Banff Mountain Lodge
REFLECTION
By Annette Kim
WORD UNIT
The first skill I learned in Word, was how to create a header and a footer. I never knew they existed until this course, and I’m very glad that I learned how to create them. It really helped me when I had to create a business letter in the summative, and it made my letter look professional. I also learned how to use tabs and leaders. This came extremely handy when I was creating my menu for my restaurant. Before this course, when I wanted to create a menu, I used to press the space bar multiple times to place the cost of the item where I wanted. Nothing ever lined up, it looked really messy and was impossible to format. However, when I used leaders and tabs to create my restaurant menu, it looked more professional and became easier to format.
According to the feedback on my rubric, it says “heading boxes could be improved” and then the word “creative” was highlighted. This means I need to work on using the image effects that Word has to offer. For example, I can use the 3D effect to make the heading boxes stand out, change the colour to be more vibrant, or completely change the theme style (under shape styles), to give it a gradient effect. Next time I make a menu using Word, I will be sure to use more of Word’s formatting tools.
PUBLISHER
In Publisher, I learned how to use templates to create different types of documents. By using these templates, it became really easy to quickly create a calendar or a business and make it look nice. It was also nice how you could insert different templates into your existing publisher documents. It made it easy to add an event’s calendar to my resort brochure. I also learned how to effectively use reverse text. I loved the way the white text stood out against the brown backgrounds/ shapes I used. I liked it so much that I decided to mainly use reverse text in my brochure.
Since I never got my rubric/ feedback for this unit, I will state one “universal skill” that I learned from this unit. One skill I learned in publisher is to not get stuck on formatting and to spend my time wisely. I came really close to submitting my brochure in late, because I was so stuck on trying to make it look nice. I really need to learn how to put the information on first, and then format it to make it look nice.
EXCEL
In Excel I learned how to use formulas, specifically how to create an “if statement”. I used the “if statements” in my Euro trip assignment and in my summative when I wanted to see if I stayed under budget and if my airfare was more than 35% of my total cost. It’s really helpful time-wise, because now instead of doing the math myself, I can plug information into the formula and the computer comes up with the answer. I also learned how to create and insert sparklines. Sparklines helped me see the trends in data without having to inserting large graphs that take up too much space.
One skill I need to work on is formatting graphs so they show all the data properly and well. In the Euro trip assignment, the graph I created skewed the data because of the type of graph I made. I need to try out all the different graphs to see which graph works best with the type of data I use.
DATABASE
In the database unit, everything I did was something I learned. I never used Access before and I feel that I learned the most in this unit. I learned how to create queries, forms and reports using Access. All of these skills were very useful for the assignments and summative because we needed to make them. My favourite skill I learned was how to use the lookup wizard to create the dropdown list in tables. I found this helpful when I only wanted to input specific data. When we did the summative, we had to input the location for each item in the table. It was really helpful then because I was able to input all the locations easier with the dropdown option, and it limited the choices to only the ones I wanted.
I need to work on formatting the reports I create in Access. The reports I created for my music list assignment were poorly formatted and I couldn’t seem to fit it all on one page. I need to work on spacing the data more effectively and adding a nice layout so it’s easy to read.
INTERNET/WEBSITE
In the website unit I learned how to create a website using Wix. In Wix, I learned how to add pictures into my site, I learned how to format text on my site, I learned how to create buttons (my personal favourite) and how to add apps to my site. All these skills helped me create my portfolio resort website and my support overfishing website. I really love websites because I’m able to apply all the skills I learned from other units into the sites. For example, I used the AIDA acronym to help me format my portfolio website and make it aesthetically appealing.
In the internet unit I learned some scary information. I learned about hackers and scary people who steal your information and break into your privacy for money. After this unit I became extremely paranoid about everything. It was actually quite funny. It motivated me to not create a sketchy website.
On my rubric it said that my homepage was too busy and it said to put most of the content elsewhere. So for my portfolio website I tried to create a homepage that was simple but had enough information to keep the viewer interested. I also tried to minimize the information I put on the homepage and instead put pictures with blurbs that intrigued the viewer and then added a button nearby so the viewer can click it and learn more about the topic.
*By the way, if you're looking for the other 3 extra documents, they're located on the page. You have to click the icons under Services
GLOSSARY TERMS POWERPOINT
Contact Information
Phone: 1-800-555-1234
Adress: 154 Cougar St
Banff, Alberta, Canada
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