Quarter 3

The activity that I will be doing this reflection on is the Tribute to Friends PowerPoint that we had created during quarter three. PowerPoint is a program that was invented by Microsoft Incorporated and it helps creating all kinds of presentations. This range of presentations can go from a small, mini type picture slide show to an extremely important, long bussiness slide show that can be used to help you get promoted to the next position in your area of work.

The purpose of this activity, in my opinion, is to give us a much better understanding about the aspect and the whole idea of what a program like PowerPoint and what you can use it for.

I have learned that I am also able to edit different types of images using PowerPoint. You can edit any type of art using the Image Edit tool and you can also use it to create new and differently arranged or colored images. This can be very helpful when making a picture slide show like the one that we made as a project during class. This project was, as mentioned above, Tribute to Friends project.

If I could have done anything differently, I would have changed the format in which I did the project and I would have added some more pictures, images and I could have also added the music to get some extra points.

This relates to my goal in Technology class in the way that it helped me to understand how to use a program on the computer and this specific program is very usefull for future life.

Quarter 4

The activity that I will be doing this reflection on is the website that I used for creating a Motivational Poster. A Motivational Poster is usually used for motivating (as the name implies) and it mostly has a black border, a picture in the top center of the poster, and a line or two under the picture and this is what is used to motivate in the form of words. The words are, most of the time, a caption for the picture. Also, above the picture, there is a title that of the actual thing. The site that we used to create the motivational poster is called http://www.bighugelabs.com/.

I think that the purpose of this activity is to understand the uses of some websites like http://www.bighugelabs.com/ and understand what you can do with them. For example: you are able to create these motivational posters and hang them up on some kind of door like your cabinet door so that every time you open it to take your clothes and start the day; you are slightly motivated. This can help conquer any very tiny day to day problems that every person in the world experiences and it can never fail to remind you to do whats right or whatever is on the motivational poster that you did.

I have learned how to create a motivational poster using the website http://www.bighugelabs.com/ as a resource. When you are on this website, you can move the cursor towards the link that says Motivator and then click on it. Once you do that, a set of settings will show up on the screen and these settings and options are what you are able to use to create the motivational poster using http://www.bighugelabs.com/. You are able to change the color of the text that you are writing as a caption for the picture of the motivational poster (if you are going to have text) and there is also an option that will let you browse for any images and pictures that you want to use to put inside the imagery area of the motivational poster. Once you do that, you are able to choose a title for the entire motivational poster and this is sometimes a very good motivator, meaning that you do not have a very neccessary need for any caption at all. There are also some extra options that most motivational posters do not have like making the usually black background be a different color like white or red etc.

There is not much that I would have wanted to change in the creation of the motivational poster because I believe that the idea and the whole motivation aspect of it is quite well made by me. Also, I would not have wanted to change the actual background color because black is, in my opinion, the best color to use in this type of motivation because the color black is usually described to be darkness and unmotivational. This means when I put the black background in contrast to the white caption, title, and also the image, it can help motivate a person to do something and defy the darkness or evil that can haunt your day to day activities and also the failures that can get very on your nerves sometimes.

This activity really does contribute to my goal this year because it is to better understand how the world of technology (including computers, electronic items, and also the internet). This is very useful to know in the twenty-first century and being able to understand this website really does help me understand more about the internet since it is website after all.

Quarter 4

The activity that I will be doing this reflection on is called Jing. Jing is a program or software created by a company called TechSmith. Jing enables you to create videos of anything on the screen of your computer and you can then save it as a video file (*.SWF). This video can be used to create tutorials and other types of projects where you can inform the watchers of the video on how to do something. It is a free software that you can download from the website: http://www.techsmith.com/jing/. There is a paid version as well as a free version and the paid version is a "professional" type that has much more features and options to do with the videos that you can make.

The purpose of this activity, in my opinion, was to learn how to use the program and apply it. The purpose was to learn how to create tutorials and how to create videos of what we are doing on the computer monitor without us having to take a physical cam corder and actually video tape it. This will make the video very blurry as the computer screen differs from other types of artificial lights.

I have learned a great many things while learning how to use Jing to create and save a video. Jing is simply a software that you can use to take videos of the screen without having to go through the pain of holding a cam corder and ending up with a very blurry result. In the program, there is an option that lets you choose the area of which you are taking the video in. This means that you are able to take a video of just the small part of the screen, for example: A dialog box. It is very helpful when it comes to creating tutorials about how to use a specific program. website, software, etc. I have already created a video about how to use a anti-virus program called Microsoft Security Essentials. This is a very helpful program as it scans for any viruses on your computer and, if there are any, it detects them so that you can find out all about the virus and what it is. It allows you to choose whether you want to allow this virus to stay in your computer for the time being because the virus is embedded in a very important file or document, or whether you want to terminate and remove it from the computer so that you may not lose any personal information or any trade secrets in the case of a very high class business man. I have used Jing to make this tutorial so that others may understand the use of Microsoft Security Essentials. It can not only capture a video of a certain area on the screen or even the whole screen, but it can also take pictures of a certain are of the screen but that it would be very impractical to download the program just so you can take pictures after microsoft has created the program Snipping Tool which allows you to do just that. Along with creating videos of the screen, you can also record your own voice into the audio of the video if you have a microphone or a built-in mic. in yoiur computer. I think that this is one of the most important features of the program because it not only allows for video playback, but also audio playback which can be etremely useful for creating tutorials.

If I were to be able to change anything in the project that I did when creating the tutorial on how to use Microsoft Security Essentials, I would try to edit the volume of the microphone that I had used to embed my voice in the background of the video. This is because I had felt that I could have made my voice much louder and it would have been much easier for me to document the tutorial.

My goal this year in Tech was to enhance my understanding of computers and other types of technology. This program has not done much to enhance my understanding of computers but it has helped enhance my understanding of different softwares that the computer can have and also what those different softwares can do and how they can be used to their full effectiveness.

Below is my tutorial that I had created for Tech class using the program Jing.

Quarter 3

The activity that I am going to be doing my quarter 3 reflection on is when we have learned about the database, how to use it and what it is made for. The above pictures show the 3 things that I have created after I have learned about databases. The first one is a report and I will be explaining about what it is below. The second one is the table and the third one is the form.

The purpose of learning about databases, I think, is that, in the future, we might be working in bussinesses and other big companies that keep a record of what they have in stock. Using the database, a company can organize what they own into categories and then they can keep a record of what they sell and what they buy.

I have also learned that this helps companies like malls and other stores to keep track of what they have in stock and what shops are open and closed and at what times. They can use a database such as Access from Microsoft to keep track of what items are out of stock and if they need to refill the stock by ordering or making some more of those items. This will help them to keep track of their profits and losses when they order some more of these items or even gather the materials to actually make some of these items. It also helps most schools to keep track of how many chairs they have, or how many computers and electronic pieces of equipment they have. This will also help them by organizing and keeping a record or a personal file on all of the students that have enrolled in the school and all of the staff that work in the school to provide the students with a better learning experience. This will help in the case of an emergency like a fire where a whole school building is burned down, a database can help the principal when it comes to finding out what has been burned and how many chairs or tables have been lost, they can the calculate their losses and get enough money to pay for those losses so that they can buy some more chairs and tables back.

I could have done many things differently with the database. This is because I think that I could have started to ask the people that I sent the forms to fill out so that I can input information into the database. I had forgotten to send one of the people that were required to fill it out to them so I had to send it to them and I had to wait as they filled it out which made me lose some very valuable class time. I could have used this class time to get a head start on making the database because it was quite long working thing to copy and paste each person's piece of information into the database table. It took a really long time and so I couold have made use of the time that I could have gained had I actually sent it him.

My goal this year in Technology class is to understand better how the computer works and how the science of technology works too. The database really does relate to my goal this year because now I understand how to use a database and what a database is for. This has made me understand how companies and any sort of cooperation can keep a record of what is going on with the staff, students if there are, customers if there are, and even the amount of items they have in stock or the amount of chairs and tables and such that they own.

Quarter 2

The activity that I am going to do my reflection on is the GPA Calculator which was Part A from Part B and Part A of 2 activities.
The purpose of the GPA Calculator that we made on Excel is to develop important skills in Excel for our future in technology. It teaches us how to use formulas in Excel instead of adding the doing the calculations yourself, the formula will do all the calculations for you.
I learned how to make formulas to calculate sums of numbers and divide using the formulas instead of a calculator or your brain. I also learnt how to make alignments and merge and center using the tools.
Since I was late for school and I didn't get any marks because of it, I could have made better grades for my self on the GPA calculator or I could have experimented with the layout of the GPA calculator.
My goal this year is to get a high honors and since the GPA calculator calculates the GPA, I could use it to measure my GPA and hopefully get a high honors.

Quarter 1

The activity that I'm going to do this reflection on is the test wiki that we did during this first quarter. A wiki is a webpage that the members--or sometimes not even members--can edit and put things of their own.

The test wiki's purpose was to test our skills when using wikis such as Wikipedia or Wiki Answers. In this test we had to put edit the wiki page and put our name, last name then first name, in alphabetical on the page.

I have learned that wikis are editable by anyone or a person that is a member of the webpage. I have also learnt that I shouldn't trust to many wiki sites and webpages because the people editing the webpage, may not have 100% true information and if you are going to use it, you should back it up with another site.

To do something differently, I could have added color to my name or not make it bold and italic and underlined. I also could have experimented a little with the wiki and tried new stuff instead of sticking to what everyone else was doing and be unique.

My goal this year was to type fast and get at least 60 words per minute with no more than 1 mistake. This test wiki relates to this goal because we had to type very fast so that we could finish editing the webpage in time for others to do the same.

Quarter 1

This activity was a typing test where we had to type a paragraph as fast as we can with as little mistakes as possible.


This took this test to test our skills in typing at an8th grade level. I have gotten fifty-two (52) words per minute and I only got one word wrong. The word was a name, Jermiah, and I had accidentally spelt it in the way it sounds, Jeremiah.
I have learnt while typing very fast, you can make a lot of mistakes. So to be excellent, you must type fast and not make any mistakes.

I could have definitely typed faster but for some reason, when I am doing a typing test or someone is timing me, I don't do as well as I could. Also if I am copying words I usually would get names wrong as I had gotten one in this typing test so I could have definitely changed that.

Since I am new, I have not made a goal. Although after this, my goal is now to get at least 60 words per minute with no more than 1 mistake. I have gotten 52 words per minute and 1 mistake now so I am on the right track if I am to achieve this goal.