CIS 1020 -- Computer Essentials
Instructor: Mark Wagstaff
At first, I was fairly frustrated taking this course. It seemed like a lot of information that I already knew from the generation I grew up in. But as I went further along, I learned quite a few new things. For example, I have always been confused and intrigued by Excel, but I never knew where to start learning it. This class really helped me a lot in that. One of the most pertinent utilities is the ability to use the source manager in Word. I have already used that nifty little trick on papers in two other classes, (here and here). I found the PowerPoint section to be quite interesting, too. I don't have much use for it now, but it is easy to see future applications where it will come in handy. One of the most surprising things about this class was seeing the way that Microsoft has made their office suite work together in recent years. I think this is due to the pressures applied to it by the abilities used in competitor software and I think they've actually done a decent job. In the end, I found this class to be quite useful. I am particularly proud of the excel assignment below as it demonstrates an ability to create a very useful spreadsheet.
**The following assignments were completed using Microsoft Office 2010. I have also included a copy of each assignment that is in 97-2003 format, but many features are lost in the conversion. I have checked both files, though, and each works fine on my end.
This is an example of the work we did using Microsoft Word 2010. In the assignment, we performed various Word-related tasks, including:
- Rejecting and accepting changes to a document
- Making new comments for others
- Changing headings
- Manage sources and citations
- Generating a bibliography or works cited page using the source manager
- Add captions, footnotes, and endnotes to a paper
- Create an index and mark index entries for linkage to said index page
- Create a table of figures, as well as a table of contents
- Update sources and tables after making changes
This is an assignment we completed using Excel 2010. The tasks relevant to this assignment include:
- Freezing rows
- Converting data to a table
- Applying styles
- Removing duplicate records
- Inserting columns with custom heights and widths
- Formatting columns with functions in relation to the data in the table (percentage of list price, percentage of sale, etc.)
- Sorting the table by a certain column and order
- Filter data to only show certain items
- Apply color fills to certain cells
- Apply conditional formatting to cells containing the conditional information (i.e. highlighting cells with values greater than or equal to 98% of the list price)
And this is an assignment we did for Powerpoint 2010. In completing this assignment, we performed tasks such as:
- Inserting pictures and applying effects
- Cropping pictures and changing dimensions
- Changing temperature of a picture to change the color tone
- Swapping one picture for another
- Inserting clip-art images
- Correcting images by changing the contrast and brightness
- Compressing images and setting desired output
- Inserting videos
- Choosing a preview frame or "poster frame"
- Setting the video to start automatically
- Inserting audio
- Setting the audio to be hidden during the slideshow
