Final Project!
http://natgray23.wix.com/thomas-jefferson
Thomas Jefferson made his mark in history through the dedication that he applied to his everyday life, both personally and politically. He is celebrated for his renowned work as a writer and political leader. From being known as a founding father and drafting the Declaration of Independence, to creating the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson was arguably one of the most important people in the history of America. The contributions that Jefferson made throughout his lifetime helped to shape the America that we know today.
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13th 1743 at the Shadwell plantation near Charlottesville Virginia His father, Peter Jefferson was an extremely successful planter and surveyor and his mother, Jane Randolph was a member of one Virginia’s most well known families. Jefferson began his schooling at the early age of nine, and by his second year of schooling he was already learning French, Greek, and Latin. In 1760 at the age of 16, Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, where he met his law professor George Wythe. Jefferson graduated college after only two years and immediately began working for Wythe as a law clerk, which helped him to become one of the most well known lawyers in the United States. Jefferson’s carried his dedication to learning with him, even after his school years. After practicing law for several years Jefferson met and fell in love with widow Martha Wayles. On January 1st, 1772 Martha and Thomas married and had two children together, Martha and Mary.
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson was chosen as a member of the continental congress to draft a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Adopted by the continental congress, the document stated that all men are created equal, and that all men have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence is a symbol of America’s independence from Great Britain. Those that signed the Declaration of Independence were known as the founding fathers and included Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. July 4th is now known as Independence Day, and is a national holiday celebrated in the U.S. People, independence, laws, declaration, states, right, and government are some of the most common words mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. These words give a great representation of what this piece of writing is all about.
Jefferson then moved on to serve as Virginia’s governor, which happened to be the low point in his career. He left the political world in 1781 and re-entered it in 1785 when he replaced Benjamin Franklin as a U.S. minister to France. Jefferson spent about five years in Paris with his family. Because Jefferson was serving his time in Paris, he was not able to make the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Although he was not physically present, the Democratic-Republican managed to express his conservative views. Jefferson returned to the United Stated in 1790.
Upon Jefferson’s arrival back to the United States, George Washington asked him to work as his secretary of state during his presidency. During Washington’s time in office was when America developed two different political parties. These two parties had two very different opinions on how the government should be run. The Democratic-Republicans were under Thomas Jefferson, and the Federalists were under Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson believed that each state should consist of their own strong and local governments, while Hamilton and the Federalists advocated for a strong national government. Jefferson’s form of government was more popular, and the Democratic-Republicans eventually split into the liberal democrats and the conservative republicans we know today.
Jefferson ran for president in 1796 after Washington’s term, but lost to John Adams. He defeated Adams four years later however, and became the third president of the United States; accompanied by Aaron Burr as his vice president. During Jefferson’s presidency, he managed to reduce the size of the armed forces and government, end tax on whiskey, suspend all trade with Europe through the Embargo Act, and purchase the Louisiana Territory back from France.
From 1699-1762 France had control over the Louisiana Territory. In 1762 France gave the territory away to Spain, but got it back in 1800. As president, Jefferson purchased the territory from France for 50 million dollars. The Louisiana territory involved about 14 states total, but only six entire states. The map to left represents the six states that were entirely involved in the Louisiana Purchase. Another one of Jefferson’s greatest accomplishments was the creation of the University of Virginia in 1819. Jefferson was involved in almost every aspect of the founding. He created the University’s layout and design, planned the curriculum, and even recruited the university’s first staff. The university is known for its the “Rotunda” located on the lawn, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome.
In order to preserve my project and ensure its security overtime, I will check up on my project periodically throughout the year. Checking on my project will help me to ensure that my site is still holding up and running, and it will also give me the opportunity to revise my work and fix anything that I think might need fixing. By editing my project throughout the years, I hope to build a strong piece of work that I could use to show to future employers, in my field of Public Relations. In addition to checking up on my project, I will save the written paragraphs of text to my desktop, which I also always back up onto an external hard dive. In the case that my computer were to crash, all of my files are always stored on my secondary hard drive. Luckily most of what I created on Google is also automatically stored on my Gmail account, giving me a third form of storage. I believe that checking on my project and backing up all of its information are the best solutions to preserving my project throughout time.
HW #12-Archive a Website
I looked up Amazon.com on archive.org.
Currently, Amazon’s layout is extremely easy to understand and navigate. There is a large white search bar at the top center, a shopping cart at the top right, and advertisements all along the side of the page.
In November of 2003, the site’s layout looked rather different. The search bar is to the far left, and does not come across as a search bar as easily as it currently does. There are tabs at the top and center that give the different categories such as ‘apparel and accesories’ or ‘electronics’. Rather than the advertistments being on the side of the page, the advertisment was right in the middle of the Amazon page in 2003.
In October of 2009, the site differed as well. There are the many different categories on the left hand side, separating the subcategories by use of a different color. The shopping cart and account information is present on the top right, and the search bar is at the very top of the page.
Archive.org could end up being an extremely helpful tool in departments such as graphic deisgn. To have the ability to do this is highly interesting and entertaining!
Improved PowerPoint on Independence Day!
Upon review of my PowerPoint, I realized that it could use some improvement. Take a look!
3-Slide Historical Presentation-HW #10
I chose to create my historical, 3-slide presentation on Independence Day in the United States!
Charts of My Life-HW #9
While messing around with Google Charts, I found myself easily navigating through the options. I also found Google Charts to be less complicated than Microsoft Excell. I’m really glad I can now consider using Google Charts in my final assignment!
Historical Map HW #8
I created a historical map of universities in Virginia that I could think of at the top of my head as being named after famous, historical people! This is the map that I came up with:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
208663843708065294565.0004d8b366e2b96ff89ae
P.S. I almost added UVA in there because it was founded by Jefferson, but he unfortunately did not name the place after himself.
P.P.S. I finally figured out how to find my map’s link to copy & paste and share on my blog. I couldn’t figure out how to do this last blog-I guess practice makes perfect afterall!
Google Runs The World!
Through this blog assignment, I have realized the amount of tools that Google has to offer. I have always used Google as my search engine, and I even use Google Chrome as my web browser, but it wasn’t until just recently that I started to use some of Google’s other tools. I am involved in Greek Life at Mason, and there are over one hundred girls in my sorority. There are many things that we must all discuss, and it is not always easy to meet up to discuss them. Instead, a Google Doc spreadsheet is sent to each of our e-mail addresses, and we are able to communicate through that. Google Charts seems interesting to me, due to the fact that I am INCAPABLE of operating Microsoft Excel (I am jealous of those who can). Google Charts gives a good description of each of its features. As for Google Maps, I had always used it to print out directions, but I was never aware of all of the other features that Google Maps has. For example, using Google Earth through Google Maps gives me the ability to view my beach house in Bethany Beach, Delaware from my tiny little computer screen-that is awesome! Of course, I had also never used “My Maps” in Google Maps, and despite the tutorials I could not figure out how to export my map as KML, but I have a screenshot of my map titled Colleges I’ve Visited.
Colleges I’ve Visited!
HW #5-Ethics & Legality
For homework #5, I chose to observe the TeachersPayTeachers website. TeachersPayTeachers allows teachers to buy or sell downloadable, educational material. The teaching material can be original copies of works or the material can be created by the teacher themselves. The website is easy to navigate and is organized nicely in tabs by subject, type of resource, and price. TeachersPayTeachers relies on reviews from users to give information about the different resources. Available for viewing are a product’s product overview, ratings and comments, questions about the product, and questions about the seller of a product.
As to whether or not the idea of this website is legal, I am not too sure. However, it is not illegal to sell an old textbook on Amazon, and isn’t that kind of the same idea? Picture two 1st grade teachers with different classes whose classrooms are next door to each other in an elementary school. Those 1st graders are most likely learning the same material, so it is likely that those neighboring teachers discuss how their classes are doing. Maybe they even show each other their lesson plans or allow them to borrow each other’s used books. Would these elementary school teachers be likely to get in trouble for this? Most likely not. I think that the only difference between this scenario and TeachersPayTeachers is that TeachersPayTeachers is a website which is open to the public. If in any way this website had any illegal value, there would be more of a chance for those using it to get caught.
As for ethics, I believe that this website is indeed ethical. The internet is used for so many different purposes and so many different people are active online. TeachersPayTeachers is a website that teachers can benefit from. They can discuss and exchange their different opinions. This website is no less ethical than someone burning a CD of music from their music library and giving it to a friend, and many people have partaken in that. There are so many factors that go into whether or not this website is legal and or ethical, however, if the website is still up and running then that must mean that no one else finds the website to be a problem either! TeachersPayTeachers is to teachers as Facebook is to us college kids.
HW 4-Feb 18-20
I) Whois.com
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
Domain Name: UH.EDU
Registrant:
University of Houston
4800 Calhoun Road
Houston, TX 77204
UNITED STATES
Administrative Contact:
Dennis Fouty
University of Houston
221 E. Cullen Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-2770
UNITED STATES
(832) 842-4603
@uh.edu
Technical Contact:
Charles Chambers
Manager of Network Planning and Development
University of Houston – Information Technology
5000 Gulf Freeway
UBP3 Room 277A
Houston, TX 77204-4012
UNITED STATES
(832) 842-4624
@uh.edu
Name Servers:
NS1.UH.EDU 129.7.1.1
NS2.UH.EDU 129.7.1.6
MESQUITE.CC.UH.EDU 66.140.111.1
Domain record activated: 21-Oct-1987
Domain record last updated: 08-May-2012
Domain expires: 31-Jul-2013
II) Wikipedia search: John F. Kennedy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy
I searched John F. Kennedy in Wikipedia. This Wikipedia page is extremely details and provides contents that range from “early life and education” to “administration” and “assassination”. While looking into the history of this page I noticed that in its lifetime the page had received over 500 edits. I noticed that in place of the “edit” tab was a tab labeled “sources”. When I clicked the “sources” tab, it told me that I did not have access to this page. I was not able to edit or even see the sources used on the page because of how important a figure Kennedy is in regards to history; and Wikipedia has experts in charge of writing and editing his Wikipedia change as time goes on.
III) Jane Browning’s Blog:
Browning broke her research down and pinpointed the ideas that she needed to cover in order to make her argument much stronger. First, she wanted to see if she could find any newspaper articles of robberies that happened on the bay, as well as the social history of Virginia and Maryland during that time. Second, Browning would talk to locals and see what they have to say about this “tale”. She then planned on looking up the crime in the area to find the time period that this pirate would most likely have been around in. Lastly, Browning would try to discover the type of boat the pirate had as well as any other accessories that he used.
Browning then went on to research the following topics: Pirate facts, history on the restaurant that first prompted her research idea, the Local Jargon, the panic of 1873 which was a financial crisis, etcetera. Even after all of her research she still did not feel comfortable with the information she had gathered.
Eventually, Browning found enough research material to make her research topic successful. Although Browning’s research topic was probably a difficult one to work with, she still managed to make it work by finding information from a variety of different sources. Not only did she find information from the library and internet, but she actually made phone calls and met with different individuals, such as Edward Owens, and in the end gathered enough information.
HW #3-Research Question
Research question: How do dogs benefit human health?
By using Mason’s ProQuest Historical Newspapers database, I was able to find an article related to my research question. The article, By improving pain treatment, therapy in dogs, research offers medical insight for humans, discusses various ways in which dogs can help doctors better understand human health. After surgery in both humans and dogs, doctors and vets commonly use ice or hot packs to reduce swelling. Researcher Ralph Millard discovered that in dogs there is no need to cold pack anything longer than 10 minutes because after 10 minutes there is no great change in temperature. Because cold and hot packing is a procedure used in humans as well, the 10-minute frame is is likely to apply to humans too. The article explains how researchers are also researching a common painkiller used in dogs, and the comparison in dosages between them and humans.
This article explains ways in which dogs can literally benefit human health, but there is another way too. Even just owning a dog can make a person that much happier, and a happy person makes for a healthy lifestyle. Dogs are great companions and it is good to know that they have the capability to benefit human health in so many different ways.
A link to a photo found on Flickr:
A link to the article:
http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/careerhealth/docview/1081989745/13C2627F2A54D689345/1?accountid=14541