Avatar

Below is my Avatar, created through the free online tool, TizMe:




In creating my own avatar, I found it very interesting that there were many options to personalize my avatar to actually reflect my appearance, style, and lifestyle. Some of the clothing options were somewhat risque and inappropriate for assignment submission. Appropriate options, luckily, were also available.

I chose my avatar based on a realistic image of myself and my style. I was quite amused to find a coffee cup accessory from what appears to be Starbucks, since Starbucks is one of my favorite places to go. Overall, my experience was quick and easy. In the end I created an avatar that best represents me.

Breast Cancer Awareness

A link to my ISM 3004 presentation project for Breast Cancer awareness for the Susan G. Komen Foundation can be found here.

I was able to grasp the viewer's attention in the first 30-60 seconds by opening with the story of how the Susan G. Komen Foundation began. Also, rather than using text to tell the story, I displayed a quote on the importance of promises from a poem by Robert Frost. This was a poem I studied in high school, and when I read the story about the promise Nancy made to her sister, Suzy, it immediately came to mind. The quote represents the mindset of Nancy as she works hard to fulfill the promise she made. This is one of the ways that I "said it then showed it" rather than just reading the slide to the viewer. Further, to gain reader interest and spark curiosity I asked, "So why should you give?" Asking this helped me provide a rationale for the need to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation to find a cure for breast cancer. Also, including the YouTube video from the Susan G. Komen YouTube channel further supported ways that viewers can raise money and spread breast cancer awareness. Using sequential flow to my presentation allows me to answer viewer's questions as they would come to mind.

I am most proud of my design and the way it appears and aides the readability of my presentation. I am glad I was able to find great, free images to use in my presentation. Having a trademark color to represent the cause gave me a great color scheme to design from - PINK! In the end, I was pleased with my design and the way each slide flowed to the next. My design increased readability while reducing clutter on the slides of my presentation. I am glad that I chose to display only a few words on each slide at a time. These design elements helped clarify my message - to raise breast cancer awareness and solicit donations for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Overall, I did not struggle with finding information to present. I did, however, feel limited with what I could include in my presentation based on what images I could find to accompany my slides without violating any copyright laws. It took hours to find the few pink images that I could find, and even then I had to discover a way to include the photographer's name in my presentation. If I were to go back and make any changes or improvements, I would probably add more information on the cause and science of breast cancer, rather than just giving facts. I used statistics about breast cancer to raise awareness and showed only the numbers while explaining the meaning of the numbers appearing on the screen.

By critiquing my peer's presentation on the American Heart Association, I am more comfortable with my presentation and the changes that I made as I prepared. My goal was to be concise and keep my slides readable and I am satisfied with the way my presentation appears and flows. I was impressed with the amount of detail in both my own and my peer's presentations.

This project has allowed me to learn more about presentation skills and helped me improve on communication. Having to redo the recording of my presentation until I was satisfied made me realize that practice before presentations is vital. In the real world, I will not be able to hit stop recording, delete, and start over. The presentation that comes out of my mouth if I am at a business meeting is the one the counts. The planning process for this project helped me organize my thoughts early on and begin planning my presentation. With a plan written out, the subsequent steps of putting my presentation together seemed to flow better. From this, I learned the a storyboard will aid in preparing for any future business presentations. The extra practice in PowerPoint was also helpful. Any extra, practical use of Microsoft Office is helpful during my education, which is why I enjoy this class. Additionally, I experimented with Camtasia:Mac for the first time and learned how to operate on its interface. I always learn new information to take away from each assignment - beyond hitting submit. Each assignment, including this one, builds my skills and experiences to make me a bigger asset to my future employer.

Tutorial 2: Pictures Make Life Beautiful

Taking pictures is something I have always had a passion for. Many people underestimate the artistic value of photographs. I am not an artist in the sense that I cannot draw, but I can take pictures. Photography as a hobby began when I wanted to capture memories of my friends and family. Now, I treasure the times that I can remember because of the pictures I have taken. I see how my friends have grown and changed and cherish the fun times we had. Through this blog, I hope to share how to purchase a camera according to your needs, take great pictures, and organize your archives.

Buying a Camera

Many buyers get stuck on how to shop for the right type of camera. One site I have found very helpful when shopping for different camera models is: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sidebyside.asp. This website offers side-by-side comparisons between many different digital camera makes and models. I use it each time I consider buying a new camera.

Before you make a comparison chart, you need to analyze your needs. Do you want to take pictures of people or nature? Are you more interested in portability or quality? Not all these questions involve complete trade offs. After a certain point, having a 15 megapixel photo won't matter when you only want to upload pictures to your social media site. Ask the experts at local electronic specialty stores and do your research.

Taking Pictures

Taking photographs is a great way to get the creative juices flowing. The more photographs you take, the more you learn about photography. I have always enjoyed documenting moments with my friends or beautiful nature scenes. For tips from Kodak on how to take great pictures see this link.

The important thing to take away from these tips is that practice makes perfect. You will not master each lesson of photography on your first try. Get out there and keep trying, though, and your efforts will be rewarded.

There are a few different file formats that pictures can be saved under. BMP stands for Bitmap, where no compression takes place. GIF is "Graphical Interchange File," which throws out color depth but no pixels are deleted in compression. JPG, or JPEG as some pronounce, stands for "Joint Photographic Experts Group." It is a very commonly found format for pictures and uses lossy compression but only deletes data that the human eye is not likely to pick up. The group studies human eyesight patterns to decide which data should be removed from the picture. Finally, PNG or "Portable Network Graphics" uses lossless compression.

Organization

Once you take photos, you have to find a way to organize them. Each person will have their own unique organization method. Personally, I organize by milestones. In high school, I would label folders: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Year. Now, in college, I use a semester timeline.

Having thousands of pictures is useless unless you can easily find them. Your own supply of pictures gives you original material to use in presentations, without worrying about copyright violation. You take the picture, you own it (assuming you do not take a picture of copyrighted material).

Taking pictures takes up computer space, and trust me...I know. Luckily, there are ways to save space and keep your valuable memories. You can compress your pictures or store them on an external storage device. There are two forms of compression: lossy and lossless. Lossy compression discards some data while it compresses the graphic. Usually the data deleted is negligible to the human eye, but over time and after multiple saves, noticeable changes begin to appear. Lossy compression is beneficial when you intend to share the picture, through a medium such as the Internet. The other form of compression is lossless. Lossless compression does not throw data away from the photograph. For this reason, lossless compression is best for archiving your pictures as you organize them or editing your original photos. Another way to save space on your computer is to use an external storage device, like a hard drive, to store your photos. This is an easy way to back up your pictures and also is a great idea to keep a backup of your pictures in case your computer's hard drive is damaged.

I currently own a Canon SD1400. I would like to conclude with some of my favorite photographs:

Navy Pier Ferris Wheel. Chicago, IL

My cat, Roxy

Monarch Butterfly

Saint Barthelemy, French West Indies

Caspersen Beach, Venice, FL

Ladybug

Photos: Amanda Basnight Copyright 2011

Excel Project

The Excel project allowed me to apply my basic skills in a practical way. Although I have basic knowledge of Excel and its functions, I believe that the best way to learn Excel is by practicing with actual data. That is how you can truly appreciate the power of Excel and how much it helps the user be effective in manipulating the data. Using Excel’s formulas helps us display data in which we can apply.

Below is a screen shot of the Average Increase pivot table:

I did encounter one issue while completing the Excel project. When told to freeze the top two rows of the data sheet, I only knew where the freeze panes command was and what it did. I did not know why I was getting a particular error. Each time I would select rows 1 and 2 simultaneously and select freeze panes: freeze panes based on current selection, the first eight rows and the first four columns would freeze. Seems random – I know. The other two freeze panes options were preset to freeze only the top row or freeze the first column. Since the directions required freezing more than just those presets, the customizable option was necessary. In the end, I discovered that instead of simultaneously selecting the two rows, Excel performed freeze panes correctly when I only selected on cell. The selected cell was A3 – just below the rows I wished to freeze. I believe that this obstacle helped me learn the freeze panes command even better than before I began.

In other words, after completing this Excel project I believe I have a better understand of Excel and its functions. Given the data I started with, I am pleased with the outputs and the usability of the data. Trial and error with data manipulation and following directions to achieve an output is the most helpful way to apply knowledge of Excel.