U-Blog 6 (How I feel about multiple tests during the week)

For some reason ever since I have been in college I have always had multiple tests in the same week. For instance this week I had six tests within three days. I really don't understand how this happens, it almost feels like every teacher gets together and says to one another, "Ok, well when is your test going to be? Well thats good I will put my test right after that one just to see if they can handle it." To be honest, this wouldn't surprise me if this actually did go on within departments. In actuality though, this is not the only time it has happened. I remember having six tests within two days on some occasions, and not to mention finals a week after. Its a good thing I don't stress out hardly at all and can occasionaly do well either way. Although I do know quite a few people who can't handle all the tests on top of one another and ending up failing them one after another, even if they know the material. I feel for those types of people, but as for me I am glad I don't sleep that often in order to stay on top of weeks like these.

U-Blog 5

I got the opportunity to volunteer at the Lowman Home again for training and I found it to be even more interesting then the first time. I know that they wanted to know alot of information since the last time I was present but it did not occur to me exactly how much. I helped out with someone else's presentation this time and I think they may have spent a total of 5 minutes on the actual presentation and another hour and a half giving hands on training. Most of the problems we encountered weren't exactly our fault I do believe, do to the fact that some of the computers didn't have sound cards and the presentation was for listening to music from CD's and burning CD's. I think the presenters just skipped the burning process altogether due to the fact that none of the computers even had CD Rewritable drives. All and all, I felt we got alot done with that presentation, but I still feel as if we should have better equipment there in order for them to understand even more than what they do now.

U-Blog 4

Discussing this last assignment we had about workshops, I felt the need to talk about public speaking. In my opinion, public speaking is an rare form to have in which very few people actually shine in. I know plenty of people who would not be caught dead on stage and tend to freeze when talking in front of a small group of people much less an auditorium. I think it is important to try to overcome these fears and to realize that all it is, is an presentation. Of course this presentation might be of some great importance and in some cases be worth something to someone, but it is important to realize that the speaker is up there for a reason, even if it is to pass the time. Alot of public speakers tend to be good at what they do because they understand the purpose of relaying the information to someone else. They feel that they can make a difference in someone else's life if they express their opinion about a current situation to others.
This is definitely the case for Pastors and Missionaries. Most people in religion will travel from one place to another just trying to reach out to others with what they have to say. Alot of them will say, "if I get through to one person, then I have fulfilled my purpose." In which they are not too far from the truth. Pastor Billy Graham, has taught religion to millions of people worldwide and allowing them to have a better understanding of Jesus Christ. Without him, there would probably still be plenty of people that were saved by him, lost. In other words I am just trying to throw an example or two about how important it is to have public speaking as an asset to yourself.
I guess this all goes back to Dr. Norris's presentation to the students at the Create IT computer camp workshop. He kept the students interested in what he had to say and made sure that he made his point across. I felt that this was an incredible asset to have and to change someone's understanding about IT. This was brought to my attention and helped me realize why I enjoy his classes so much and actually look forward to his class instead of something like my physics class in which i dread going to.

U-Blog 3

I had the opportunity to volunteer at the IT Create Computer Camp this past weekend. I found the experience to be quite satisfying in which I could help high school kids understand the components found inside of a laptop and allow them to see the options they have as far as operating systems and programs available that they might not have known about. One great example that I found was that hardly any of the high school students knew that Ubuntu (linux operating system) existed and were amazed at how easy it was to navigate and that they could still use programs such as Open Office to create their word documents, powerpoints, spreadsheets, etc. Pretty much everything that they could do from the Microsoft Office program. I think it is important to open up people to these sort of ideas because they are the future of our program and need to be kept up to date on what is out there that could potentially be the future of the IT industry.

U-Blog 2

Several students have been using this link as a primary example of 11% decrease in corporate training funds as an issue. I currently could not agree more to he honest. Having any sort of loss at all does not influence moral nor does it show that the company will be able to bounce back from its losses. I currently hope that with the way the economy is going that it will not continue to drop, but eventually pull back up. I still push pretty hard the fact that we need to invest our time and money wisely into corporate training in order to fulfill the needs of our clients in the future.

U-Blog 1 Corporate Training Input

For my unstructured blog I decided to write about my feelings about corporate training in the workplace. Corporate Training is quite possibly the most important aspect of any business for their employees. Working in a information technology environment I have become self aware of the actions of certain employees who do not understand the same aspects about certain issues that occur in the IT workplace. This is due to the lack of corporate training that was involved from the start of their work. For example, we have a series of programs that the developers have produced for manufacturing work throughout the workplace. If one of these programs fails the operator of that program is suppose to call us to verify the problem regardless of their computer knowledge, (which in most cases is very little). This is where the problems take place, because the two operators that are trying to handle the situation do not have very much knowledge about the subject, this is why the corporate training is so important. Because, if the operators or at least one operator actually knew about the program to begin with then the downtime of this problem would have been minimal.
This is was not the situation with myself, because I had to research and find out about the program myself from the computer knowledge that I had, because I still received hardly any training on the situation. Of course my job description is just to relay the information to the programmers, it helps when I can verify the problem myself and are able to solve it without having to wake people up at 2 in the morning. I hope that more corporate training can be implemented to insure that people can work smarter and not harder for the workplace and maintain valuable job security.

Workplace Learning

Reading a lot about workplace learning it made me realize how much we need to work harder and smarter to prepare for the future. Everyday we hear about how different countries are just absolutely surpassing us in every way possible and we are quickly falling behind in just about every category. Workplace learning is no different, with our economy crumbling before our eyes it is essential that we continue workplace learning in our designated workplace.
I know at my current place of work, we rely heavily on workplace learning. All the way from learning to basics to the expert stuff of other departments, we have to be ready for anything regardless of what we learned in school. That is why in a lot of cases, people that do not have a degree but just alot of experience in what they are doing will get the job they are looking for regardless. I think workplace learning is essential to every environment and should be enforced and recognized as more of an requirement than anything else. I enjoyed reading these articles and it helps me realize that there are more people out there that want to push the subject, like myself.