim1@trinity.edu

My experiences about Microsoft Excel

Hello there,

I hope everyone had a great spring break.

Before the spring break, I have learned so much about Microsoft Excel in my Essential Computer Skills class.

I thought I had more knowledge than I thought before I took this class.

I didn't know about a lot of things that are useful such as IF function, absolute and relative cells, and so on.

Since I know for sure that I can use Excel very well after taking this class, I was able to apply for an internship for the summer. I will be going home to South Korea and taking summer classes. But I also wanted an internship and found one that I could apply for and the requirements were Microsoft Word and Excel which are the two that I learned a lot in this class.

I was very excited about this opportunity and am glad that I took this class.

hkim1@trinity.edu

AT&T Center for Learning and Technology

It was the first time for me to actually visit this place on the first floor of the library. CLT is the only place that has both Macs and Windows on campus. There, everyone who prefers either Windows or Macs can work at this place. Also, the faculty who gave us a presentation informed us that innovation studio is the place where people can work quietly with computers around. Computers are pretty distant from each other so there is enough work space for everyone that works on their homework or projects. I am actually really glad Dr. Belisle took the class to visit CLT because it was a really nice place to study and relax at the same time. I also found out that students and faculties are allowed to rent cameras when they need them. Since we are learning about PhotoShop in the future, CLT would be a great place to work on pictures or any kinds of media related stuff. I am excited that I found a new studying spot on campus. Also, if I ever get stuck working an anything that is related to computer, CLT always has someone to help anyone.

hkim1@trinity.edu