For New Students..

This course was a very interesting one. I really enjoyed certain things that this class tought. I really liked the blog entries because I never had one before and this was a chance to have the experience of having one and keeping up with it.
I have one essential advice for incoming students: Keep up with the work.
Even if the work given can be tedious and in many cases you already know how to do it, you should still do it. It isn't a hard class but it isn't an easy A either. If you just put a bit of effort in the projects and homework assignments, Mrs. Belisle will notice that you are not slaking and she will reward you.
Good luck on this semester !

Student Websites

In this class we only had a few websites presented. But the three I most liked were Jessica's, Nick's and Elena's.
Jessica's website was by far my favorite because it was very entertaining and was artistic. It was a very innovating way to present her life and especially her resume. Her resume, was by far, my favorite part because it was not conventional and it wasn't ambiguous at all.
Nick's website was also very good. The black background emphasized a lot of what the website was presenting. His navbar was very impressive it was very centralized and it had a transparent background to not overlap the black background. His themes were very interesting and I liked the fact he included one of his friends in his research section.
Elena's page was another website that was especially original. The topic that she talked about was one that I like a lot. I have seen her website even after class and I found many useful tips for my own fashion and style. There was also a lot of consistency through out the website.
You can also see my own website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rkhozein and please comment ! (here or to my email found in my website:)

Other presentations...

These two last classes have been really great. I have learned a lot about my classmates. It was fun to know that there is such a variety of people on campus.

Everybody in class did a great job at the presentations and I would like to congratulate everybody. You guys did a great job!

From the last presentation given on Tuesday my favorite one was the one done by Jenni. The simple black background gave emphasis on the pictures she used and it related to the topic she talked about. She did not over use animations or used long texts in her slide. Unfortunately, the video she wanted to show did not appear the first time for technical problems but we did get to see it. She was the only in the class that used a video as part of her PowerPoint presentation. Not to mention her topic was a very interesting one.

Favorite PowerPoint

The two blogs I liked the most where Jessica's and Nick's. Jessica talked about her theory of the cause of the horses as a symbol in Phoenicians boats. For Jessica's blog what I mostly liked was the way she talked. The words she used were very formal and exact about the subject she was talking about. She used simple terms that people who haven't taken a mythology class could relate to. The background and other elements she used were relative and coherent with her topic. This is another presentation which I liked because the presentation did not over power the presenter. Such as using animations that weren't needed, distracting sounds or long texts.

I especially liked Nick's because of the material he covered. It was very interesting for me especially because we are studying some of these interactions in Biology. His presentation was also very simple and it concentrated more on what the presenter had to say. One of the key elements I was looking for in the PowerPoint presentations was the fact that the presentation would overshadow the presenter. This was not the case for Nick. His presentation complemented what he was saying. The colors he used were also very appropriate with the topic of his presentation.

Another aspect that these two presentations had were that they weren't as time consuming. They were had short important information and did not go into the details of their topic.

The Power of PowerPoint

While reading the articles, I agreed on most of what they were saying but I had a few questions. I mainly didn't understand why the writers of the articles advise not to use animations or sounds on PowerPoint presentations. Personally, every time I am in the audience in a PowerPoint presentation and there is an animation or a sound, I wake up and pay more attention to what the person is saying.

Another aspect I didn't know that was really crucial, and in all three articles they had repeated it, was the quality of the pictures someone uses. Even though these articles were mainly talking about presentations in businesses and at a corporate level, I can tell the impact it might have to an audience, instead of using a clip art.

One thing that shocked me was the amount of information someone used in their presentations. In most of the ones I have been in and even presentations I have made, the information in the slides aren't less than six words. In one of the examples there was only a background picture and a number (72%). After reading the article, it made sense to use as little amount of information as possible in the slides and explain it better. By creating visual and vocal connections, the audience will remember what you are saying better.

This would be one of the biggest advices to give to my classmates with their PowerPoint presentation. Use more visual support because in this way the audience will remember more visually then just by using bits of information. Images stay longer in my head rather than words.

Another tip I would give to my classmates would be to use cue cards. This way you will have time to organize what you will say during the presentation and with a few words on it you will remember what comes next. You will also avoid using your PowerPoint presentation as a teleprompter.

The suggestions they made in the articles were very good ones. Especially the amount of information you put on your slides. Thinking about past PowerPoint presentations, the ones I would fall asleep in would be the ones that had 20 points in one slide. The most entertaining one I had seen was about 5 slides. Two of them had 3 bullets each and the rest were images. Your audience will pay more attention to what you are saying and not so much on what they have to read in the slide.

These were the main guidelines I thought were important. And what I really find annoying about some PowerPoint presentation is the simplicity. For example having a white background and writing in black letters. Why not a clear blue background with dark green letters? I like it better :D

Go, Excel, Go!!

During these past few weeks we have been working mainly on the program: Microsoft Office Excel. Before this class I had a very good understanding of how to work in Excel. I am a big fan of this program. Even though I had some problems working with Excel I learned to work around it.


What I mainly learned from this class were different functions like the IF function. Even though I don't think I will use it any time soon, I didn't know Excel had that type of help in the functions section. Another aspect I learned was the conditional formatting. This tool really helps to visualize data you are trying to find in a large table.


Excel can become a really important program especially if you are in a class that involves stats, graphs, etc. Excel makes this hard processes of making columns or scatter plots of tables that can be 50x50 so much easier! Personally I have already worked with Excel on many of my classes, especially laboratories where most of the data needs to be visualized so that in this way better conclusions can be drawn out of the experiment.
Excel might be the most useful for businesses because you can just apply function and make cell references. When the economy changes, or when a different situation in your company occurs, you can just change one small detail on the Excel program and this will go out making a cascade of correction.


Excel is a very helpful tool for anybody and I highly recommend for anybody. You can even organize your information using the sorting button.


Thanks Excel! :)

CLT !!

On our tour of the CLT room I learned many things. The first one was that is existed! The CLT room is located in the first floor of Coates Library.
This room has many sorts of resources. The most interesting resource I saw was the machine that converted old movies that came in rolls. The machines seemed very worn out, but still cool. :)
Another aspect about this room that fascinated me was the section where you can have video conferences. This is a very useful place, especially if you want to take classes with someone that is in Japan. This section was also useful for students that need to be interviewed but can’t do it personally. In the CLT, you may achieve this with the help of the kind technicians that work there.
A very helpful tool in the CLT was the fact that there were Macs as well. This could help other students that are used to Macs to keep working with them or can help other people (like me) get use to Macs.
An important part of the CLT room was the fact that they work mainly on video applications. In the CLT you can edit and burn a video you have made into a DVD. Even though I probably don’t think I will use it, this is a very important resource for college students.
I am looking forward to visit the CLT more often, especially because it is a great place to study even though you don’t need a computer.