Live-Remote and Heading Toward First Certification Exam

Yesterday's class session saw more students' brilliance illuminate the classroom even brighter!

Tsz made it for Bonus Quiz 6 – Shortcut, Recycle Bin, and File Types. Elijah and Heather arrived late thus missed out on BQ6. The evening prior, Heather gave me a heads up that she may not be able to attend class due to minor mishap that impaired her mobility. She shared with me that unless she is dying or bedbound, she will show up and do what she needs to do. I told Dr. Zamzow that I have the same ethos.

Jimena has been heavily immobile since an automobile accident the day before Spring 2023 began. Yesterday's class session was the first-time she joined the class live and remotely via WebEx after having surgery. I'm glad the young lady is able to say hi to her classmates and they to her ^_^

After walking through the answers for BQ6, I prepared the students for this coming Saturday. Bonus Quiz 7 will wait until the following week as students gear up for their first Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification exam: MO-100 Word. But the best preparation is their own practice in LabSim, not just in reaching 100% but troubleshooting when they didn't reach 100% on a given exercise then reaching 100%!

Linette took the stage and educated the class on Technical Analysis: What it is and how to use it in investing. I love her closing with sage advice from her own experience! An unintended demonstration of what could go wrong in the 'real world' occurred as I had the wrong version of Linette's slideshow at the beginning.

Elijah followed with Space Race. The future space agency employee had to attend to his earthly ground-based vehicle, causing him to be late to the class. He surprised me with an updated slideshow after I sent him a polished version. It's been some years since a student demonstrated creativity and passion to continue improving their slideshow after I polished theirs :-)

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Though I didn't have a chance to review his improvements, I was confident that Elijah's new content would not cause concern or offend the audience. What I didn't expect were his poignant tributes to the astronauts that lost their lives in their missions:

55 years after Apollo 1 fire, NASA's lessons live on as Orion aims for the moon

https://www.space.com/nasa-apollo-1-fire-55-years-orion-moon-return

35 Years Ago: Remembering Challenger and Her Crew

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/35-years-ago-remembering-challenger-and-her-crew

Columbia disaster

https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbia-disaster

The three slides Elijah added were portraits of the Apollo1, Challenger, Columbia crews respectively each with a custom background. This will earn him bonus credit once he completes A5 Slideshow Presentation. Later in the semester, I hope the space rocket enthusiast will do the optional assignment A4 Homepage, Website, Online Publishing so that his poignant tributes will be on the World Wide Web for everyone to see.

Linette earned bonus credit for A5 as she is the first student to complete this mandatory assignment with her flawless A5 email. Heather and Khylie who presented in-class the previous Saturday will also receive bonus credit for being the first group of presenters.

Before leaving the classroom, Heather uttered the quintessential attribute that will increase the chance of passing MO-100 or any certification exam: read and comprehend all details of the scenario/requirement so that one can fulfill all aspects of the scenario/requirement correctly and fully -- assuming one gained and practiced the necessary skills prior to the exam. Hmm, this sounds exactly like the quintessential attribute to succeed on a bonus quiz...

Earlier today, I graded BQ6 and Chandani (who goes by Lama) emerged as the lone holder of the highest score. Welcome to the 'highest scorer' club Lama, joining Linette (x1), Tsz (x2), Elijah (x1). Though not the only student to express interest in presenting this coming Saturday, Lama is the only one in a front-running position that may have the time and energy to draft a slideshow on top of preparing for the MO-100.

I wish Lama can find the time and energy and everyone success on MO-100 ☺

First Student Presentations and Spoofing Walkthrough

Yesterday's class session saw two students delivering their slideshow presentations and more students shining in bonus quiz performance ^_^

Elijah scored the highest and Heather the second highest on Bonus Quiz 5 – Social Engineering & Purchasing Rationale. Feeling under the weather, Tsz missed out on BQ5. I hope he will participate in BQ6 – Shortcut, Recycle Bin, and File Types next Saturday.

Heather kicked off A5 Slideshow Presentation with Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease. The veterinarian who specializes in felines did a wonderful job of not only delivering a succinct presentation and educating then answering questions from the audience; but setting a stellar example for her classmates!

Khylie followed with the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The LA native's penultimate slide illustrates her connection to the riots. I remember watching the riots unfold on television news when I was a high school senior. I can still hear the plea "Can't we all just get along?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sONfxPCTU0 (17 sec)

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I walked through the polishing process from draft version to final version for each student's slideshow. Linette and Elijah also sent in their draft versions right before yesterday's class session. Since then, I polished both of their draft versions and walked through the polishing process with Linette and will do the same with Elijah tomorrow. I look forward to seeing their presentations next Saturday :-)

One topic in BQ5 is spoofing. This 12 min 12 sec video from ABC News In-Depth walks through how a scam was pulled off using spoofing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXbF46RvY5k

I wonder what my students think of the scam walked through in the video.

I hope to see even better performance on future bonus quizzes.

I can't wait to see more student slideshow presentations.

Look Three Weeks Ahead and Deep Fakes

For two bonus quizzes in a row, Tsz alone earned the highest score, this time on Bonus Quiz 4 – Display, Shift/Ctrl, Boot-up, Binary, IPOS.

As with the previous class session, I gave one of my signature lecture/demonstration this past Saturday. But this time it is a full-length presentation with the first half:

L2A Job Hunting and Fulfillment Process

http://thedopeyone.atwebpages.com/Slide01.htm

L2A Job Hunting and Fulfillment Process (Tables' Borders Visible)

http://thedopeyone.atwebpages.com/Slide01 (Borders Visible).htm

and the second half:

L2B Walkthrough of A3 using an actual job posting and sample tailored documents

http://kingofrocknroll.atwebpages.com/Slide01.htm

L2B Walkthrough of A3 using an actual job posting and sample tailored documents (Tables' Borders Visible)

http://kingofrocknroll.atwebpages.com/Slide01 (Borders Visible).htm

Like L1 (Benjamin Franklin), both L2A (Albert Einstein) and L2B (Elvis Presley) will take visitors to each fictitious student's homepage but unlike the first homepage, the later two homepages each contain a link to their fictitious classmates -- the other two being Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale. I hope these five sample homepages and websites will give my real-life students ideas on how they may want to present their accomplishments in IS101-3003, Spring 2023 and anything else they want to share with the world via A4 Homepage, Website, Online Publishing.

The links above take visitors to the webpage version of my L2 presentation. During my in-class presentation this past Saturday, I used the source PowerPoint slideshow file for presentation via a traditional projector against a roll down screen. I hope (a) the use of prominently sized text, contrasting colors, slide transitions, animation effects in arresting audience's attention and (b) the use of [Timing] settings such as [Start] & [Duration] and [Text Animation] setting such as [Group text] to control the flow and cadence of the slideshow in alignment with my presentation planted ideas in my students' creative minds.

This past Saturday's class session was also an embarkation to a higher-level of success and their first Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification exam. For the first four weeks, most students gained their sea legs with some already running instead of walking or crawling. With the next three weeks' activities fully published in Canvas and the MO-100 Word certification exam at the end of that three weeks, a handful of students are already sailing flank speed ahead passing their markers in Chapter 4 Microsoft Word ^_^

Before class ended, Khylie, Elijah, Diego, and Kimberly expressed interest to be the first to participate in A5 Slideshow Presentation. Khylie has already sent in her draft version slideshow and just now, I see Tsz's Task 2 of A3 Tailored Cover Letter and Resume in my email Inbox :-)

John Oliver's Facial Recognition video from my previous blog post definitely opened some eyes and dropped some jaws. This week's 7 min 45 sec video on Deep Fake will likely do more!

Students, please share your professional thoughts on what you learned from this Deep Fake video in your comment to this blog post.

Trio of Assignments and Facial Recognition

Yesterday was the third classroom session of IS101-3003, Spring 2023. Tsz earned the highest score on Bonus Quiz 3 – Jump Ahead & Special Characters in File Name. I am proud of the young man from Hong Kong ^_^

After walking through the results of BQ3, threaded discussion (TD)03 Unique Topic from 1.5.7/Sources Comparison, TD04 Email Inbox Rule(s), Blog Checkpoint, and How to correctly interpret your scores & progress in Canvas and completion in LabSim, I concluded the class session with the first of series lectures: L1 Hardware, Troubleshoot, End-User Cyber Security.

As BQ03 enticed students to jump ahead to read about A3 Tailored Cover Letter and Resume, the PowerPoint version of my L1 gave students a glimpse into A5 Slideshow Presentation, and the webpage version of my L1 not only contains focused reiteration of some key points that will help students with next Saturday's BQ4 Display, Shift/Ctrl, Boot-up, Binary, IPOS, but also contains a link to one of the five sample homepages I created to help students conceptualizing and designing their own homepage for A4 Homepage, Website, Online Publishing. One requirement for designing A4's homepage is the use of a table or tables to align contents instead of using tabs, spaces, or other means from Microsoft Word that do not translate to a webpage. My students will learn about tables in Microsoft Word in a few weeks.

L1 Hardware, Troubleshoot, End-User Cyber Security

http://poorrichard.atwebpages.com/Slide01.htm

L1 Hardware, Troubleshoot, End-User Cyber Security (Tables' Borders Visible)

http://poorrichard.atwebpages.com/Slide01 (Borders Visible).htm

The fourteen students are occupying the full range on the progress spectrum. Majority are keeping up the semester timetable with a few working ahead and a few falling behind. I hope more will join the frontrunners and the few that are behind the curve will resolve the challenges in their life and catch-up.

Continuing from the last week's video of Artificial Intelligence (AI), here is a video on one area where AI plays an integral role: Facial Recognition: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). The video may be from two years ago and the topic is at least a several years old but the implications are just beginning to be vetted.

Note 1: Viewer discretion is advised as the 21-min video contains strong languages and John Oliver's brand of humor. If you are under the age of 18 and cannot obtain your parent's permission, let me know and I will give you an alternate assignment in place of watching this video.

Note 2: When I tried to search for this video through Blogger's YouTube video search/insert function, Blogger (owned by Google) would not return it -- along with almost all of John Oliver's videos -- as a search result. Hence, I inserted a screen capture of his video and pointed you to the URL. If that doesn't work, visit https://youtube.com and search for this video.

The five statements that stood out for me are:

 (1) Driver license photos from residents of these states (including Nevada)

 (2) 'Skynet but good'

 (3) Only 8 out of 42 matches were verifiably correct

 (4) "...argues that it has a First Amendment right to harvest data from social media."

 (5) "...'unconventional databases' for 'extreme opposition research'..."

These funny lines stood out for me as well: 'loser fish', 'your brain autocompleted the rest', and 'accidentally made tennis interesting for a day'.

Students, please share your professional thoughts on what you learned from his video in your comment to this blog post :-)