Excited!!!

This is about the way I've felt for this course.

I don't know if it was just me. the excitement just wasn't there.

LP7

For this assignment I didn't use Dragon speaking. I used was the Speech Recognition in Windows 7. It works the same as Dragon. I found that the word recognition was not very accurate, making it a time intensive program to convert text to words. I had to back up and repeat many of the words. The commands for the program worked good, My words it had trouble getting correct. It might have been because I have a cold and the system didn't recognize the words a well as when I taught the computer my voice pattern. Over all speech recognition probably will work after training the program longer as the program continues to learn the longer you use the software.

The OCR with Acrobat Pro was more interesting taking a PDF file and creating a Word document editing the document, returning the document to a PDF file that you can send out and have the document completed and returned. It took a few tries to get the PDF changed to a Word file, then edit and correct the document and saved again to the PDF I was able to send and get the file returned. What I used was the Adobe Acrobat X Pro free trial version it is a little different than the version at MPTC but does the same conversion. The new version lets you change the initial PDF file right in Adobe without converting it to a Word Document first. This made it somewhat hard to follow the Lesson plan. You just have to adapt.

Embed a video clip related to recognition technology. Top video is how speech recognition works and the bottom video is how I would like speech recognition to work.

I just made a new Voki. See it here: LP6

Setting up the avatar was simple. I don't know what I'll use it for but it was fun finding and adapting the image I wanted to use.

LP4

I don't text or send photos via my cell phone.
So,why would I care about sending text or photos from my cell phone to the blog?

Photo upload

This photo is a copy of the original. A photo of a computer classroom.

This is the computer classroom with the color lightened to be used as a background in a Word document or Powerpoint presentation.

This photo is of my sons dog Gauge.

This is my sons dog Gauge after the photo was cropped with a heart shape cookie cutter, text was added to the photo (in this example the text is rather small),and the remaining background filled with brown color to give the photo contrast.

My strengths with Photoshop are that once I use a program a few times and understand what the program does I can catch onto it fairly quickly with some trial and error.

My weakness are after I learn a program such as Photoshop and if I do not use it on a regular basis I forget quite rapidly how the program works and have to start over again. Repetition and usage is the answer. If I spent all my time using the programs I have learn in class no school work would get done.

April 5. 2011

Hard day in class. Had to use the tablet PC to take notes with one-note. I'm not great at taking notes with a pen and paper, yet with a tablet and stylus to write on. I had lot's of trouble writing with the stylus and the button on it. I kept pressing the button causing the drop down box to appear. That gave me fits while writing.Once I got that cleared up writing wasn't to bad other than my notes are a little hard to read. Not everything is clear enough to read.

This is my son's dog named Gauge, he is a boxer.
The photo was cropped with heart shape text was entered into the photo, the background was filled brown color to give the photo contrast. The editing was done using Photoshop Elements 5.0

Week 9 After Spring Break 3/28/11

We discussed the use of Photo-shop to enhance photos.
Six student demonstrated different aspects of photo-shop.

assignment LP5 to download images that could be used in company publications and enhance the images.
Maintaining the original image and using a copy to be used for enhancing.

Most of the class time was used to download and enhance the downloaded images.
Enhancements used were: apply a text mask, feather the borders of and image,crop the image, apply a filter, lighten the image for use as a background in a document or power point and one other feature I used the text shape and warp feature to angle the text upward and give the text a wave look.

3-15-2011

In class we discussed the use of One-Note software on the tablet PC's for taking notes. You can type, write, import pictures, use hyperlinks. It could be a good tool is you take lots of notes that you need to transcribe in the written documents.

We also discussed how to use one-note in Word and other Microsoft products.

Another discussion was about Adobe Photoshop elements 5.0 how digital imaging is used in today's businesses.

How to enhance digital images with feathered edges, background, filters, colorize, contrast, shapes, combine multiple images into one image. crop, re-size, remove part of the image and create buttons.

Other discussions were about how to use the zoom feature.

On-hands projects were found on the O:drive,instructional files, 106 instruct, communications technologies, digital images for editing.

We also discussed why you should not use the original file to edit always use a copy of the original as to not destroy the original.

We used the brush,insert text,and the Quick fix, rotate, crop, duplicate,blur features.

Met with the wiki group to finish composing the wiki for presentation.
Sent blog to instructor.

3/8/11 LP4

This week we finished up on LP4
In class we discussed tablet PCs and their flexibility. They can be used in place of laptop computers due to their smaller size and lighter weight. Although the ones we have in the classroom are older they are quite heavy and slow. Newer models are lighter and faster. One of the things they are really good for is taking notes on Windows Onenote. With the touch screen and stylus you are able to write on the screen and transpose what you wrote in text. If you have poor typing skills this could be the way to take notes faster and easier. Hands-on exercises were completed in class.


Our Wiki group scrapped the wiki page we were working on and started new wiki page. That's the way it goes. We went form one issue inserting data into a table to different issue on how to insert a picture into the wiki page. Gives me something to work on this week.

March 1

Worked n LP3 and Lp4
Finished up on the mobile device lesson plan. Turned then in the Amy. Peggy and I also worked on the lp4 lesson plan scanners and cameras completed it in class so no work on that this week. Short talk to the Wiki group have not idea on what to do there will have to discuss that next week before any thing else.

Week 5 Digital Scheduling - Mobil Devices

Peggy and I looked some Google Apps. and also itunes and some games apps. All the apps we looked at are apps that I will need more time to determine what the app actually does. I know what itunes is for but trying to use the app to access music, videos and podcasts will also take some time to understand the full advantage of them. The worst thing I found was the size of the icons, quite small and hard to see. I know you can expand the size of the icon then you have more scrolling to do, but they are still hard to see. Also the really good apps are not free. A lot of apps are for games and the like. I'm not a gamer, games are very hard to see on the small ipod screens. I did not get a chance to see the ipad maybe they would be better. The problem there is there size back to carrying a briefcase just to carry the ipad.

Week 3

Week 3 Had to finish the e-mail assessments that I forgot we had to do on e-mail.
During class everybody had to create a fax and send it to the class fax machine. The fax was about find 3 new fax machine that could be purchased 5 details about each and their respective cost. Attach that to the fax and cover letter then send to the class. All had a hard time sending the fax until we received the correct fax number to sent the fax to. Getting the schools correct number 1 area code then the number.

Here it is my first blog

Here is the blog page we had to create for the Communication Technology class.
Wednesday is a snow day No class.

Tuesday in class we discussed  Digital Distribution the practice of distributing media without the use of physical media.
 Also discussed was e-mail what are some of the activities you can do with an e-mail. You can filter e-mail, spam block, insert emotions, reply to a single person or reply to all, forward, delete, mark as read, spell check, move, print, find by subject,  find by sender, and automatically enter a signature to your e-mail, check e-mail for viruses, mark as read, set importance.

We also discussed what is frustrating about e-mail. Like etiquette, to much e-mail, to many jokes on email, not knowing when the email is coming, spam, passwords. More discussion on being careful on the words you choose e-mail is permanent, and who is reading your e-mail. E-mails from most businesses is public record. Do not write something you would not want you supervisor to read. Use good punctuation, grammar. Include a subject, greeting, and closure. Do not write everything in UPPERCASE it is considered shouting. No need to shout. If the e-mail is important flag it before sending so the recipient knows it's importance. Be careful in replying to an e-mail reply to all may not be appropriate. Last but not least lock you computer when leaving your work space, you never know who may walk by.

Next week activities LP2 6  9 thru 14.