Advice For New Students

If you want to do well in this class, do all your homework and come to class! It is really hard to make up missed classes because you learn a lot in class. Then, the homework is really hard if you didn't learn the methods in class! Also, don't be afraid to be fun and creative. Creativity will take you very far! One last thing to remember, make sure to read all homework directions carefully to avoid losing points on something easy because of a stupid mistake! Enjoy this class, you will learn a lot!!

Favorite Websites

My favorite websites were Lucy's, Neyaz's and Erin's. Lucy's was very fun and interesting and I loved her use of colors and her navbar. Neyaz'z was really creative and I loved her use of various fun and interesting backgrounds. I liked Erin's because everything went together really well and it provided a really cool resume type page for her to show people. Everyone in the class did an awesome job!

My Website

Please visit my website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~agarcia6!

Making this website was actually way easier than I thought it would be. Using web design software like Expression Web makes it so easy, anyone could do it! I am most proud of my navigation bar as I worked really hard to create it in photoshop. I think if I could have changed anything, I would have done more elements in photoshop. Unfortunately I had very limited time to work so I didn't get to do as much as I wanted. My biggest challenge was trying to remove the blue link border on my music page. I tried to make the border white but it just kept changing back to blue so I ended up just leaving it without a border. My biggest design challenge was the tables! They were kind of hard to work with and make them do what you wanted. I will show my website to anyone who desires to see it. I could possibly make another site for a different class and hopefully I would have more time to make a really good one!

Why HTML?

Even though there are programs such as Expression Web and KompoZer, it is still good to know basic HTML. For example, if there was something wrong with the web page, you could go in and use your knowledge of HTML to fix it. Also by knowing HTML, you could see someone else's website with some really cool aspect and be able to figure out how they did it and add it to yours. Understanding the basics is the key to almost anything, including building a website.

My Photo That Lies

I chose a picture of Nancy Pelosi and a picture of a random convict to manipulate. In 2009 Nancy proposed a law that those without health insurance would be fined and incarcerated for up to 5 years. This manipulation was kind of a play on that situation in which she is the one going to prison for such a ludicrous idea. The two pictures I used were just found on Google images. I manipulated the images by first cropping the mugshot as it had too much space in the background. Then I got Pelosi's face out of the second image using the magic lasso tool and moved it to the first image. I cloned the chin and some excess hair a bit to make it seem a little more realistic. I desaturated the face and made it a little darker. Then I selected the skin of the convict and messed with the saturation and brightness until it was just about the same color as Nancy's face. I manipulated it in order to show that Pelosi's proposal of jail time for those without health insurance should land her in jail as many innocent people could be hurt if her idea would have been implemented. This manipulation has the possibility of being harmful as someone who saw it might think that she was really in jail and that she needs to be removed from her job. According to the article I found, this image would be an example of photojournalism manipulation that is never allowed as you cannot add or move objects from pictures. "Good photo enhancement should be like good copyediting—the goal is to improve the message, not create science fiction." This quote from my article pretty much sums up the point of the whole thing. Photo manipulation can be allowed as long as it isn't done to deceive. My picture would not be considered ethical in any way as it is a blatant attempt to deceive. In order to manipulate a picture ethically, it must be done in such a way that the meaning of the photo is not changed. You can make the photo look nicer, but as in the case of my photo that lies, you cannot create something that doesn't really exist.

Salvo, Suzanna. "True Lies." Communication World 25.5 (2008): 26-30. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Powerpoint Presentation Evals

There were some really awesome Powerpoints shown in class. It was very hard to choose but I would have to say that my favorites were Lucy's and Tori's. Lucy's presentation on neurology was interesting and intriguing and left me wanting to know more. She had a very creative way of showing us what she is passionate about. Her design was great as she had tons of neat pictures and not a lot of words. Also, the video she showed us was really touching. Overall it was an awesome Powerpoint! Tori's presentation on preschool teaching was really cool. I loved the layout as it went with her theme perfectly. Her videos were interesting and I learned a lot about the underlying lessons hidden in fun preschool games. I loved her design and the content made me want to know more!

Powerpoint

The PowerPoint articles we had to read were very helpful in showing what to do and what not to do when it comes to making a PowerPoint presentation. There were some great pointers in how to make a great presentation such as:
1. Keep it Simple
2. Use high quality graphics instead of Microsoft clip art
3. Use colors in a way that invokes emotion
4. Use fonts that are easily seen and readable
5. Limit the use of text
Something that annoys me about bad PowerPoints are fonts that are impossible to read. I hate when people use font that is too loopy to decipher or font that is too close to the color of the background.

First Photoshop Experience

Today in class we learned how to make a photo collage using Photoshop and our pictures we took last week. I chose to take pictures of emotions and used those emotions to create my collage. I used expressions of exhaustion, sadness, and happiness to show what a college student experiences throughout their day. We go from tired in the morning, to sad and bored in class, to happy that the day is over!

Chris Nolan

Chris Nolan's presentation was very interesting. I learned a lot about Google and why they are so popular. I also learned about websites and how to judge if they are good or not. I was very surprised at the Martin Luther King Jr. website. A seemingly normal website turned out to be something very cruel. It was a site full of hate and derogatory comments that anyone, including children, could stumble upon. It goes to show that you cant trust everything that is online. A useful tip I learned is to look for sources and quality of sources to determine whether a website is academic and appropriate for class. Another useful tip is to use site: to narrow a web search to a certain domain such as .com or .edu.

Pictures That Lie

I chose this picture because it is interesting to see what lengths universities will go to in order to get someone to attend their school. The picture is from a football game in 1993. A black student from a 1994 picture was cropped and put in the picture to make it look like he was also at the at 1993 game. The University of Wisconsin did this in order to show that diversity was prevalent in their school. I think that this picture could be harmful in a way. If a student was looking for a school based on diversity, they would be misled by this picture once they arrived at the University of Wisconsin. Misrepresentation of a school in order to get people to like it and want to come there can be bad because once someone gets there and realizes the lies, they will likely transfer out and tell everyone they know not to go there. In trying to recruit students, the school will end up just hurting itself in the long run.

CLT

The visit to the center for learning and technology was really cool. They have all kinds of software that I would really enjoy getting to know how to use. Once we start working with Photoshop, it will be really helpful to go to the CLT to get help or just to work on some of our stuff. I also think it would be neat to work with some of the video editing software. It was really cool that they offer both Mac and PCs so that everyone can find a computer that best suits them. The presentation room was also really cool, and would be a great resource to take advantage of. The CLT is really organized and seems to be a place where someone could get a lot done and have all the help and resources they need!

Copyright

In class on Thursday we had Jason Hardin come to speak to us about copyright issues. I found his presentation very informative and helpful. I think that the Fair Use Policy in the special case of education was very interesting. I was not aware how much information is unavailable because of this policy. It is a shame that certain things cannot be used for educational purposes if money is involved. I think the owner of the copyright should be more concerned about educating the nation rather than only looking for the money involved. I think that the only valid points in this policy are the intended purpose of the reproduction and the amount that is being reproduced. If someone’s purpose is obviously not educational, then they should be punished for reproducing someone else’s work. Also, if someone is reproducing an excessive amount of copyrighted work, then they are doing something wrong. However, if something is reproduced a few times for an educational purpose only, I don’t think money should be such a big issue. I think the Fair Use Policy is important, but I think they should loosen up the factors involving money.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Trinity Network Diagram

I really enjoyed the tour of Halsell and getting to see things that hardly anyone else gets to see. Jared Pack was very informative and working on this diagram really helped me to put together how everything works and how amazing the Trinity Network is!

Top Tech Tip

I found Joe Hatch's speech the other day to be very informative. I knew some of the stuff he talked about but not into as much depth. The top tech tip I got from his speech was the use of CCleaner. I actually went and used it after class and it worked wonders on my computer. I had so much junk on my computer that I didn't realize, and after running CCleaner, my computer is running immensely faster which is awesome. I definitely recommend using CCleaner to anyone who spends a lot of time on their computer.

Scavenger Hunt

I really enjoyed the scavenger hunt and learning about my new classmates! Some of the secrets were really interesting. I left a comment on Erin's, Neyaz's, and Hunter's. Here are their URLs:

http://nmohammadi.blogspot.com/

http://www.emdooley.blogspot.com/

http://hunnaramsey.blogspot.com/

I look forward to learning more about everyone as this semester goes on!

Introduction

Hi my name is Analicia Garcia, but I've gone by Ana my entire life as no one can seem to pronounce Analicia correctly. I live with my dad, who I am extremely close to, and my eleven year old sister Marian. We spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up so I am very close with them as well. I also have a dog and a cat at home and I miss them like crazy! I was born and raised in Austin, Texas and I absolutely love it and couldn't see myself living anywhere else after college. I enjoy listening to music and going to shows, therefore living in the live music capital of the world is great! There are also endless local restaurants and shops that I love to frequent. I've been to countless shows but my favorite by far was Queens of the Stone Age. I like pretty much any type of music except for country, although I somewhat prefer rock/alternative. Some of my favorite bands/artists include Deftones, Incubus, John Legend, The Mars Volta, A Perfect Circle, Erykah Badu, and I could go on and on. My passion however is softball. I am a catcher on the Trinity team and I've played since I was 5 years old. When I'm not tied up with softball, I spend the majority of time with my best friends who mean the world to me. We pretty much just explore Austin and take in everything this great city has to offer. I have 3 tattoos and plan to get more. A secret fact about me is that my cousin (by marriage) is the starting center for the Arizona Cardinals. My cousin Lindsay and him were married this past summer and I got to meet him and all his lineman friends which was pretty cool. I absolutely love watching football and am a die hard UT and Cowboys fan. I love my longhorns and was very sad to see them lose, although if Colt wasn't hurt it would have been a whole different ball game. Obviously since I didn't pass the test I don't have too much computer background. I pretty much just know the basics, although I did take a photography class in high school where we got to use a lot of photoshop. Feel free to email me here.