Chris Nolan and Search Engines

Chris Nolan, the assistant librarian, spoke to our class about search engines today. I found it very interesting that a large majority of people use Google when searching online. Chris said that about 66% of people use Google rather than other search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing/MSN, Ask, AOL, etc. Google has become popular because they have developed algorithms that provide us with relevant, recent, and popular articles. Google and many other search engines are free. Because of this, these search engines make money through advertisements that people pay them to put on their website. Google has not allowed people to pay for their website to occur on one of the first pages of results because they are trying to keep an objective standard. They do, however, let organizations and companies advertise on the sides of the webpage.
Google has been trying to fight the problem of companies finding other ways to get higher on the list under multiple searches. The advertisers and marketers at J.C. Penny even made fake websites that would link back to their page so that the J.C. Penny website would show up among the first websites when a variety of words were put into the search bar. Google has been trying to avoid this problem and changed their algorithm to make sure that J.C. Penny would appear lower in the results. Similar events to this have occurred and Google is constantly combatting the problem. I believe this is why Google has become so popular.

What I dislike about PowerPoint

     Creating an effective PowerPoint presentation takes practice. Most seem to put a minimal amount of effort into making it visually interesting or exciting. When the PowerPoint contains very few pictures, it seems repetitive. I appreciate when the person making the presentation takes the time to place a picture or two on each slide. I also do not like when there is a bunch of information on a slide. Too many words are overwhelming and I would rather the person only put key points on the PowerPoint and speak using those. When there is no background or change in font, the presentation gets boring. PowerPoint presentations are much more fun to look at when there is a little visual appeal and variation. A presentation can also have too many pictures or too many transitions and effects. Just as having too many words is overwhelming, so is having too many pictures. There should definitely be a balance of words and graphics. Less is definitely more when it comes to the animations.
     In middle school I had a history teacher who lectured with PowerPoint presentations every class. The slides generally had a white background or very generic template with a black generic fonts. There were rarely graphics unless there was something very important. Not only were his PowerPoints extremely boring, but he would also turn off the lights. With the combination of these two things, he usually put half the class to sleep by the end. The class could have been far more interesting if he would have had more interesting PowerPoint presentations. It takes a little extra effort to make a decent one, but it is usually worth it to keep your audience focused.

CLT

Last class we visited the center for learning and technology.It is somewhat hidden in the library because it is all the way on the first floor. We were given a tour by Robert Chapman and he was able to share all the uses of the CLT. In the lab there were both Macs and PCs. There were 14 Macs and 12 PCs. They have been updating the technology and do their best to have the most recent technology.

Robert Chapman shared that if there was software we needed, they would try to get it. They do their best to assure that we have anything needed to do projects. There are severval stations specific to what you may need in the center for learning and technology.