Photoshop

I had a lot of fun with this assignment! I'm really excited that I now know how to digitally edit photos. When my friend got married, her photographer did a lot of this with her photos. She even had one where it was all black and white except her flowers were in color. I never understood how she did it, and I thought it was probably hard to do. However, after doing it myself in a photo I uploaded, it wasn't that hard at all. Photoshop made it very simple to edit all of my images I uploaded to the site. I loved how it gave you many options of pictures you could choose from when editing to see what you're final picture would look like. I will definitely be using this site again to edit more photos (especially my wedding photos). I'm so excited to know how to use these tools.

This whole module has really helped me learn how to work with different types of images and edit them in different ways. I'm excited to take all of this new learning out with me into my school life and my personal life! Here is my photoshop album. I uploaded three different pictures and edited them in different ways.

Web Albums

I had a lot of fun with this activity. I like that there are multiple places you can store your photos online. I have a lot of my photos on Facebook, but it's nice to know there are other places my photos can be stored (just in case). I decided to use the Picassa Photo program from Google for many reasons. First, we have been working a lot with Google, and I trust it. Second, it's free and easy to download. Last, it was easy to use. I figured sticking with Google for most of the projects I do for this class would be the best decision. Here is my online album that contains a few different albums within it. I will continue to update it as more pictures become available.

Web Album

Online Graph 2

Again, I created this graph in Google Documents using a spreadsheet. It works just like Microsoft Excel, so it made it very easy to put data in and create a chart. I found the five poorest states and listed them in order from lowest to highest on the chart (beginning with Mississippi and ending with Kentucky). I wanted to show both the per capita income of each state and the number of students on IEPs. When I went to go find the number of students on IEPs on the NAEP's website, it didn't show me that exactly. When I clicked on each state, it showed me the total enrollment in the state and the percentage of students on IEPs in the state. Then I convereted the percentage to a decimal and multiplyed it into the total enrollment; that's how I got the number of students on IEPs in each state.

By looking at the graph, it varies with the number of students on IEPs vs. per capita income of each state. The highest per capita income state on the graph, Kentucky, has the most number of students on Individualized Education Plans. The lowest per capita income state on the graph (and in the country) has more students on IEPs then the three states higher than it. West Virginia, which is the second lowest in per capita income state in the country, has the least number of students on IEPs on this whole graph.

Online Graph 1

I created this graph using a spreadsheet in Google Documents. I put my data into the spreadsheet and then created a chart based on the data of WV 4th grade math score averages vs. the national averages. After I labeled everything on the chart, I saved the image on my desktop. Then, I added the image into my blog by clicking on "add image" in this post.

After making this graph, it surprised me how close WV was to the National Average. For some reason, I always thought we did worse in math than most states. From the year 2000-2007, the National Average seems to be increasing; however, the WV state average seems to be very close to the National Average with 5-10 point differences. In the year 2000, WV was only 1 point under the National Average. In 2003, WV was 3 points under the National Average. However, in 2005 there was a little larger gap with WV being 6 points under the National Average. In addition, in 2007, WV was again 6 points under the National Average. These aren't terrible gaps, but if they continue to increase... that would not be good for WV in Mathematics. WV's math scores seem to be decreasing from the National Average as the years go on; and if we're not careful... WV's math scores could decrease even more. It was good that we were close in 2000 and 2003, but we need to strive to rise above the National Average.