PowerPoint

Well, I have used PowerPoint in the past, and I'm sad to say that I did most of the things on the "Not-to-Do" lists. Mainly I got carried away with the fun transitions and such. Yeah I used a BUNCH of those. It's true though that if you want your PowerPoint to be effective, it needs to be professional. It should not take the focus away from you, but rather compliment what you are saying. I also fell victim to the number one classic mistake of reading directly off a PowerPoint presentation. Tips for PowerPoint are as follows:
1) Don't read directly off of a PowerPoint (It's boring and often you end up speaking towards the screen instead of the audience)
2)Use consistent transitions (all the fun zooming ones are reminiscent of eighth grade)
3) Keep the information concise, don't write a novel on every slide
4)Use appropriate graphics to compliment presentation, things that the audience can relate the presentation to, NOT clip art
5)Use legible fonts that are practical and easy to read
Mainly don't do what I used to, keep the PowerPoint simple and professional, it's really your presentation of the material that is going to matter anyway. PowerPoint can only take you so far.

Excel-lent!

I really had no clue how to use excel before this class. I really like excel though, it seems really practical and useful. It really helps if you need to balance a budget individually and it has endless uses for businesses. Sometimes it can be a pain to input all the numbers, but it saves a lot of time by doing all the equations for you. I'm also excited that we learned it because I'm taking statistics next semester and I herd that there are a couple excel projects in the class, so now I won't be totally helpless! That's always a good thing  guess. Also excel really can really help manage grades. So overall, I liked excel.

Manipulated Pictures

The picture of the city with the smoke was definitely harmful as it presents a false image to readers of the articles. It's the same as manipulating numbers and facts to present your own agenda. Journalists and writers are harshly criticized for such actions and so should photographers for their manipulations. Photographs used in news venues are rarely questioned by the public at large so it is even more damaging and misleading than journalism which is fact checked and widely scrutinized. I chose this picture because it made me think about how, before photo editing technology, a picture could be trusted, where as now people have to ask and wonder whether a picture has been modified, and if so, for what purpose?