A lot of typing...

Today's class involved alot of typing as I added text to my website. Fortunately, the only typing left for today is in this post. Tomorrow, I will put the finishing touches on my website. Here is the link.

Adding School Information

Adding information on all of the SVSD schools to my website is taking longer than I thought. Fortunately, I will finish the course. I just submitted my beloved MMYS model today. On the webpages, there are some features that I don't need, like google calendar, so I need to figure out how to remove them.

The Finished School

Today I decided to wrap things up regarding the school on sketchup. The amount of detail one could include is endless, but the amount of time left for this course is not. Therefore, I must move on tomorrow. My website will be about towns or schools in the valley. I haven't finished deciding yet.

Taking A Break

The amount of detail I could add to my sketchup project is endless, so I decided to take a break to design my website first. Then I can come back to the school after. My website is going to be on the school buildings in the division. It will provide details on their architecture, how many students go to them, and the communities they are in as well.

MMYS on Sketcup

Most people did their house as a project on sketchup. I'm glad I didn't. My house has a very unique roofline. There was no way that I put myself through designing that on sketchup. The school is much larger than my house, but it has a flat roof. In fact, it is basically a rectangle, with another rectangle of twice the height (the gym) attached.
Ok, I will admint if that was all there was to it, it would be a little too easy. But what makes it interesting then? The school, built around the '60s is a classic example of brutalist architecture. The placement of windows and doors along with the use of glass is what makes it unique. They are often placed in recesses, and the use of glass is generous. The glass then is starkly contrasted by large plain areas of brick. This is true for MMYS.
Another cool point is that the school has a twin in Benito, and Bowsman school is a mirror image of it. Unfortunately, all three schools have been altered. Many of the glazed areas have been reduced or removed altogether, and in Bowsman and Benito mismatched additions have been added. If it would ever be possible, I would love to purchase one of the schools one day, and turn it into my house.

New Program Testing

The remote desktop feature is pretty cool that we have been using. I imagine that it will save the school alot of money as well. The chat program is neat as well, but I was having trouble recieving messages. I think it still needs a few tweaks. All I have left to do is to color my hard drive now.

Still 3d Modelling

The hard drive is taking forever! I'm pretty sure I've been saying that all week, but its the truth. I really cant wait to finish it. The last part thast I'm working on is the reader arm. I do NOT want to do the circuit board on the bottom...

Almost Done!

Today, I am almost done the hard drive, and almost finished the course. Surprisingly enough, I made alot of progress with the hard drive. The pins in the back made me mad, because there are too many of them, but the actual disk is now in place. Tomorrow, I have to add the arm reader thing. Then I am done!!

A New Project in Sketchup...

Google Sketchup is driving me crazy! Fortunately, I will be doing a hard drive and not a mouse as my project. It is such a complicated program! There are so many things I would improve. It would've been a good idea to learn sketchup earlier. That's what made vector graphics easy for me. I am also thinking about what I would like to do for my original sketchup design. I think I know what it will be: the School. It has no angles whatsoever, even a flat roof! That will be a better project for me to do.

Frusterations with Sketchup

The base of the mouse I am trying to make is very complicated. It is confusing me, and It will probably take me a long time to complete. I might need to take a break from it tomorrow.

My Movie

I really started to have fun with my flash movie today. I will have to move on soon though. The last thing I want to add is a stop action. I am looking forward to learning how to use Google Sketchup. The end is nearly in sight!

Original Movie

My flash movie is not finished yet, but I have the first scene done and a good starton the second one. The Best part is adding the sound effects. I might leave the movie for a bit and come back to it. Google Sketchup will take a while too, so I'd like to get a start on it.

Stuff

Today I worked on lots of stuff, tying up loose ends, etc. I finished my Flash Tutorial and Magazine cover. I also finished up all of my vector graphics assignment. Lots of progress has been made today! Now, I am left to ponder how I will make my very own flash movie. I think I will do it with a picture of a snowboarder. It can't be too complicated (I am very bad at flash).

Vector Graphics

I decided to leave my magazine project only partially finished to work on vector graphics. Illustrator is a fun program to use. It is MUCH better than photoshop. It is also more user friendly. I think that after I'm done the magazine I will forego the animation software projects and move onto GIS first. I will come back to Animation Software later, but I think it will take me a while to complete.

Photoshop

Photoshop is a really neat program. Today, I put myself and Rasputia from Norbit in a picture of Lake Louise. You could make a picture of almost anything. In light of that fact, It's important to keep in mind that not all pictures on the web or in magazines are authentic. Many images that you see on Google have been altered from their original state.

Still in Digital Presentations...

I still need to finish my powerpoint quiz. some of the questions were no problem, but others are really hard, more specifically the copyright one. I really need to finish digital presentations allready, or I won't pass this class.

PowerPoint

I took the images quiz and got 100%, so now I am doing the powerpoint quiz. I was dissappointed to see that it will be mostly text, because I like putting pictures into PowerPoint. I will just add more anyways. The tutorials really helped me understand Microsoft Office. I can now create new content faster than I did before. It text wrapping tool was also really neat, I thought.

Postcards

I got my technology newsletter finished on my own time but the postcards are still holding me up! I had a mini disaster today when I accidentally deleted one of my postcards. I guess it was more of a minor setback, but I am really anxious to finish Digital Presentations already.

Oops!

I was happily chugging along with my Road Trip assignment, and did not notice that there is a Publisher Newsletter assignment that we need to complete. I think I sohuld do it at home tonight. It is pretty simple, and I need to pick up the pace. I am starting to become concerned that I will not be able to finish the course if I dont finish digital presentations soon. The other sections seem a little smaller.

Moving on to Publisher

Today I finished the Spreadsheets, and moved on to the Publisher Tutorials. Publisher can do more things than I thought were possible. I still prefer InDesign over Publisher, but it is a good choice for most people. I an almost ready to complete the road trip assignment and hope to catch up to the rest of the class soon.

One Spreadsheet Down, One to Go

Today, I fionished Making the "I'm Outta Here" spreadsheet. It ended up being pretty fun once I caught on. One note also turned out to be a very easy program to use. It is an excellent tool for staying organized. My memory of formulas in Excel was also refreshed, and I'm now ready to do the student marks assignment.

Speeding Up Again

Today, I finally rlearned how the spreadsheat works, and I started to really enjoy the assignment. It is fun looking at realistic costs. I did not realize that there were all of these useful tools on the internet.

Confusion With Excel

I finished the Microsoft Word Section, and am now worknig with
Excel. The assignment "I'm outta here" Is proving very difficult, as I don't completely understand what to do, but I am slowly figuring it out. I think this assignment will take me a long time as well, so I will work on it at home from time to time.

Almost finished with Word!

I continued to work through the word assignments today. I did two tabes exercises, abd finished up my letters. I plan on handing them in tomorrow. I am nearing completion of the word section of digital presentations. It is taking longer than I thought, but I still think I will finish BTA by the end of July.

More Letters...

Today, I wrote two letters. One of them was for Judge Judy, the other for Advanced Electronics. Something about writhing the letters was kind of entertaining, but I found it hard to get in enough paragraphs. Hopefully my letters weren't too exhaustive. While researching Judge Judy's address, I found that she personally replied to mail, often sending fans an autographed photo of herself. I might request an autographed photo of her now, because I like her show. It would be kind of cool.

Working with Word

Today, I finished the travel ad with Word, and moved on to the Welcome Night flyer. The hardest part about the welcome night flyer is finding a good image to use. In the end, I picked a lawn chair because it is happening on the school's lawn. Seems a little borring though. I'll fix things up a little better tomorrow. I might also do a few things on my own time so I can get caught up to the rest of the class.

Newsletter

Today, I continued to work at my newsletter. It is finally complete, but I don't know if it is fancy enough. I will have to double check on Monday. The hardest part is thinking of a good title (I still haven't). I want to finish the Word portion of digital presentations sometime week.

BTA Course Requirements Web

First Day

I am really excited about starting this class. I found that it was actually really easy to get right into it. I made a protopage in grade eight, so I was able to use that for the first assgnment. I made a few adjustments to the links because it was very outdated. Then, I made an RSS reader with bloglines. Finally, I set up this blog and am writing this first post.