• My name is Shaneka Grant. 

Final Reflection

I had a good time in this class this year, I learned how to use a lot of different programs that I wasn't use to using.  I have learned so many different computer skills while being in this class.  A couple big takeways from this class would be, Excel and the video maker.  Both of these programs I was not good at before this class. But after learning how to use them and doing projects with them, I understood the concept of both programs very well afterwards.  If I didn't take this class my freshman year I wouldn't of recieved the computer skills that I did while taking this course.  Digital Apps is a class every freshman should have to take, because it really helps you with so many different programs on the computer.  It also helped me with all of my other classes, because I had many different computer projects I had to do.  I also enjoyed doing some of the projects and the blogs because they were interesting and I actually had a good time blogging about the topics.  From taking Digital Apps I knew how to use all of the different programs. I really did enjoy this class and it was a very helpful class to take my freshman year of college.       

Finial Relfection

I thought that this class was very helpful and learned a lot this semester with using a computer and all the different programs you can use. If I didn't have this class for my freshman year it definitely would of  made projects I had for other classes more difficult to complete and take me twice as long to do. The most helpful lesson was on Excel, I only really knew how to insert numbers into the cells, but what we learned in Excel was totally different. We learned how to put in long sentences and turn them around so they fit in the cells, and also all the formulas that automatically calculated sums of over 50 numbers for you. If I didn't have learned all that it would have been very difficult for me to have done numerous statistics projects that involved a lot of medians and means to calculate. But the most interesting thing we learned how to do was blog. I have never had a tumbler or blogged in my life until this class, and i thought it was a huge complicated process that you had to go through to create one. But it turned out to be easy and is definitely worth it from all the information you can get from other people on there posts. This class was very helpful and Im glad I got the opportunity to take it and learn a lot from it.

Reflection- Rachel DeMarco

Rachel DeMarco
April 16, 2013
Reflection for Digital Apps

Luckily, my second semester here at Nichols College as a freshman has been a success. I was so happy that I had such great professors and enjoyed each and every one of my classes. Most students refer to Digital Apps as an “easy A” but I think it is very challenging. Learning more than just the basics about Microsoft excel, publisher, and many more programs has helped me with other classes, not just Digital Apps. In Statistics this semester, I had project which required me to research a topic and generate graphs and formulas using excel. I would not have known how to do this if it weren’t for this Digital Apps course. Knowing just the basics about all these computer programs isn’t enough. With Digital Apps I have gained so much additional knowledge regarding how to do various things on the computer. Some of my best work has come out of the projects I was assigned in this class. I feel like I could definitely help a classmate who may not have taken this course, and is not as familiar with some of the technology as I am. My favorite part of this class is blogging. Blogging is an online website where you can write about basically anything you like and get other peoples thoughts and responses. It was my favorite part of the course because the topics we had to write about were very interesting. Topics like “my favorite vacation spot “are very easy to write and fun to respond to. One project that I had a difficult time with was the “making your own webpage” assignment. I had trouble figuring it out at first. However, once I did figure it out it was actually fun to do and easier that I first thought. After putting so much time into the work I did in this class I managed to get great grades on all of my projects and it was a fun learning experience. I am glad that I was in this class because knowing about Microsoft Excel and publisher not only helps me now in school, but I am sure it will help me in future job opportunities. I learned how to be organized and how important it is to be professional with your work. I won’t ever forget how this course gave me the skills to use some new technology, and I am excited to see how it helps me in the future!

REFLECTION

Digital Applications was a great course to inform people on all the ways of communication there are out in the world. We are in the the information age with all of the new technology that keeps coming out. This course is a great way for students to stay updated with technology, and what is going on out in the world. College is where we learn who we are, who we want to become, and where we want to go once we finish our studies and reach "the real world". After school, we all will go in separate directions, work for different companies, and start to live our lives independently as adults. Many companies use a variety of technology and programs that differentiate from one another. Digital Applications was a way to teach us, the students the base to all this technology. Blogging, YouTube, Microsoft, Powerpoint, Excel, and creating our own webpages are all this "base" I am referring too. Like I said, companies use different technology. Some companies do stick to just Microsoft Office alone, but others go beyond that. Learning the basics is a way for us to have experience in some way in many different areas. If a company doesn't use Microsoft Office or Blogger specifically, it won't be too hard to adjust to how they do things because we have experience creating powerpoints, excel spreadsheets, word documents etc. All we have to do as employees is adjust to their way of doing things, but learning new things every day whether it is in the workplace or your personal life, is life. Everyone has to start somewhere. There is a strong demand for having computer skills. Nichols College provides their students with the opportunity to gain this knowledge, which is also a great addition to resumes.

Of course the majority of the classroom has used documents such as word and some powerpoint in high school, I know that I did. But, in high school we typed up our papers, and played around with powerpoint as much as we could. This course has furthered our knowledge in these areas, which leads me to one of my "takeaways" from this course. I am a junior, so I have spent a lot of my time typing papers into microsoft word, but these were just papers. I was aware of the formatting palette on the side, but never needed to do anything much more than type the paper, and pass it in. I wasn't familiar with the endless amount of things you can do with one picture including wrapping the image in text, changing styles and effects, changing the backgrounds, changing color, transparency, etc. We learned this through our flyer assignment. I became more knowledgeable on Word, which I plan to use a lot of these skills in future assignments. Using all Word has to offer can differentiate my paper from other students, so that I am very thankful for.
Creating a website would be another one of the bigger things I took from this course. Beforehand, I never knew how to create a website on my own, and I never had an interest. I didn't think I would ever need to know how and wasn't interesting in learning how to because I thought it would be a lot more complicated than it was! How great would it look during an interview if they asked you about your technology skills, and you can say you created a website? In my opinion, I believe this sounds pretty impressive. Will I ever need to create a website? I'm not sure because I am not sure where my career path leads me, but if I didn't have to make one for this site..I would have never learned on my own. This assignment taught me to not always shoot down learning new things. A lot of things throughout life can teach you that when brought into an area outside of your comfort zone. From this assignment I took away not only knowledge of creating a website, but another lesson I hope to follow.

The third "takeaway" from this course for me was blogger. I have never used a blog in my life. I know that it is popular, but it wasn't something I was interested in doing myself. I actually started following a blog myself on my own interests outside of this classroom. I always knew blogging existed, but since I had never done it, I never thought to follow one, or join in on any discussions. I follow a CrossFit blog where I have been able to expand my knowledge on my interests more. There is always more to learn, and blogging is a great way to learn while hear what others have to say. I like that we had to comment on someones blog as well as post our own. If we had to post a blog without having to comment on others, we would not have been able to read about each other and learn about our classmates, because we can all admit, if we did not have to comment on each others posts we most likely would not have taken the time to read multiple posts from each other. (Just being a realist here) Going into a class not knowing anyone, and being able to come out knowing who has been to certain places on vacations and what people are is interesting. It was a way to find out if people have common interests as you. I am a junior in a class with mostly freshman, so I am not walking out with additional friendships, nor was I expecting too. But, I do hope that for some freshman as a learning experience, people who they may have judged in any way or people who they would have never given a chance, I hope some of them can look at each other differently, and who knows leave with a few friendships? Maybe it sounds corny, but I think having blogger incorporated in this course is capable of doing such a thing whether it happened in past classes, our classes, or classes to be held in the future. 

Final Reflection

Reflection of Digital Applications

 

 

From my digital applications class, I have learned many new things that I will take with me throughout college and potentially to the workplace. I was familiar with many of the programs that we used in digital applications but there were a few things that I learned about and learned how to use.

One program we used that I found interesting and useful was Windows Live Movie Maker. I have never used this program before, nor did I know that I even had it on my computer. I found this program very useful and enjoyable. I really liked this program because it allowed me to use my own pictures very easily and also allowed me to be creative. I could use pictures, texts, voice recordings, videos, and music to personalize my video. I enjoy creative projects like this and I will without a doubt, be using this program again in the future. I have gained the knowledge of Windows Live Movie Maker by creating my “Best Friend” video.

Another thing that I will take away from digital applications is the use of survey monkey. I have not used this program either and I found it very easy to use. It was easy to navigate and it was free; free is always a plus. I have never created a survey before and I found it very interesting to use. I liked the fact that we were able to post our surveys to facebook; a site that almost everyone we know uses. I liked that we were able to see the results afterwards and survey monkey did not give us a time limit on anything. We could create, modify and gather the results easily and on our own time.

The final thing that I gained from this class was the use of blogs. I have never blogged before and I was exposed to a new way of communication. Blogging is a great way to express our thoughts and opinions on products, situations and experiences. I gained technological knowledge in digital applications that let me be creative but also informative. I will take this new knowledge with me throughout college and the workplace.