IT101

Prior to registering for IT101, I was apprehensive. I was just filling a pre-requisite and was mostly uninterested in the class. It thought it was going to be a lot of memorizing and dry course information. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was proved incorrect. The course was very relevant, interesting, and practical.

    The first and possibly most important skill we learned in this class is how to effectively use Microsoft Excel. I would be very surprised if any reputable company would hire anyone without skills and knowledge in Excel. It is such a widely understood software, it is almost taken for granted that students know how to use Excel. Also, not only did we learn many of the simple functions Excel offers, we learned some of the less common functions like conditional formatting and icon sets. These features are fairly easy to use, but can make a spreadsheet significantly more aesthetically pleasing.

    In addition to learning Excel, I think learning how to use Microsoft Expression Web is a very good skill to have. I consider students more marketable if they are experienced in web design. They can possibly help with a company's website and even create their own. Having the ability to create and modify a website is relatively rare and this class has informed its student on how to do so.

    Thirdly, I was very interested in learning about mashups and Microsoft Popfly. I think there is a lot of potential in the Web 2.0 as a business platform and by giving us some general knowledge in the software and industry, students of this class are equipped with the abilities to create a possibly marketable program. It was also a pretty cool surprise that the creators of Microsoft Popfly came to class…

    All in all, I have learned a lot of extremely useful information in IT101. I was unsure of how I would like the course material before the class started, but soon found that I was very interested in it. I learned many things that I can carry with me through the rest of my education and through my career as a professional. I was not sure this class should have been a pre-requisite prior to taking it, but now I see why it is. The class was great and I would recommend it to anyone interested or uninterested in information technology.

CIS Presents(3): All things Google

Google is changing the definition of a web browser. What was once a tool only used to search the internet for different information is now an instrument allowing people to go way beyond simply searching the web. Not only is the company of Google itself expanding rapidly, its ideas and web innovations are as well.

    IGoogle is the first noticeable and user-friendly feature I have seen in Google's extensive bag of ideas. This site allows you to change your Google page to display basically anything you want. You can show weather, time, date, quotes, financial information, news, and much more. You can customize your background to many different things including a beach, a winter scene, a country, and much more. I have made IGoogle my homepage. It displays the time and date, financial information, and a gadget that gives me new and updated brain teasers everyday…it was a great idea on Google's part and the site is gaining much popularity.

    In addition to IGoogle, the Google docs application is a genius idea. Before this program, members of a group had to write their part of a paper, email it to each group member, then one of the group members would have to compile all the information to form the paper. With Google docs, each member can simultaneously edit the paper. There is only one paper, so everyone is reading the same thing, and all members can add their parts, without the long process of compiling each separate part. I had not heard of this application before my it101 class and have since used it for group work. For my gb102 term paper, I was assigned to a group and our group was assigned to write a paper on a certain theory. I introduced my group to Google docs and they were all very happy with it. Each member edited it until we were pleased, then we copied it and pasted it into Microsoft word to change the text and format the paper to our discretion. In my experience, Google docs is a very useful tool and will grow as long as people pass the word along.

    Another interesting Google application is in the same category as Google docs, but it allows multiple people to edit a spreadsheet instead of a document. This may be even more convenient than the document editor, because it is more difficult to compile spreadsheet data than it is to compile text. The spreadsheet editor is just another innovative Google idea.

    Google is a very 21^st century company. It is based on the internet, however seems to be a more powerful company than many other companies. The stock is very strong and it is my prediction that it will continue to go up, which shows the growing strength and popularity of the company. What will they do next?