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.
Ram
Storage
Linux
Bibliography
