Author: Ashley Apostol

Ashley Apostol is a sophomore at the University of Michigan - Dearborn majoring in Instructional Technology. She has always had an interest in using and learning about technology and knew that it was something she wanted to do in her life.

How ledes can capture your attention

Today, I clicked on the news tab on Google and was looking at the headlines. One headline caught my eye. It was U.S teenager jailed for smuggling tiger across Mexico border. The headline made me curious about what happened, so I clicked the article and read it.

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The lede from the article is “A US teenager has been sentenced to six months in prison after he was found guilty of trying to smuggle a Bengal tiger cub across the US-Mexico border. The six-week-old cub was found in a box on the floor of the teenager’s car as he was crossing from Mexico into the US near the city of San Diego.”

The lede does capture the 5 W’s and H.

Who: A U.S teenager

What: Sentenced to six months in prison

Where: U.S and Mexico

When: After smuggling a Bengal tiger

Why: Smuggling a Bengal tiger

How: The teenager’s car

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The images the article included were pictures of the tiger. The story happened in August 2017, but the sentencing happened today. There’s a link to the original article and other related links about the smuggling of exotic animals.

When googling the headline, there are other links from various media outlets that covered the same story. The image that shows up is the picture of the Bengal tiger that was taken in 2017.

Gun ownership and gun homicide interactive map

During my Public Health course, my professor wanted to talk about the recent school shooting in Florida. She wanted us to me informed about the importance of knowing the dangers of guns and talk about ideas to stop what’s happening. She shared a lot of data charts and articles and I managed to find a few of them.

Gun Violence Archive

Mass shooting: How U.S gun culture compares with the rest of the world

Gun Policy

10 Pro – Gun Myths, Shot Down

Trump Signs Bill Revoking Obama-Era Gun Checks for People with Mental Illnesses

Gun Violence by The Numbers

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When finding these sites, I found an interactive map that shows the gun ownership and gun homicides of the world. You can click on any country and it will give you the rank of the country of ownership of guns and the number of homicides in the past year. You can also look at homicide by firearm per every 100,000 population and percent of homicide by firearm.

Out of the whole world, the U.S is ranked 1st in civilian gun ownership that averages 70 – 100 firearms per 100 people.

They also have a link to a Google fusion table that shows all the countries and the statistics of each of them.

Canva, a free custom graphics tool

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Canva home screen.

Canva is a tool to create graphics of many sorts, such as, posters, postcards, banners, and much more. Canva is an free and easy to use builder that anyone can customize. There are templates that you can use that come in various sizes for a specific poster you want. The templates include:

  • Social Media Posts
  • Documents
  • Blogging & eBooks
  • Marketing Materials
  • Social Media & Email headers
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Canva templates

Once you choose you template, you can choose your own layout. With this, you can change the colors of the poster, font, and images. There are tons of combinations that you can choose from. You can also start from a blank template, if you don’t want to start on a pre-made template.

I have used Canva various times in high school to create posters for upcoming events. I still use Canva now for classes that I need to make a custom graphic.

Donut Menu
An example of a Canva image that I made in one of my courses.

 

Using Google fusion tables

Google fusion tables is a new type of tool for me to use. The step-by-step guide helped me create the fusion table. First, I looked up the the voter turnout in the State of Michigan in 2016. I downloaded the excel document and edit a few things on there, such as, deleting the county code.

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I downloaded Google fusion tables through Google Drive and uploaded the excel document on there. After that, a map of Michigan and dots appear. Now, I can share this map with anyone.

Comparing 4-year colleges in Michigan using a data set

One of the main reasons why I came to the University of Michigan – Dearborn was because of how close the university is from my home. Based on the comparative report, the University of Michigan –Dearborn for in-state students are:

  • In-state tuition: $9,788.00
  • Books & supplies: $960.00
  • Room & board: $1,600.00
  • Transportation: $1,556.00
  • expenses: $1515.36
  • Total: $15,419.36

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I do not know exactly when this report was created, but mlive, a local and statewide news group, they reported on 15 universities in Michigan about their tuition cost in 2017-2018. Here is the information that they reported on the University of Michigan – Dearborn.

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  • Tuition and mandatory fees: $11,792;
  • Room and board: $8,272*;
  • Total for tuition and room/board: $20,064;
  • Estimated total cost of attendance: $25,330.

The asterisk indicates the cost of living off campus because UM – Dearborn is a commuter college.

As you can tell, the cost of attendance has gone up immensely. While reading the mlive article, they linked another article about the difference between paying for college then and now. This article shows some data reports on the average in-state tuition from 1975 until 2016. When reading this article, you can see the difference between the years for in-state tuition.

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