My Computer Advice...

Overall this class has been a good experience. I would definitely say to future Computer students that they should make sure that they stay on top of their assignments in thi class. Once you miss a day it is very hard to catch back up. Also, make sure you are very detailed in finishing your assignments because points add up and they are very easy to loose. This class definitely takes more time than you expect, but you learn a lot of useful tools. Good luck!

Website Creations...

I really enjoyed everyone's websites! I took a look at people from all the different classes and I liked many of them for different reasons. For instance, I was definitely inspired artistically by Lindsay and Adan's websites! They were very creative and enjoyable. I also really liked Joey's. I've always been interested in hunting and fishing although I don't know if I'm quite outdoorsy enough to do either! It was also very obvious how close he is with his family which is awesome. The websites were my favorite assignment all year and I had a great time creating mine as well as taking a look at everyone elses.

More Great Presentations!

My two favorite presentations of the day were Maria Jose Trevino's and Stephanie Hill's. I definitely felt that Stephanie picked a topic that was very interesting to her which made her project even more interesting. She used great sources of information and kept the classs very engaged. I am really interested about hearing Steve come to our school to present. Maria Jose also had a great presentation. She used great backgrounds and kept her presentation very interesting and professional. I enjoyed this presentation as well. Great job you guys!

What do you want to do with your life?

I really enjoyed hearing different peoples plans for their lives, or at least the basics of their major. There were so many interesting presentations that kept me very engaged throughout the class period. I also liked being able to see how different people formed their presentation slides. My favorite PowerPoint presentation was Lindsay's on Art Therapy. The color scheme, the music, the information was all extremely interesting! I must say that I can tell she spent lots of time on her presentation and it paid off! Yay Lindsay! I also enjoyed Maddy's presentation on Business Marketing with Neiman Marcus. Maddy's background was very clean and organized yet fashion friendly which was great for her presentation! I really enjoyed seeing everyone's presentations, however these were my favorites!

Powerpoint: The Good, the bad, and the ugly!

There are certain things we should always remember in making good powerpoint presentations! Bad powerpoint presentations can be very confusing, hard on the eyes, and extremely boring. It is very important that in making a powerpoint presentation you try to keep these five things together.


1) The less words per slide the better! When your slides are packed with information it takes away from you as a presenter and what it is you have to say. PowerPoint is an AID! It is only there to enforce important parts of your presentation not to be your crutch.

2) Leave the rainbows outside! Don't let your slides be a burst of unnecessary color. Make sure your slides are professional. If you have a theme, GREAT! Remember your presentation will most likely be given in a dark room and you want your presetation to be easily read and understood.

3) Get off the slides! Make yourself cue cards. Practice what you are going to say. Use the notes section of PowerPoint. DO whatever is neccessary not to read word for word what's on your presentation. You are trying to sell your ideas and opinions and in order to be convincing you must engage your audience.

4) What's in a picture? The images you place on your slides should look professional and be interesting. Make sure they are relevant to your slides and make sure they are quality photos. When people include pictures on their slides that are obviously pixelating it is quite a nightmare! At the same time, pictures can really express important parts and features so don't leave them out.

5) EDIT! Please check for spelling and grammatical errors. The worst thing is having a slide sitting in front of an audience for several seconds or minutes and have an obvious error blaring in their faces. Especially when EVERYONE notices.

Excelling @ Excel

I can't quite say I excelled at Excel, however I have learned so many useful things about the program this semester. This class has been so beneficial! Excel was the area that I had the least amount of practice with in this class, however now I feel more than comfortable with the basic usage of Excel. Excel is a program that all college students should feel comfortable with because it is so widely used in professional atmosphere. They are most obviously used in business, technology, marketing and sales, secretarial work but they are also used in professions people wouldn't automatically expect. My mom is a teacher and she loves using excel to manage student performance, grades, and many other things. I plan to eventually work in either education or human resources and in either field Excel will definitely prove useful. Also, for organizations on campus and my involvement in other extra curricular activities, Excel is useful for organizing and displaying data. I am so glad that I now feel very comfident in my Excel use.

L is for LIBRARY

Our Library has a host of awesome resources. Today we toured the Center for Learning Technology (CLT). The CLT is a great resource for anyone wanting to figure out how to develop a technology based presentation or project. The greatest part of this portion of the library is that it is open to anyone for both school-related and personal projects. There are sections labeled to seperate different areas. There are areas for web and graphic editing, audio and video editing. There are also scanners, media converters, and a digital sound lab available for use. The greatest part about this lab is that students are able to use all software and programs on these computers for free, as well as acquire professional help from employees in CLT. I have seen this area before, but never knew the extent of what was available. I am excited about being able to hopefully use these resources in the future. I a mso grateful to attend a university that has so much available for me.

Deceptive Lenses...

I chose to talk about the picture of Oprah Winfrey. This served as the cover of TV Guide in August of 1989. Winfrey's body was substituted for the body of actress Ann-Margret. There was no reasoning as to whythe picture was manipulated, however I do not feel that it was harmful to anyone in particular. It does however send off the vibe that certain bodies are of higher value or acceptance in today's society over others. This was done without consent of either parties and is not an action that should be considered acceptable.

How to be a Cyberspace detective...

Christopher Nolan's presentation to our class was very enlightening. Search engines are apart of my daily life, yet I was still able to learn quite a few new things. For instance, databases are not perfect therefore they do not do any sort of screening of theirsearch results. They only search for what you ask for, however the quality of these articles is hard to depict. The tips that Mr. Nolan talked about were definitely very helpful. I have already began using the "+" and "-" signs to include and exclude certain words from my search. My favorite trick hower was typing "site.gov" after your search topic to bring up only government websites. How awesome is it that now you can even choose your language requirements on Google? The internet is constantly surprising me!

Danger of the Public Domain

One very interesting thing that I learned today from Mr. Hardin is about the Sony Bono Act. Former pop singer and Congressman pushed a bill that extended the length of copyright laws. Originally laws extended 50 years after the death of the author; however, the Sony Bono act extended this law for an additional 20 years. Sony Bono was a Congressman from the district in California that included Disney World. Around this time, Walt Disney had been dead for nearly 50 years and all the Disney characters would have been entering the public domain soon. This was a serious issue for the Disney Corporation because once Disney characters enter the public domain they are no longer protected by copyright laws and are accessible for other people. In 2018 Disney will again be in a bind with copyright laws. The question was raised in class wondering what will happen to our beloved Disney characters. Will Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell lose their protection under copyright laws? Should Disney fight to extend copyright laws even further? I personally believe that based on this example it might be best to simply protect an authors work forever. I couldn’t imagine seeing my favorite Disney princesses being misused or recreated inappropriately.

The Facebook Dilemna...

Facebook is a major part of most college students life. I am a huge fan because it allows me to manage so many different parts of my life. I can recieve notifications from the campus organizations I am involved in. I am able to message people about projects, homework and study sessions. I can also keep up with all my friends from high school as well. My high school friends and I communicate by posting videos on each others wall at least once a week.

Facebook has proven to be a great tool in keeping up with out of town family. Over the past few weeks I have also recieved numerous friend requests from older cousins and relatives and even parents of some of my friends. I can see pictures of my little cousins growing up, weddings I was unable to attend, boyfriends and girlfriends of my friends I have yet to meet. It serves as a great way to stay connected and keep in touch. The best part is I can manage it in my own time frame. Instead of trying to fit in phonecalls every week to thirty or forty family members and friends I can drop a sentence or two at my convenience and check and respond to their answer whenever I get some extra time.

I do feel that the content of Facebook is slowly changing because of the increase of adult and professional users, but it in my opinion is for the better. However, I still disagree that Facebook should be used as a part of a hiring process. Facebook is a social network. When a person is looking to apply to jobs they are trying to impress employers wherever they can. Facebook is a relaxed community connected mainly by friendships. I don't have to impress my family and friends, they know me for who I am. With friends and family I am relaxed. I am a very loud and goofy carefree spirit, but I also know how to buckle down and handle my business. Based on my comments and pictures on facebook all you would see is the fun-loving carefree side, but it should not subtract from my capabilities as a student or as a possible employee.

To read more on facebook in an academic and work environment, check out this article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is the computer application I am most familiar with. However, there are many things I definitely do not know about Word. I am used to basic word processing and inserting a few cliparts, but I really want to review using shortcuts. Reviewing aspects of Microsoft Word could be very beneficial to my career here at Trinity. The new version of Word on Vista is also really confusing to me, so I'm excited to update my Microsoft Word knowledge.

Joe Hatch's Visit

Joe Hatch coming to visit our class was definitely a great experience. I live on the third floor of Winn dormitory so learning that I can get computer assistance in Winn 103 was exciting news for me. Mr. Hatch also gave great insight to the necessity and usefulness of Clean Access. After hearing him explain its purpose I am much more appreciative of Clean Access. Although I may still call it a nuisance and get annoyed with it from time to time I still gained a bit of respect for it overall. As a Microsoft Vista user I also enjoyed hearing about Seven the new Microsoft program that will be coming out soon. I'm not very up to date on what's new and coming in the technology world so I really did appreciate Mr. Hatch coming down to share his knowledge with us. It is nice to know that Trinity has such talented and knowledgeable computer staff that are working with our interest in mind.

Morgan's World!

Hi my name is Morgan! I was born and raised in Houston, Texas and currently reside right outside of Houston in Pearland, TX. Pearland is a very small city and I can't say I'm too excited that we moved out there, but it was nice to watch my house being built from the ground up. Above is a picture of my house in the final stages of development. Luckily, Houston is only like a 20-30 minute drive so I'm still close to all my favorite places, like the Galleria Mall and all my friends and family. Over breaks I definitely spend most of my time in Houston.

All my life I have been very involved in fine arts. I love music and singing. In fact, I'll be performing at MochaLife here at Trinity next month. My Itunes selections capture a wide range of music from many different genres. There's gospel, pop, classical, rock, hip-hop, but my favorite would definitely be R&B. No matter how I'm feeling I can always listen to music and it really does set the tone for my day.

I am usually very quiet and reserved upon first meeting people, but anyone who hangs around me often will know that I am a very loud and goofy person. I am always doing something crazy and random around my friends and family, whether it be singing a random song or making up some ridiculous dance move. Amidst my carefree and fun-loving nature, my friends have still deemed me the "mama" of the group. I guess I would have to agree that I have a warm heart and I'm always trying my hardest to be there for my friends. My family and my friends are so close to my heart because those are the relationships I value most in life. I think that the importance and closeness of family are things I can definitely say my family has displayed faithfully. Here's a picture of me & my family.

My mom is a teacher at an inner city school in Houston, and my dad is a juvenile investigator for the Houston Police Department as well as a minister. Their continued service in their respective fields have definitely developed in me a love for helping others especially people younger than me. I have a high level of respect for my parents not just for the love they display to others, but also for the love they display for each other. They are high school sweethearts and I hope to be like them one day. I also have two younger brothers who I love so much, which makes me the only girl. As could possibly be predicted, I am a HUGE daddy's girl. I tell my dad just about everything because he gives the greatest advice (I guess it's the minister part of him). However, the older I get the more and more I see myself picking up my mother's tendencies. Take a look at my parents back in high school.

Here on campus I am apart of Black Student Union, Trinity Choir, MochaLife Committee, theProject, Amnesty International, and hope to continue becoming more involved. I am extremely excited about going to Germany with Trinity Choir over Spring Break. I know it will be a very rewarding and unforgettable experience. I don't know if Trinity is the perfect fit for me, but I learn to love it more day by day. Coming from a small private school where my graduating class was 150 it was a farely nice transition.

My secret fact is I sleep with my eyes partially open. I have no idea if this has some hidden meaning about my life or anything, but I do know that many people find it kind of weird.

As far as computer skills go I took a required computer class my freshman year of high school, but I don't use many applications so I am a little rusty. Outside of Word and Power Point my expertise is limited, so I am excited about learning new things this semester! I think re-learning Microsoft Excel would serve as a great benefit. I am also really excited about making a webpage at the end of the semester.

I love making new friends as well, so feel free to email me at mlatin@trinity.edu

Here is a link to the school in Houston that both my dad and I graduated from. It is definitely one of my favorite places, as I spent nine years at The Kinkaid School.

http://maps.google.com/maps?source=earth&ll=29.75178100,-95.51166900&layer=c&cbll=29.75178100,-95.51166900&cbp=1,360,,0,5