FLUENCY IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

B Y V E R O N I C A S O L D A N I

COMPUTATIONAL THINKINGIn CSE 3: Fluency in Information Technology,

we learned how to utilize a number of different computer applications to get

information up and running on the internet. Using these applications to make information organized and aesthetically pleasing helps in

presenting oneself as a professional, regardless of one’s career.

MAKING INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO THE WORLD

WITH HTML AND WEB PAGESUsing basic HTML, I created a website that details the

courses I’m currently working on and the

professional goal I am working towards. I created

tables and headers, inserted pictures, and added links to other related webpages. I also learned to manipulate the background color and

font formatting using supplemental tags.

DESKTOP PUBLISHING WITH MS WORD

Using Microsoft Word, I created an organized document with a table of contents organizing the information by the headers I

created. I learned to utilize document themes in order to present data in a cleaner and more organized manner. At the

end of the documents, I inserted a summary of the information presented and a bibliography using MS Word’s bibliography

tool.

DATA ANALYSIS AND VISUALIZATION WITH

MS EXCEL

Many employers look for prospective employees with knowledge in Excel, for this application saves a considerable amount of time in presenting data

with it’s computational commands and chart options.

Using Microsoft Excel, I input data and numbers into a spreadsheet and applied computational

commands so the program would do the math for me. Once all the math was done, I created a pie chart and bar graph using the graph utility. This

application allowed me to visualize my future expenses and what I need to cut back on in order

to maximize my savings. It also helped in managing stocks. I was able to map out the month-long performance of a small group of

stocks I picked out. I added tags to show whether or not the income was rising, falling, or neutral

based on the calculations made in the “percentage of profit or loss” column. I used greater than/less than commands to let the

program know which symbol I wanted to represent which data set.

VISUAL PROGRAMMING WITH ALICEIn order to give us a taste of

JavaScript programming without jumping right in, we used Alice to

instantly see how loops, parameters, and nested loops work. In the clock lab, I used

nested loops to created a clock that works in real time. After the

seconds hand made a full rotation, the minute hand would move over one place. After the minute hand

made a full rotation, the hour hand would move over one place.

PRESENTATION OF INFORMATION WITH MS

POWERPOINTI used PowerPoint to display the charts I made in Excel in a presentation.

Giving each chart it’s own slide makes the information easy to go over when

making a presentation in front of a large group. I used a theme as well to make the information easier to look at.

In a presentation, PowerPoint gives the listeners a visual to pair with the

speech in order to help them to better understand the material.

DYNAMIC WEBPAGE PROGRAMMING WITH

JAVASCRIPTAfter we built a strong foundation of HTML knowledge, we used JavaScript to make our

webpages interactive using If/Else statements. In the first JavaScript page I created, the user is prompted with an alert

asking if they attended Sun God Festival. Based on the

responses, the web page presented one of four different

outcomes. I also created an interactive web order site for a fictional juice company using a

combination of If/Else statements and greater

than/less than commands.