Advise for Next semester's CS Class.

Do all your homework because all the little points count for your final grade. And it would be so embarassing to fail Computer Skills.

Webpage!

I never thought I would ever be able to make my own website but thanks to Microsoft Expression I did it Yay! The webpages of each and evry student were amazing and everybody did a good job on the assignments but I had my own favorites, Chiara's and Rueben's webpages.
Chiara's webpage was really good because she incorporated her talent as an artist from the from the first page to the end. As soon as you open the index page it is possible to know right away that the owner of the webpage is an artist. I loved it.
Rueben's webpage was really good for the fact that he put a movie of his life which is so creative. I loved it too.
My last favorite webpage was Tasha's because she had incorporated her passion for travelling into that webpage. With her listing of the countries she travelled to its reall interesting. I hope one day I will go around the world.
I'm proud of myself as well because I never thought I could do this but I did it. It was fun creating the website.
Wanna take a look at my website :http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~nnjovu/

HTML!

I never knew that i could ever understand how computer geeks can easily design a webpage. But from the class on web design, I can even design a webpage on my own without the help of a computer expert. There are many web authurizing softwares that can be used to create a web page such as Microsoft expression but the most important thing in designing a web page is that the web creater should understand the HTML code. The html code is the language is used to design a webpage, the language has various synbols which are only understood by the preson who is familiar with the code. If the web designer understands the html code, he or she can design a web page without depending on the softwares. With an understanding of the code the designer can create a web page even on the absence of the softwares. The understanding of the code makes the web creater understand what he or she is doing even if there is a mistake done, the creater can easily correct it because he knows the code. With a person who doesn't know the html code it will be a hard time for him to correct the mistake. Understanding of the html code is extremely important in web designing.

Best Presentations!

All the presenations were really great and fun too watch! But in everything there is always the best of the best! My best presentations were Jordan's on Alexandra the Great and Chiara's on Drawing.
Jordan's presentation was really interesting because he had all this information about Alexandra The Great that I didn't know about since I'm not a great fan of History. I learned about Alexandra the Great via this presentation. The presentation was best on the use of visual evidence such as the maps to show all the territories that Alexandra conquered. This information on Alexandra was interesting and it made want to know more about this Great person. The content of the presentation was so interesting because he had all this information about the Great Alexandra.
The other presentation that caught my attention right away was Chiara's on drawing. I have been trying so hard to draw but couldn't just do it. After this presentation I have just been motivated to do so. This presentation displayed Chiara's talents as an artist. The images used showed exactly what she was talking about in the presentation. I really enjoyed watching this presentation. The images of begginer's drawings were really interesting. The design and the content of the presentation complimented each other.
All in all the whole class did their best in the presentations.
You can view my presentation at: file://tucc-tiger/groups/ComputerSkills/Belisle/nnjovu/19present/life

Google!

I have used google so many times in high school as my main search engine. Right after I came to Trinity most of my instructors descouraged me from using Google. The reason behind it's because it does not contain scholarly articles. After Chris Nolan's presentation I found out that I could actually use google to get scholarly articles, I was so surprised. I learned Google can be used to find scholarly articles via Google scholar. Google scholar mostly contains scholarly articles that cannot be found on the normal google web page. The normal google web page contains articles that are popular among people and those from websites that are mostly ranked, these articles may not necessarily be eduactional though you may have typed in an eduactional term. The schoalrly articles are placed on the last pages or on Google scholar since not so many people understand them. Therefore, when I'm doing a research and I want to use google I can actually use google scholar and I won't get in trouble with my professors.
I was surprised that besides the use of Google scholar to find scholarly articles, the normal google page can also be used to find important articles by limiting the results to what you are looking for. If a term is typed on google search there could a million results of which some of them are not related to the topic. You can actually limit the number of results, language, file format and the information you want to be contained in the in the article by using a plus sign or minus sign if you want to omit the information from your search results. This could be useful since only relevant articles will be provided.

Powerpoint Presentation!

I have done a couple of power pointpresentations in high school, but after reading the articles I realized that i wasn't doing a good job after all. The articles helped realize the key point to a good presentation; that is to present the ideas to the audience and not let the slides do the presentation for me. The article on how to make bad powerpoints good was an eye opener for me. I have just realized the key points to make a good presentation. The first three steps to a good presentation is to make cue cards that can be referred to during the presentation without the audiance noticing it, secondly the use of slides to reinforce ideas not to repeat the ideas and lastly creating a written document that can be given to the audiance, this is to get full attention from the audiance instead of them spending time copying down key points from the presentation.
The five guidelines that are really important to a good presentation are:

• Use less text on the slides as possible, too much text distracts the attention of audiance.
• The use of images is more effective than text. But be careful to use proper images.
• Use audio or video to reinforce keypoints.
• Use proper fonts for the presentation.
• Do not read from slides during the presentation.

The only thing that I find annoying about a bad presentation is the use of too much text on the slides. This makes me lose focus on the presentation and concentrate on reading the text rather than listening to what the presenter is saying.

Excel!

I have used Microsoft Excel a couple of times but i didn't know there was so much more to learn from it. I'm familiar with entering data into an excel sheet and perform limited functions eg sum,mean and average and inserting a chart..I didn't know for sure about absolute and relative cell reference. After knowing this it made my life much easier when it comes to manipulate data in excel. The coolest thing of them all that I didn't know and learnt about it was the If function and linking data between the excel sheet and Powerpoint via Special Paste. I didn't even know that this existed. Gaining all this knowledge opened my eyes that there is so much more that I still don't know. I can use the knowledge that I gained today in my future classes because I have four more years to go and lots of projects to present using Powerpoint Presentation and perform calculations on excel sheets. Learning new skills and tricks to do things much faster would help in the efficient use of my time instead of spending so much time on something that could be done in seconds. The knowledge I have gained will help me everywhere, even when I graduate from Trinity. I'm so sure right now that it was wise for me to take computer skills in the first semester of my freshman year. I have learned so much and I'm still learning.

Pictures That Lie: Oprah Winfrey

I chose picture 11 of Oprah Winfrey. I chose this picture because Oprah is famous all over the world and most people know about her. Also, there is a dramatic difference on how Oprah looks like in the real world and how she is displayed in that picture. The picture originated from the cover of TV Guide in August 1989. The picture was manipulated by splicing the head of Oprah onto the body of the body of an actress Ann-Magret taken from a 1979 publicity shot. The picture was manipulated to give the talk show host a better image since at that time she was having some weight problems. The manipulation wasn't harmful because it gave Oprah a better image but the manipulation was done without the permission of Winfrey.

Trinity's High Tech!

The first time I went to the first floor of the library was during my Bio lab.We were learning about citing sources from the Internet. Then i saw this open room with a number of computers, I found it interesting. But finally because of Computer skills class, I came to know the importance of the room. The area is called AT & T CENTER FOR LEARNING AND TECHNOLOGY. Though computers are not my thing but this room was fascinating.

The Studio@ CLT had so many technological equipments. And this was the actual open area I saw the other day. They have scanners, color,black & white laser printers and audio and visual editing software. This area is open for students and faculty for creating and editing videos for class presentation. Then we moved to the Innovation studio for faculty members. In this room technology workshops for faculty are held. They use PC for teaching. At the moment they are teaching the faculty about TLearn. This would be so helpful because most of my professors use Blackboard and not TLearn. Blackboard is popular among my professors.This would help balancing the softwares in posting course documents.

As if that wasn't enough, there was actually more to see. The video conference center is the room open for professors and students for making videos to be used during classes. And if you don't know what to do like me, Ruben Rodriguez is there to help. All this is made possible with the help of polycom video conference facilities. Not only can you make videos at Trinity but also there are editing equipments for sound. This happens in the Digital Audio Lab. This room is open to faculty and students. The room is used for recording and incorporating sound into the videos and presentations made. This room has sound editing hardwares to make everything perfect. On top of that, this room can be used as a recording studio. There is a guitar and keyboard, for those students who have a passion for recording but didn't get a chance, they can actually do that here at Trinity. To finish it off, there is the Media presentation lab. This is where all the videos and sounds recorded can be displayed and evaluated. This room has touch screen computer to access the presentation and speakers. All of this is powered by the Internet service provider AT & T.That was when the field trip ended.

For the four years that I'm going to be here, I will definitely use the technology from CLT. The audio and visual recording studios will help to make my presentations much more effective for most of the classes that I will be taking at Trinity.I'm going to use the technology from CLT in my computer skills class, since we will be starting Adobe photoshop and iMovie that requires the technology. I'm so glad Trinity has all this technology, because I won't have to worry when I'll need to use it.

Copyright!

I have learnt that, there are several exceptions to copyright infringementand "fair use" can be considered as one of them. Fair use cannot be considered copyright infringement depending on the amount of the material used from the source and the purpose of using the material. If the material used is little compared to the source content that is considered fair use but if a person uses more than 60% of the material in the source that is considered copyright infringement. Also if the material is used for commercial purposes that is considered copyright infringement. One has to be careful in using the materials that are in the journals posted on the internet sites because you have to be consider the fact that everything is copyright protected unless stated under public domain. Public domain materials are the ones that are not copyright protected and anybody can use them. My stand point is to be careful when using materials from the internet because in that way you can avoid breaking the law and getting sued.

Trinity's Wireless Network!

I use the Trinity wireless network whenever i want to. It could be while having lunch or dinner in Mabee or chatting with my friends on my balcony. Sometimes I use to facebook my friends back at home when i miss them or just trying to have some fun. But mostly i'm really glad that i'm in a campus with wireless network because i can easly use it for academic purposes. I use it during lectures so that when there is a powerpoint i can easily follow up on the presentation. The wireless network is a big help to students in Trinity.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-10-02-gennext-tech_x.htm

About Nellin!

Hey!

My name is Nellin Angerus Njovu. But I prefer to be called Nellin. I was born and raised in Dar es salaam, Tanzania, Africa. My first language was Swahili and we all speak Swahili in Tanzania. I have two elder sisters and one little brother. They are all back in Tanzania. I have lived all my life in Tanzania and gone to different schools there. I love Africa, It is the best continent that has so much to give. I have a cat back at home without a tail. It may sound creepy but it was born that way.I have an interest in reading novels and my best author is Sydney Sheldon. Also I enjoy travelling though I haven't travelled much, this is my first time to come to the United States and at the same time to go out of Tanzania. I love listening to music, watching movies,sleeping and swimming. I haven't joined any campus activities yet but I would like to join the multicultural organization and other organizations that would interest me.

Well, my computer background is pretty weak though I took several courses but It takes time for me to catch up. I'm familiar with MS-word though i don't know so much about it. I still have so much to learn from this class because I'm not close to be called a computer genius. When I was told I have to join this class I was happy because I was given an opportunity to start afresh. I'm expecting to learn so much more from this computer science class.

You can contact me through nnjovu@trinity.edu