Site Map

Home | Course Info |  Syllabus | Calendar | Assignments | Resources | Review | WebCT | FAQ

Last Week's Lesson

What We Did Last Week

In last lesson, you were introduced to start PowerPoint and create a presentation consisting of a title slide and single- and multi-level bulleted lists.  You learned about PowerPoint design templates, objects, and attributes.

The project illustrated how to create an interesting introduction to a presentation by changing the text font style to italic and increasing font size on the title slide.  You completed these tasks and saved the presentation. You also created three text slides with bulleted lists, two with multi-level bullets, to explain effective academic skills.  You learned how to view the presentation in slide show view, how to quit PowerPoint, and how to open an existing presentation.

You used the Spelling checker to search for spelling errors.  You learned how to display the presentation in black and white and how to print hard copies of the slides in order to make handouts and overhead transparencies.  Finally, you learned how to use the PowerPoint Help system.

PowerPoint Project 2 introduced you to the Outline tab, clip art, and animation effects.  You created a slide presentation on the Outline tab where you entered all the text in the form of an outline.  You arranged the text using the Promote and Demote buttons. Once the outline was complete, you changed slide layouts and added clip art.

After adding clip art to slides without using a content placeholder, you moved and sized the clips.  You added preset animation effects and applied animation effects to a clip. You learned how to run an animated slide show demonstrating slide transition and animation effects.  Then, you printed the presentation outline and slides using the Print command on the File menu and e-mail the presentation.

We are having our last test on PowerPoint this week and you are strongly encouraged to take the practice test if you have not done so. You can make an appointment with any one of the test centers and take the test any day between Monday and Thursday or come to the classroom 2146 on Tuesday or Thursday. Thursday is the last day of our class and you have to take your test by Thursday. Also, all of your assignments are due by 11:59 pm on Thursday, 8/3/06.  Your final grade will be assigned on Friday.

Please do not hesitate to call or email me if you have any questions. 

Top of the Page

What You Will Learn This Week

• The Internet and World Wide Web

The profound affect the Internet has had on the world of computers cannot be denied. A Microsoft vice president maintains that, “In the long run, it’s hard to exaggerate the importance of the Internet.” Steve Case of America Online calls the 21^st century, “the Internet century.” Bill Gates of Microsoft claims that, “The Internet is pervasive in everything we’re doing.” The Internet also has assumed an ubiquitous presence in the world at large. Today, a company’s URL often is as large as the company’s name in advertisements on buses, billboards, and magazines. Yet, has the Internet’s importance been exaggerated? In an article for Newsweek, Robert Samuelson suggests that technologies are historically important when they change lifestyles or beliefs. Technologies such as Gutenberg’s printing press, the automobile, and antibiotics reshaped the human condition by leading to mass literacy, altering where people live, and lengthening life spans. Although still relatively young, Samuelson argues that, to date, the Internet’s impact has been less significant.

The Internet also has been the source of controversy. Some of the concerns raised by individuals and the news media are:

• Censorship. Should certain material be restricted to select groups, or banned entirely from the Internet?
• Copyright protection. Should originators of work on the Internet have the same protection as creators in other media?
• Authentication. Should regulations ensure that the purported author of material on the Internet is, indeed, the author?
• Security. How can private information and sensitive communications be kept from eavesdroppers?
• Overload. How can current resources handle a burgeoning number of users and increasingly complex Web pages?

The World Wide Web is an incredible source of information on almost any topic. There are almost 2.5 billion Web pages, and that number is expected to double every year. For most users, the problem is not whether information exists, but how to locate that information. Tools are need to find specific information on the Web. An engineering head at AltaVista described search tools as a combination of “wizardry and witchcraft.” 

Search engines continually send out spiders to comb the Web and bring back information. The information is put in indexes, and these indexes are checked when a query is made. One difficulty faced by search tool users is an “embarrassment of riches.” Often, simple queries yield an overwhelming number of results. This is attributed to several factors:

• The limitations of search engines. A query about mustangs on the American plains might produce results involving Southern Methodist University's football team and the Ford car.
• The nature of queries. While a traditional researcher, such as a librarian, uses queries averaging 14 words, the typical Internet query is just over one word.
• The creators of Web pages. Developers of commercial Web pages sometimes distort results by repeating frequently requested keywords in the background, where spiders see them but people do not.

Given these problems, it is not surprising that in a recent survey 70 percent of Internet users were dissatisfied with search engines. Nevertheless, search engines are among the most popular sites on the Web. Search results often are displayed in order, based on the frequency with which the search text appears on each Web page. In this lesson, you will learn to use different search engines and search text or keywords, to locate information on the Internet.

Top of the Page

Lesson Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

• Use Internet

  • Discuss how the Internet works
  • Understand ways to access the Internet
  • Identify a URL
  • Search for information on the Web
  • Use different search engines available
  • Use keyword to find information on the Internet
  • Describe the types of Web pages
  • Recognize how Web pages use graphics, animation, audio, video, and virtual reality
  • Define Webcasting
  • Describe the uses of electronic commerce (e-commerce)
  • Explain how e-mail, FTP, newsgroups and message boards, mailing lists, chat rooms, and instant messaging work
  • Identify the rules of netiquette

Top of the Page

Activities for This Week

• Test #5 (PowerPoint 2003) - Tuesday/Thursday, 8/1 or 8/3, at 6:00 p.m. in Building 21, Room 2146, in Academic Computing Center, Pensacola Campus

• Assignment #10 -  Internet Scavenger Hunt

Email your completed assignment to your instructor at llemley@pjc.edu as an attachment. Remember to type "Your Section  #, Assignment 10, Your Name" in the Subject.

• Course Feedback.

Top of the Page

Feedback

I am doing research on Web-Based Learning Environment (WBLE) and I need your feedback on this course. Your name will not be used in my final report.

Students entering distance education programs often find themselves adapting to new learning environments and new technologies. Part of this adaptation involves coping with unfamiliar technology and learning to manage its use within the group, helping them create the environment in which they will learn. Part of it involves developing personal relationships that will ease their work and learning, helping them cope with unfamiliarity and change.

I hope by examining suggestions from distance learning students on how to cope with this process can yield three-fold results. First, it can demonstrate how students, instructors and administrators need to work together to ease student's paths. Second, it will help us in advising distance learning students about what they can expect from distance learning, and how they can contribute to and benefit from their distance learning community. Finally, it can provide recommendations to instructors and program directors on how better to help their students cope with this community building transition and distance learning environment.  Also, I hope by getting your feedback on this course can help me improve my instruction and help students learn better when I teach this course next term.

Please address the following issues in your feedback:

1. Is this your first online class?  If no, how many online classes have you taken before?

2. Why did you take this course?  Did you talk to your counselor prior to registering in this course?

3. Did you come to the orientation during the first week of class?  What kind of information do you think should be covered during orientation?

4. What is your main frustration in taking this course?  How did you deal with it?

5. Did you have any problem in using technology, such as saving files on the disk, Internet, email, chat, and bulletin board (threaded discussion)?

6. How much computer knowledge and skill did you have prior to registering in this course? Did you think you had the technological competency to take this or any other online courses before you signed up?

7. What do you think about the course content?  Are the instructions clear in each lesson? If no, can you give an example?

8. Did you get prompt help or support from your classmates or instructor?

9. If you were to take this course again, what would you like to see that should be done differently?

10. On average, how much time do you spend per week on this course? Do you think you would spend more or less time on the course if you were to take this class face-to-face in the classroom?

11. Has this course changed your mind about taking online classes?

Please send me your opinions and suggestions on what you liked or disliked about this class.  As you know, you already got your grade and your honesty is not going to hurt your grade in any way.

Here is the link to send me your feedback and thank you in advance for your help.

Top of the Page

Conclusion

  At the end of this lesson, you have learned:

     Use Web feature to create static and dynamic Web pages

      To perform Internet search

     To use different search engines available

     To use keyword to find information on the Internet

  Assignments:

• Test #5 (PowerPoint 2003) - Tuesday/Thursday, 8/1 or 8/3, at 6:00 p.m. in Building 21, Room 2146

• Assignments #10 and email it as an attachment.

• Email your course feedback to your instructor

What we will do next week: The End! (Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel now?   Or this is how you are feeling right now.)

Top of the page

Home | Course Info |  Syllabus | Calendar | Assignments | Resources | Review | WebCT | FAQ

Last Week's Lesson