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Thomas Alaimo
CISB 11
7-29-10
Professor Zamora


Meaningful Topics Learned In CISB 11

   

    To be completely honest this is my second time taking CISB 11 and my first time actually learning anything of value.  The first time I took this class was very boring and I had a very challenging time paying attention and had very low interest in the class.  Immediately after the orientation meeting I knew this time it was going to be different and I was certainly right.  In this six-week online course I learned significantly more than I did in the sixteen weeks in that classroom.  My knowledge and confidence around computers has gone way up.  I can only imagine the knowledge to be gained by taking this in a classroom with a professor that generates genuine interest.  There were several things in this class that I found incredibly interesting and had never done them before.  They all came from the labs because I am a person that likes to learn from doing not just reading.  I enjoyed doing the work on databases, spreadsheets, java, and web editing. 

    At first doing the databases in Microsoft Access was a dreaded task for me.  I saw absolutely no need to use a database and did not have Access on my computer.  For the first project I used Access at a friends house but they had a much older version than the one used for the directions and was having a very difficult time doing the assignment.  For the second database assignment I decided it would be best to go to the computer lab and the difference was significant.  With the clear directions I was able to do the assignment very easily and was able to see the usefulness of databases.  Although using a database in my personal life seems like overkill for anything I would use it for, using it at work or in my future seems like a great solution to many issues that may involve a significant amount of data.  I am a huge fan of music and using a database seems like a fantastic way to store it all in one location and be able to search it quickly and easily to fine exactly what I need.  Also as a pilot I can see many ways for a database to make my life much less difficult and bring more business to any company I choose to work for.

    Spreadsheets were something that I did have some previous experience with but I learned a lot of new things while doing the labs in this class.   I had never done anything involving several worksheets and I found it a little challenging.  But after some work and experimentation with it I thought it was a really cool feature and can see many uses for something like that beyond the example in the lab.  Also I had completely forgotten how to see up the spreadsheet to do the math automatically, which needless to say, has a seemingly endless amount of uses in every aspect of life.  The spreadsheets that we did for class seemed very simple but they were more than anything I would need for my life, both present and future.  The things I learned doing that lab will be able to help me accomplish a lot of the tasks in my life.

The java lab, I will admit that I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of doing this assignment.  I have seen some java code from looking at friends write it but I was completely lost while looking at it and the idea or writing it myself was very unnerving.  After completing this assignment my view of java has completely shifted.  Although I am still not able to write it into a usable application I am now more comfortable with attempting to read it and would definitely be willing to learn more about it.  I do not see any way to use this in my future but I thought writing that code was actually kind of fun.  Also there was a lot of satisfaction in being able to write code and create a working application.  Even though the application I created was extremely simple I had some fun doing it and was truly proud of myself when it worked on the first try.

    Creating and editing web pages was something that had never previously interested me until actually having to give it a try for this class.  I had always assumed that creating a web site would be incredibly difficult and would require writing code.  But with the use of WYSIWYG editors such as KompoZer it is actually incredibly simpler that I could have imagined.  After learning to do tasks such as inserting the links and publishing the page it seems to be extremely similar to most word processors.  Again I don’t see many ways for me to use this in my life but it was still incredibly fun to do and far simpler than I thought.  Also there was the same satisfaction in completing it as there was with the java lab.  I was very proud of my work and sent the address to a bunch of my friends.  I am planning on playing with this program a little more just for the fun of creating my own site.

    This class showed me a lot about computers that I had never considered before and was a great experience for me.  I learned a lot about databases, spreadsheets, java, web editing, and a huge amount of other things some being far more useful than others but for the most part very interesting.  If I had to say there was one big thing that I gained from this class is that in the world of computers, just because something looks difficult doesn’t mean it will be.  In all the things I did for this class I had so many worries, but in fact everything was quite simple one I got past the basics of each program.  This was a great class and despite the heavy workload, undoubtedly this is because this was a short semester, I had a great time in this class.  Especially doing all of the discussions it was a great way to learn some very interesting facts and see the opinions of others in the class.






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