Happy Holidays! See You in 2012!

Since it is the holiday season, I’ll be taking a little break from posting blogs to spend quality time with my family. MPTC is taking a break, too. The campus will be closed beginning this Saturday, Dec. 24, and will reopen on Wednesday, Jan. 4, which is the start of Winterim. I won’t be taking any classes during the winter before the spring 2012 semester, but I’ll still be writing to you during my winter break in January.

I would like to give a big congratulation to all those students who have earned their associate degrees, technical diplomas, and certificates! We’ll miss seeing you around campus, but we wish you the best of luck on the next step in your career.

In January, I’ll be back with more blogs. I’ll let you know about my Christmas and New Years, and how I’m getting ready for the spring semester. There will be books to buy and new student orientations to attend to represent the Web Developer Club. Also, in the future, you’ll be able to see and hear me as I post my first video blog.

Happy Holidays! See you in 2012!

Week in Review: A Reflection of December 12 – December 17

This past week was my last week of classes at Moraine Park Technical College for the fall 2011 semester. Everything seems to be wrapping up on campus. There aren’t any more meetings or classes to go to. All my class work is done except for the last two assignments for Beginning Photoshop.

The books I decided not to keep have been sold back to the MPTC bookstore. I’m putting the money I received from those books off to the side to help purchase my spring 2012 textbooks. The bookstore’s website lists required books and supplies for classes, but they haven’t posted next semester’s list last time I checked. I’ll check back later when it’s closer to the start of the semester.

This is the time of the semester when I wait for my final grades to come in. It can take what seems a while for instructors to grade, but I’ve already received some of my final grades. I usually check the online class portals in eCollege, but grades can also be accessed from myMPTC. Sometime soon I’ll be receiving my Web Site Coordinator Certificate. I’m pretty psyched to finally be able to put it on my resume.

Web Developer Club Holiday Party

For our last Web Developer Club meeting of the fall 2011 semester at Moraine Park, we had an informal holiday party to celebrate the end of the semester and the beginning of the holiday season. There were lots of cookies and good food to eat.

A few new people who are interested in joining the group showed up while a few of our regular members were unable to attend. We may need to reserve a larger room next semester, which I think is a really good problem to have!

Our club president had a few cool things to show us, as always. Much of the discussion was about social media and viral marketing. He showed us how to create a Facebook fan page, and explained to us what are vanity URLs. He showed us how easy it was to customize and embed YouTube videos to your webpage.

Our hope for next semester is to have a field trip to an Internet firm in the Green Bay area so we can learn how an operation like that works. I’m looking forward to next semester. I wish I didn’t have to wait two more months until our next Web Developer Club meeting.

Graphics for the Web Final Project Presentation

Technology has made the world an increasingly smaller place. Our communications are not geographically limited anymore. However, we still retain our separate cultures across the world. Just because we are able to communicate with people on the other side of the world doesn’t mean we are all experts at communicating with people who have their own history, language, and traditions from our own. No business is this more obvious than marketing. Sometimes messages get lost or misinterpreted in translation, not just text but even colors and pictorial symbols.

This is what we needed to keep in mind when creating our final project for Graphics for the Web at Moraine Park Technical College. Each student chose a country to research. We needed to learn what colors and symbols meant in their culture to avoid using ones that were inappropriate or illogical for our logo design. The logo was supposed to be for a product or service that would be marketed in that country.

After compiling research and using techniques we learned throughout the semester to create the logo, we each put together a PowerPoint presentation to share with the class. I presented first, and I was able to sit back, relax, and learn about other countries. Some of the countries my class chose to research were India, United Kingdom, and Brazil. I enjoyed this project, because I love learning about color and other cultures. I’ve realized it’s easy to be unaware that messages can be misinterpreted, and it should never be assumed that any colors or symbols are universal.

Completing Self-Paced Microsoft Access Course

Despite the fact that I thought December 8 was a Friday when it was actually a Thursday, I still completed all my self-paced Microsoft Access work at Moraine Park Technical College a few days early.

For self-paced classes, MPTC uses an online training system called MyITLab. I first used this at the beginning of the semester when I took the self-paced Microsoft Excel course. It took some time to learn how to navigate through the training system. When I started the Access class, I was much more comfortable with the system, and it went very smoothly.

I can see how Microsoft Access comes in handy when you have to manage several things for a company that requires more than a simple spreadsheet. I liked the label-making feature that allows me to make address labels. The book showed a lot of different ways to customize forms and reports to make them look nice and unique.

Even though this was a self-paced class, there were open lab hours staffed by the instructors of the courses a few times a week every week. I went in there a few times to work and to ask some questions I had. It was nice to work in that lab because the computer monitors had a horizontal orientation. I could have the PDF instructions on one side of the screen and the program open up on the other side of the screen.

The last task to complete for the course required some critical thinking. It was the Core Ability Self-Assessment. Besides learning technical skills, MPTC stresses these core abilities that employers are looking for in their employees. These things are transferable to every job position and include things like thinking critically and creatively, acting responsibly, and communicating clearly, just to name a few. I had to explain, while working through this course, how I demonstrated these abilities.

Since I turned in all my work early, my instructor was able to grade my work early. I am very pleased with my final grade. I feel confident that I learned the program well, and I’m excited to add it to my resume during winter break. I’m glad it’s over though, because I spent hours in the computer lab each week, and I’m looking forward to spending more time moving around and less time sitting.

Week in Review: A Reflection of December 4 – December 11

What a busy, busy week it has been! There was the holiday celebration event, which included two BINGO events and a casino, a Lunch ‘n’ Learn, and final projects to work on for my classes at Moraine Park Technical College.

The cafeteria and computer labs were popular places for group projects and study groups this past week. It is definitely nearing the end of the semester. Which reminds me; book buyback starts this Thursday. I’ve got a few books l would like to sell back to the bookstore, but I highly recommend keeping books you know you’ll use in the future. I will not be selling my Photoshop or JavaScript book back. They were good books I know I might need to use for reference in the future.

Sometimes when I go down the hallway past the library at the West Bend campus, there will be something set up at the tables. This past week there was a fundraiser for Relay for Life http://www.relayforlife.org/. Students and staff could purchase tickets to enter drawings to win gift baskets filled with things like movies, iTunes gift cards, candy, and cookbooks. I was one of the first to put my raffle tickets into the bucket.

After completing my self-paced Microsoft Access class, I was able to focus on my final project for Graphics for the Web class that was due on Monday. It required a lot of research and a lot of time spent using Photoshop to create a logo.

Now, the last thing I need to focus on is the last assignments for Beginning Photoshop. That will be due on Monday, and then I’m all done for the fall semester of 2011!

Lunch ‘n’ Learn: “Should-less” Holidays

Before I went to this month’s Lunch ‘n’ Learn at MPTC’s West Bend campus, I wasn’t really sure what “should-less” holidays was suppose to mean. Special events, especially the holidays, come with a lot of seemingly obligatory activities. This Lunch ‘n’ Learn was an open discussion about things we feel obligated, or “should-do,” during this time of the year.

Something us college students are faced with each year is the busy end of the fall semester running concurrently with the busy beginning of the holiday season. It can be challenging to get shopping, decorating, and baking done between final assignments. There can be a lot of pressure to find the right gifts for the right people. It’s great to see family members you haven’t seen in a while, but it can be difficult to find common ground if your lives have gone in different directions.

Besides all the “shoulds” there are also things to look forward to. Traditions like baking certain foods this time of the year can be fun. Our family tradition for the last few generations is making butterhorns. Everybody looks forward to eating them, and it wouldn’t quite feel like Christmas without this tradition.

I like that we always seem to end the Lunch ‘n’ Learns on a positive note after getting a few things off our chest that cause us anxiety and frustration. We all shared something we liked about this time of the year, and it’s good to focus on those things.

Holiday Celebration: BINGO and Casino

I was at Moraine Park’s West Bend campus for most of the day on Tuesday, but I didn’t spend it in class or even working on homework; I was enjoying the holiday festivities sponsored by the West Bend Student Senate and Activities Committee.

The day started off with BINGO in one of the rooms near the cafeteria. We had sandwiches, cookies, and other munchies to enjoy. In order to play everyone was to donate a non-perishable item or give a monetary donation to the Salvation Army. We ended up with a nice full box of food to donate.

In the afternoon, the people from Casino Events, Inc. set up some tables in the cafeteria for the casino games, just like they did last spring. I started out at the black jack table but eventually ended up at the roulette table like last time. It was a popular table, too. We had a large group of students crowded around the table. I didn’t do so well, but I managed to get three raffle tickets into the drawing, and I won a perfume gift set.

After the casino was another BINGO event. We played all sorts of different BINGO games like “smiley face,” “layer cake,” “Christmas tree,” and a “kite” shape. It was nice to take a break from working on homework for one day and just have fun playing games, winning prizes, eating food, and hanging out with Student Senate members and other students.

Week in Review: A Reflection of November 27 – December 3

So this whole time I’ve been talking about December 8 being the deadline to turn in my homework for my self-paced Microsoft Access class at MPTC. I looked at the calendar recently and realized December 8 is actually a Thursday, not a Friday. It really isn’t less time to get the work done since the date didn’t change, but it feels like I lost a day. That’s okay, though, because I did a pretty good job staying on track and the last lesson plan isn’t as long as some of the other lesson plans.

November is over and December is here, and somehow it didn’t bring with it a pile of snow yet. The end of the semester has really snuck up on me. When my Graphics for the Web instructor started talking about our final project being due next week I was like, “Are you sure?” There is no work to still be assigned or completed. This is our last assignment!

After I finish these final assignments for my classes, it’ll be time to think about what I will be doing with my free time during winter break. I try to have a mix of fun and productive activities during breaks. I think I’ll get out my paint supplies and canvases since I haven’t been able to do that in a while. I’ll also be looking for a part time job that will hopefully pay some bills and allow me to gain experience and apply my new skills I’ve developed this past year.

Application of Knowledge Outside of Class

My instructor, who is one of the instructors of the IT-Web Designer/Developer program at Moraine Park Technical College, told us we need to do more than the homework assigned to us. We need to practice and learn things on our own if we really want to be the best at what we do. This semester I’ve realized I have been using what I’ve learned in class outside of the classroom and class assignments.

I volunteer in an office setting where I use a computer on a regular basis. While volunteering at an organization I was interested in, I was able to offer my time and skills. In return I’ve learned about office culture, and I’m able to apply what I’m learning in my classes. Frequently I use programs like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Without realizing it, I’ve developed a good understanding of file structures. I was able to comprehend how this office file structure works. My files on my personal computer are also very organized. I never have to wonder where I’ve saved something. If you’ve ever spent time looking for a file because you don’t remember where you put it or what you named it, you know how much time that can eat up.

This blog has been an excellent resource for applying what I’ve learned in my classes. This semester I learned how to save files for the web so the file size is smaller (for faster download time) while maintaining quality. I’ve been able to create my own images and graphics and edit them. I’ve used my textbook to look something up that I had forgot how to do.

On my own time I’ve been able to create things in Photoshop for fun and share them with my friends. The more I practice, the easier it becomes, and the more fun it becomes. During winter break I’m sure I’ll be working on some kind of fun project. If I put some thought into it, it could become my next portfolio piece.