Advice

To all the students taking CS1300 next semester:

Be ready to learn a whole bunch of useful information.  Be creative in the projects and have fun.  It has been a privilege being introduced to programs that I know I will use in future classes and the workforce.

Thanks Ms. Belisle and Brittany for everything!

Favorite Websites

My 3 favorite websites:

Betsy's website was well-organized and had good color combination.  It was simple and easy to navigate.  I especially liked her favorite website page because she used a map of the United States to link her hotspots to the area relevant to the specific website.  Her pictures from Europe are amazing, and I love her descriptions on each page.  Nice work Betsy!

I really enjoyed looking at Hannah's website because it was very personal, especially the page she included to thank the most important people in her life so far.  Just from visiting her website I can tell Hannah is very witty and has a great sense of humor.  Her news page was also a great idea.

Last, but not least, I really liked Lynn's website because she did a great job with the gif animations and text on the homepage.  The YouTube videos she included were also a great idea because then you can watch her favorite bands from her website.  It was cool to have a common theme as well - Music Madness.

My Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~jmeuth.

It was a really great opportunity to create my very own website.  I learned a lot and am still experimenting with other tools.  Using Microsoft Expression Web, designing my website was much easier than hand-coding everything.  Hand-coding is very useful for making minor adjustments and understanding the structure of your website.  I am probably most proud of my biography page because it recaps very special memories from my senior year of high school, and I love the background.  As of right now, there is nothing that I would change, but I'm sure there will be many updates, especially of my Trinity experience.  I would also like to add a page of favorites such as websites, songs, YouTube videos, and food.  My biggest technical challenge was embedding a background sound, but thanks to Brittany I learned how.  Thankfully, I really did not have any technical problems with design.  I can't wait to show my website to my family and friends over Thanksgiving along with posting a link on handy-dandy Facebook.  I do not know whether I would create a site for another class because I think I will just keep adding additional links and pages to my original website.

Larry Hechler

Mr. Hechler greatly emphasized that there is no such thing as having too much memory on your computer.  The more memory you have the faster your computer will work.  You can purchase more memory at http://www.crucial.com/, a great site where all the TechSupport speaks English.  I also learned that you regularly need to back up data and other files in case your hard drive crashes.  It is highly unlikely that anything will be able to be recovered.  To do this save files to an external hard drive, DVDs, a thumb drive, or the Y: drive.  I also learned that the battery will last much longer if you allow it to run all the way down before recharging.  Lastly, whenever your screen becomes covered in fingerprints, you should use water and a soft free linen cloth or one drop of Dawn dissolved in one quart of water.  When cleaning make sure the computer is off and do not have any excess liquid.  Never use a solution containg alcohol, ammonia, or acetone.  Thanks Mr. Hechler for an informative session.

Photo Fakery



"Visual images unconsciously shape our students thinking and their perception of the world."

I discovered an article that addressed how our perceptions can be distorted due to false, altered images in the media.  The media alters photographs for advertising purposes.  For instance the seventh graders studied in the article were given a Toys R' Us flyer to evaluate.  They were asked to estimate the age range targeted, how many children in the advertisement were African American, White, Hispanic, Asian, and Indian, and the price of the toy associated with a particular kid.  To their surprise they found that the higher priced toys were associated with the white child and the less expensive items were always paired with some other race.  "Whether deliberate or unconscious, marketers made associations based on ethnicity."

Sometimes the media manipulates photos to promote a certain body ideal.  On this magazine cover, Faith Hill is featured, but take a look at just a few of the alterations that were made.  "For young teens, such 'picture perfect' images raise questions of whether their normal bodies are acceptable at a time when their bodies are changing and they are vulnerable to self-doubt."

Celebrities and politicians are extremely targeted in digitally altered images.  Image distortion promotes accepted ideals, conveys false information, and deceives consumers.  It is alarming to see how the world around us can be manipulated in photographs, and it should be a concern that "real historic record will be indistinguishable from digitally-fabricated fantasis." 

"Indeed, history might be rewritten through pixels."

De Abreu, Belinha. "Seventh Grade Students and the Visual Messages They Love." Knowledge Quest 36.3 (2008): 34-39. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 4 Nov. 2010.

Here is the photo I altered using Photoshop:



I used two different photos for this postcard.  I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut Reese Witherspoon out of photo set in France and move her to Switzerland.  I also flipped her horizontally so she could lean against the brick.  I used the blur tool to blend her into the background more and changed her overall tone so she wasn't so contrasting.  I also adjusted the brightness of the Switzerland photograph because it was very hazy.  The last thing I did was add two layers of text to complete my creation.

Both of the photographs came from MSN.  Reese was already leaning on something, so all I had to do was find another backdrop for her to be in.  Since she looked like a welcoming host, I decided to use my manipulation as a postcard or possibly for a traveler's brochure.  Unlike the images altered in the article I found that deceive consumers or promote stereotypical figures, my manipulation is positive because it simply welcomes visitors to a new location.  Who wouldn't want to go to Switzerland?

PPT Presentations

My PPT Presentation was on Psychology with a focus on women's eating disorders.  It is something I am very passionate about, and psychology in general is interesting because it is a field that is never stagnant.  There is always more to learn and explore.  My favorite part of the presentation was the YouTube video.  It was a Dove Self-Esteem commercial about encouraging young girls to let their "True Colors" shine through and to love themselves.  There is nothing I would have changed about my PowerPoint other than saving it in the correct format.

I really enjoyed Lynn's presentation on "Underwater Fashion Photography."  It was interesting and she used really great pictures that showed up nicely on a black background.  I also like Nyk's presentation on "African American History" especially during the American Revolution.  It was educational, interesting, and he used entertaining sound effects and presented it well.

Chris Nolan - Helpful Hints

Today Chris Nolan, the Assistant Librarian at Trinity, talked about how to find high-quality information on the web.  Did you know 66% of the United States uses the Google search engine?  Google continues to advance its algorithms to make searching easy and quick for users.  One subset of the Google index is called Google Scholar, which enables you to narrow your search to scholarly information that has been reviewed.  I also learned how to use the Advanced Search to further filter results, like by country, language, or domain name.  Looking at the domain names, such as .org, .edu, .gov, and .com, is a good way to know how credible the information is.  I learned that putting a + or - sign in front of a word filters results to either include or exclude specific information, respectively.  For the world's largest digital library of education literature, look for a URL containg .eric or go to http://www.eric.ed.gov/.  Finally, when evaluating articles be sure to check the author's credentials, who is the publisher, the intended audience, objectivity, substantiation for claims, and recency of information.  Good Luck!