Week 8: Clear Studying

Ive been able to keep up with my reading in all of my classes this week. It has been interesting, Ive had two tests in a row the last two Mondays and I have another coming up tomorrow, which is Monday. Fun!!
I noticed this week that not too many students have submitted their assigned IT Current Events discussions. I am working on responding on different days, as specified in the instructions.
I hope my most recent response encourages students to discover the book '1984.' Aside from 'Brave New World,' I think '1984' was the most pioneering vision of what the dangers of the future hold. The predictions in both books have been slowly coming true and it is interesting to think that books written in 30's and 40's could be so telling of the future

Week 7: Clear Understanding of the OS

I use the computer for work and generally understand the basic functions needed to create, store, zip and retrieve data. I didn't understand the order the operating system followed or how RAM and flash memory worked. I always believed you needed more RAM to operate bigger programs and had installed additional RAM in my desktop computer. Now I understand a little more of why that was important.
I was surprised CONTROL F was not mentioned when discussing swapping names in a document. I use that function all the time and its great. I was also surprised that WinRAR was not mentioned when discussing zipping folders. I had always thought WinRAR was able to handle more file extensions and be cheaper. I know WinZip became much more popular because of their relationship with Microsoft, but I would have thought WinRAR deserved at least a passing mention.

Week 6: Clear Reading, Lectures and Assignment

Everything went well this week and the web 2.0 assignment was easy to follow. I was a bit surprised I only got an 80% on the weekly exam. I thought I got them all right! I wish the results were immediately available so I could tell what I got wrong.
The project was fun and interested me. I made a website with five pages using wix.com and published it in a unique URL. I originally started creating websites using Frontpage about 6 years ago and then moved up to using Dreamweaver and Flash. Using Flash usually takes me forever and I often have to continually save the movie repeatedly because I have made big mistakes in the past. This wix application streamlines everything and is super user friendly.
I noted that a lot of students were using the onetruemedia website when I went to post my reviews. I thought I probably would have received more reviews if I would have hosted through them. Oh well.

Project Web 2.0 Tools Website

It was hard working for $7.25 an hour. It was humbling. After graduating high school in 1992, I landed a job working for RPS making $13 an hour. Almost 20 years later and I find myself mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms for minimum wage.
Please visit the website to see my story and take the survey.

Health Insurance Website and Survey

Description of interaction method: I created a short survey to encourage viewers to share a few personal facts so that I can tally up statistics of the participants and see how their experiences compare to mine.

So far I have had three responses and they all had worked for minimum wage in their teenage years. One submission expressed happiness at working for minimum wage because it was her first job.

I learned it was fairly easy to put together a professional looking website in a relatively short amount of time. In working to compose a flash website and put together a short survey to complete the assignment, I was able to realize my limitations and potential. The finished product was not nearly what I had initially envisioned, but the quality and standard of the finished product was very high and I was happy with it. I look forward to designing more websites in the future.

I was a little surprised when I watched my colleagues videos and saw how most were entirely composed of personal photos. It made me feel like my project was lacking in that one area.

Week 5: Clearly Advantageous

My textbook finally arrived in the mail on Friday. I expect it will help with the quizzes and upcoming test. I need to commit to reading to try to catch up so I wont need to cram before the exam.
My wife and I just returned home from a Superbowl party. We left at halftime and most everybody was either sober or slightly tipsy. There may be a small few who actually go all out and get drunk. I do not think we will be adding to the statistic I read about where 1.5 million people have been calling in sick the day after the Superbowl.
That is an extremely high number and I am surprised management hasn't acted to deter or prevent this phenomenon. I am thinking a large number of these people calling in either work construction or a trade job, but maybe I am wrong.
The Labor Department published the 1.5 million statistic