Week 10: Clear

The topic of week 10 was Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access is a database software which I had never used before and thus it was very helpful for me to learn about that program. There are several actions you can perform with this software to set up and modify relational darabases. The lectures this week started with broad concepts, like creating a table (a set of data in a database) or importing and exporting data to and from Microsoft Access respectively, to more advanced topics like working with a query or a form and creating reports. 

As this is the first time I worked with that software, especially the lecture about what actually is a table and how to perform basic operations with it was very important to me. I learned that all data in a relational database is organized in tables where each field within a table is a discreet piece of information. Furthermore each field has a specific data type and there should at best be only one topic represented in a particular table. You can add descriptions to your table by simply click a row of interest and enter a descriptive information under the description label. Additionally you can let Microsoft Access uniquely identify a record in a table by labelling the particular record as the Primay Key. These basic operations help you to organize your data in a database very clearly and make them much more easy to modify later on. On the basis of that you can then tranfer the data, make a report or a form out of them, or just further modify them in the way you like.

In today's business environment I think Microsoft Access is a very useful tool, as databases are widely used and crucial to store important information, like customer data. Therefore I am thankful to learn about that program so that I am able to apply it in my future career. For further information about that program click here.

Week 9: Clear

Internet and the World Wide Web

In week 9 we learned about the Internet and the world wide web. One of the clear lectures dealt especially with the different uses of the web. Four different uses were outlined, namely to learn, to feel, to connect and to trade. I myself use the web mostly to connect. I use different methods to connect with friends, my university or other people. There is for instance the possibility via e-mail or the possibility to connect via instant messengers or chats, just to name a few. But moreover I also use the web to learn. Search engines play a very important role there. When trying to learn something new I almost always go to google.com and type in the word or concept I want to learn about. But of course I also use the web to "feel", to surf. When I do that I just browse through the web and entertain myself. A few years ago this was the main use of the web for me, today it is not any more. The last mentioned use, namely trade, is self-explanatory and probably the aspect I use least. Of course I already bought something over the Internet, through pages like ebay.com but I only do that once in a while.

In today's business environment, though, trade over the internet is very important. There are three different kinds of trade, B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to Consumers) and C2C (Consumers to Consumers) which are all increasing in scale. And also relating to the use of learning through the web it is nowadays almost impossible to survive at a university without being connected to the internet.  Online courses at university were not imagineable about 30 years ago, but they are reality right now. Therefore I think the topic internet and the world wide web is very important and essential for us.

Presentation Project

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/227303/UNICEF-Africa?pk=a9b7-e029-ee53-895b-be35-e3ba-0b92-674a

The presentation project was split into several parts, namely creating a storyboard, setting up a copyright statement, critiquing peers, writing this blog and last but not least, creating the actual presentation. This structure of the project made the whole project very confusing and distracted from the actual core presentation. 

Nevertheless I finally uploaded a presentation about UNICEF and its work to help children in Africa. I began by showing pictures of depressed children in Africa, followed by some facts about their poor living conditions. After that I introduced UNIDEF and explained what the organization does to help those children. I finished the presentation by calling for donations to include the listeners in the help projects. Therefore I think there is a logical flow and sequence of content in my presentation. I furthermore tried to anticipate questions by explaining what UNICEF actually does and providing a link of the page where donations could be made. I think the best part of my presentation is the beginning where I grab the attention of the audience by means of pictures and music. What might be missing in my presentation is that I did not really ask questions. The whole narration is not that clear anyways because my microphone does not work as it should do. I think it is totally clear that I am trying to open the eyes of the listeners and that I am trying to encourage the audience to help UNICEF to help Africa. Therefore I also tried to make slides readable by not putting to much stuff on them and not using several different font sizes. While presenting I took the main points from the slide an explained some further details relating to the slides. But nevertheless, my narration is probably the main weakness of the presentation, on the one hand due to my malfunctioning microphone and on the other hand du to the fact that I am not a native English speaker.

All in all I got quite some new insights about powerpoint and its functions. Especially the function of including different types of media in a presentation seems to be very useful for further presentations. I also learned about some methods and tools available on the internet to share presentations online which I had never done before. This could actually be quite useful in the future as in today's business environment the web gets more and more the main medium of communication.

However what I found rather muddy was the explanation of the copyright statement we had to establish. That is also one of the problems I encountered while working on the project - and probably the main problem. The structure and content of the copyright statement was not adequately described by the instructors. Several questions posed in the discussion board regarding the content of the copyright statement were all replied by "see what you learned during week 1" which did not help me at all. Finally, 2 days before the deadline we were told that we are allowed to just reference the used multimedia and thus making use of the fair use policy. In the project instructions it had been stated that just referencing is not enough, though. Therefore it was quite confusing for me and several other students I talked to during the project.

Week 7: Clear

Don't !

In this week, we were given insights in how to set up a clear and meaningful presentation.  In today's business environment it is crucial to set up presentations to get your meanings, value propositions, or even products spread throughout the more and more globalized world. The lectures for this week were meant to lead us step by step through the next project, namely creating our own presentation. Several issues have to be considered when preparing slides. First of all, the design and layout of your slides should serve the purpose of delivering value to your audience. You shoud minimize distracting elements on your slides by focussing on the main point you want to get across to your listeners. Furthermore, for a presentation to be effective, try to include stories and multimedia (see last week's topic), and try to make your ideas memorable and sticky by including examples.

Do !

Unfortunately, although the different concepts of this weeks topic were clear, the set up of this week's learning material was partly muddy. There were several lectures we had to watch, but none of lhem asted longer than 9 minutes. This makes it very hard to remember all the different hints and insights we were given as information was spread over too many small lectures. Moreover at the beginning of the week there was one lecture incluced twice, whereas another lecture (about storyboards) was still missing, although one of the questions in the quiz was about this particular lecture. But all in all, as the concept of presentations is actually quite clear and plausible, these minor organization weaknesses should not have a negative influence on the project. That is why I still call this post "clear" instead of "muddy".

Week 6: Clear

      

Multimedia

In week 6 a new topic was introduced, namely multimedia. The lectures we had to watch were about (1) images, (2) audio and (3) video. They all began by explaining what an image, audio or video data actually is and what the key characteristics are. After that "compression" was dealt, followed by the explanation of different file formats. Finally, the lectures closed by outlining which hard- and softwares are used to fully exploit images, audios and videos.Of course each lecture had its own specific "character" but the structure was quite similar which made it convenient to follow them.

In the lecture about audios, the concept of DRM was explained further. DRM means "digital rights management" and described a way to control access to an audio file. By using DRM you can limit the access to a file to one device and you can also set an expiration date after which the file cannot be used any more. But Mr. Olsen also explained a way to circumvent these restrictions.This way is called "Analog hole" and is a quite simple way to get around access controls. If a file is restricted to one device you can just record it to a second device and so set up a completely new audio file on that device, by just losing minor quality. To find out more about the "Analog hole" just click here.

In the lecture about images, the software Google Picasa was named as an example for softwares useful to work on images. I immediately downloaded the program (here), as I lacked a proper software for working on images before. Thus, the program is really valuable for me as it is a simple tool to enhance the quality of your images. You should definitely download it if you are looking for a software for working on images and start playing around with it. This is probably the best way to find out about the different functions of the program, as it is a really simple and clear program.

Excel Project

Excel - applied

In week 5 and 6 of the course, I also had to work on an Excel Project. The story of the task dealt with a large fitness center, whose owner collected data from 500 subjects. I was provided with an Excel spreadsheet, showing age, gender and 21 heart rates measured for the subjects during a workout.

First of all, I had to make some simple enhancements to the sheet and prepare it to be printable. I calculated the maximum heart rate for each subject by adding a new column and using the formula Maximum heart rate = 220 - Age. Furthermore I calculated the target heart rate for each respondent, which is 80% of the maximum rate and then investigated if the maximum heart rate achieved during the workout was below or above this target rate. In the end of the first step I calculated the percentage increase of the different heart rates during the workout. For each of the calculations, new columns were added and absolute as well as relative cell addressing was used to make minor changes to the data more convenient.

In the second step of the project the data was analyzed using Pivot Tables. The first question to answer was, how effective the exercise regimen was, more specifically: “how many subjects reached their target heart rate during the 15 minute exercise window?” By using Excel's Pivot Table analysis tool this was quite easy to find out. I first grouped the subjects into males and females by dragging gender into the row labels, then dragged TgtAchieved into the column labels to answer the question. As I was interested in the number of people having achieved the target, I lastly changed the values from "Sum" to "Count".

In the second question, the owner was interested in the average percent increase, grouped by gender and age groups, to find out more about demographic differences. Therefore again a Pivot table was used, which can be seen below:

To create this table I used subject age for the rows (grouped by decades) and put gender in the columns. As once again I was not interested in the sum but in the average percentage increase I dragged "PctIncreaseHR" in the value area and selected "Average".

By this project I was able to apply knowledge acquired in week 5 to a "real world problem". This deepened my understanding of certain Excel functions and tools and added some valuable knowledge for working on further Excel spreadsheets. Especially the Pivot Table function turned out to be quite useful in analyzing data, which might be very beneficial for me the future.