Soaring, First Exam, Remember and Honor

Since our final class session two weeks ago, Diego and Jimena made a mad dash to wrap-up their outstanding tasks before the deadline for me to submit student grades and became the seventh and eight Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Associates.

Kimberly received a semester extension to help mitigate the hardship that distracted her for much of the middle third our semester together. After seeing her hard work, I'm glad to see the young lady excited to attend Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC). Despite the mishap, I hope she will attend next year.

I am pleased to see Linette, Heather, Kimberly, Tsz, and Elijah continuing to comment on their classmates' blog posts after the semester officially concluded ^_^

Last Monday, Tsz conquered MO-400 Outlook. To prepare for the final certification exam between the ambitions young man and a MOS Homerun, Tsz completed and sent in his A8 Query Options and IF Statement on the morning of this Memorial Day.

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Thank you Elijah and Diego for your service in the U.S. Navy :-)

Next week, Kimberly will take on MO-100 Word and Tsz will take on MO-101 Word Expert. I wish both students success. After Kimberly wraps up her outstanding items, I will compile the student highlights & achievements and draft my closing blog post for IS101-3003, Spring 2023!

First MOS Expert and Potential Grand Slam!

Today may have been the final class session, but I have until this coming Wednesday to submit students' grades and will continue to help students in catching/cleaning-up for each student to finish IS101-3003, Spring 2023 strong! Even afterward, I will help each student go above-and-beyond IS101.

Last evening, Linette took on and passed MO-300 PowerPoint and became the sixth Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Associate. Bonus Quiz 14 – OLE, Average, URL, IPOS Perspective, Bloom’s Taxonomy launched today's class session. Elijah and Heather scored the highest on this capstone bonus quiz.

I then shined spotlights on various students' achievements and distinctions throughout the semester, the details of which will be the glorious centerpiece of a future blog post. The final hour of our official gathering saw Elijah catapulting our imagination into orbit with a very brief introduction to rocket design as his A10 Improved Slideshow Presentation.

The space rocket enthusiast not only made me proud by applying my feedback on his A5 Slideshow Presentation to his A10 but managed to touch my heart again as he had done with A5 with his poignant tributes to the astronauts that lost their lives in their missions.

Elijah's improved slideshow (a) incorporated vibrant images that accentuated each topic throughout the presentation while leaving no empty areas on each slide, (b) applied animation effects, slide transitions, and motion paths that complimented the moving objects, and (c) required NO polishing from me but I will help him shrink the 20MB PowerPoint file without any noticeable loss in visual quality.

Elijah's leveraged a laser pointer to help the audience to follow his focus during the presentation.

Elijah's Q & A session was immersive as he brought components – both 3D-printed and electronic devices – for the audience to touch, explore, and pass around.

Any or all of those three attributes would not have earned him bonus credit on this bonus assignment, but this did: the evening before his presentation, Elijah shared with me that knowing Tsz's language gap, he will print out his slideshow with notes so Tsz can better follow along but he will have printouts for everyone so to NOT single out Tsz.

During my closing review of Elijah's A10, I commended Elijah's for his thoughtfulness toward his classmate but for the benefit of all students, I had to shared the reason that earned Elijah bonus credit on this bonus assignment. With practice and creativity, anyone can create a dazzling slideshow; with confidence and passion, anyone can delivery a memorable presentation; but knowing the audience's need and take an extra step to not only help with that need while avoiding singling out an audience member is not only the hallmark of a good presenter but a good human being ^_^

Elijah's A10 not only served to close out our final official gathering on a memorable note but opened the door for the former U.S. Navy sailor to hit a Grand Slam: (1) achieving a MOS Homerun, (2) exemplary performance on my bonus quizzes, and (3) completing all ten of my signature assignments.

Elijah has satisfied (2) with his stellar performance on BQ12 – Microsoft Excel 2019 and Spreadsheet Analysis and BQ13 – Apex of Excel. I have no doubt he will conquer MO-101 Word Expert and MO-201 Excel Expert to hit (1). I wonder if Elijah will have the hunger to complete A8 Query Options and IF Statement, A9 Workbook Investigation, A3 Tailored Cover Letter and Resume, and A4 Homepage, Website, Online Publishing? If so, he would be the second student of mine – ever – to achieve (3).

Linette and Jimena stayed after class to catch-up and clean-up while Tsz continued with his Speed Run MO-201. Tsz stayed long after both ladies left and his hard work paid off as he conquered MO-201 and emerged as the first MOS Expert of IS101-3003, Spring 2023  :-)

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Students,

I look forward to helping you catching-up and cleaning-up this coming week and showcasing everyone's achievements and distinctions in my next blog post.

To conclude my run on the John Oliver videos, please watch this 22:07 min video on Ransomware. 

Back in the Spring 2017 semester, I shared with my students that 2016 had the highest number of ransomware attacks in recent years and a student shared with me that he had never heard of the term 'ransomware'. From the 2021 video, I learned about the three factors that likely contributed to that surge in 2016. Thank you John Oliver.

What I also appreciate are his three advices:

 (1) Enable multi-factor authentication to make hacking your accounts less easy for bad actors. Remember Mat Honan's Epic Hack?

 (2) Keep your computer update to date with antivirus software & operating system fixes, patches, and updates.

 (3) Don't click on suspicious links or emails.

Please share your professional thoughts on what you learned from his video in your comment to this blog post.

Second Breakout Student, Cryptocurrencies II (Two)/Due Diligence

This morning, Elijah took on MO-400 Outlook and MO-500 Access back-to-back, conquered them, is halfway to becoming an MOS Expert, and is halfway to hitting a MOS Homerun! I am proud of this 3-D printing and quantum computing enthusiast as he is the second student to go above-and-beyond in pursuing additional MOS certifications ^_^

I kicked off this past Saturday's class session with recognitions of students' achievements so far. I will continue next week in our final class session for IS101-3003, Spring 2023. Kimberly and Jan took center stage afterward, educating the class on the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), where Kimberly will be on the weekend after our semester ends, and Bulgaria, Jan's birth country. After walking through the polishing process from draft version to the final version of their slideshows, I continued to review capstone assignments with each student.

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Kimberly concluded with some practical safety advice should one attend EDC: to mitigate risks such as dehydration, heatstroke, overdoses, and mosh pits; (a) take advantage of free water stations at the festival, (b) seek out medical professionals onsite, and (c) be cognoscente of and take action to leave or mitigate moshing situations.

I have heard of this electronic dance festival before but I was not aware of its contribution to our economy. According to two articles, last year EDC generated a total economic output of $336.7 million and seven years ago, $1.3 billion. I may not attend Electric Daisy Carnival, but I'm glad EDC comes to us every year.

During the questions and answers round after Jan's presentation, the polite young man responded that Bulgaria invented yogurt and he didn't include food as that would make his presentation run longer than the allotted time. I applaud his decision and think he made his birth country proud by showcasing its flag, geography, economy, exports, and culture.

I looked up Bulgaria's invention of yogurt and found that There are many Bulgarian inventions acknowledged internationally, way beyond the Bulgarian yogurt and the 1st computer. Thank you, Bulgaria. I hope Jan will contribute to that list in the future :-)

Before he left the classroom, Androw took and passed MO-300 PowerPoint, becoming the fifth MOS Associate from IS101-3003, Spring 2023.

As a follow-up to the video in my previous blog post, I wonder what my students think of what they learned from this 24 min 13 sec John Oliver video: Crytopcurrencies II (Two)?

From Live-Remote to In-Person, Cryptocurrencies I (One)/Responsibility

We are approaching the finish line for the semester. Some even exclaimed it's almost over. The Spring 2023 semester may be reaching its conclusion but one's digital literacy journey is constantly evolving and never-ending ^_^

This past Saturday's class session marked the first time Jimena is able to attend the class in-person instead of via live-remote since her life-changing experience at the beginning of the semester. The excitement of this first in-person appearance was amplified as I help her resolve a technical issue so she can send the completed version of her draft slideshow to me.

I transformed her draft slideshow during class and walked through the process with the young lady before her presentation time. The rest of the class put this time to productive use :-) For the final portion of the class session, Diego shared his Five Years in the U.S. Navy and Jimena highlighted The Dark Side of Las Vegas' Population Boom: Traffic Woes and Economy Concerns.

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From his two deployments in the U.S. Navy, Diego has visited these exotic locations: Guam; Busan; South Korea; Manila; Philippines; Singapore; Pattaya; Thailand; Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE); Manama, Bahrain; Suez Canal; Marseille, France; and Rock of Gibraltar, Spain.

Jimena had compiled some great statistics in her slideshow, it would be a crime to not share it:

• Average driver spent 21.6 hours sitting in traffic during peak commuting times all of last year in Las Vegas, ranking 333rd out of 1,064 cities around the globe, according to a report released by Inrix, a transportation analysis company.

• Being stuck in traffic cost the average Las Vegas driver $1,022 last year and roughly $715 million combined for the region.

• With the rise of COVID-19 and rising inflation, the second quarter of 2020 saw a 14% increase in traffic fatalities over the second quarter of 2019.

• 3,616 traffic fatalities in the first six months of 2020.

• According to the National Safety Council (NSC), “traffic fatalities in the first six months of 2020 were up 9% over 2019.”

• The NSC reported that in 2022 there has been a 24% increase in fatal accidents this year.

As we approach the final three weeks of Spring 2023, I'll kick off the final trio of John Oliver videos with Crytopcurrencies I (One), a 25 min 20 sec from five years ago. I wonder what my students think of cryptocurrencies...