Family History Project

This website has a lot of information about my great-grandfathers ship and all of the things created about it.

Books about the USS Mason

Proud

DVD based on the true and heroic story of the USS Mason, a Navy battleship manned by an African-American crew during WWII, when segregation was still enforced.

Based on the book Proudly We Served by Mary Pat Kelly.

Proudly We Served: 
The Men of the USS Mason
by Mary Pat Kelly

This book tells the story of these brave African-American men and their contributions to the Allied victory. Their success had a direct impact on President Harry S Truman's decision to integrate all of America's armed forces after the war. Recommended in 1944 for a commendation for their heroic actions during a violent storm, the Mason sailors finally received that commendation in 1995, after the publication of this book in hardcover and the release of a companion documentary. The men and ship have been further honored by the Navy's decision to name a new destroyer (DDG 87) after the Mason and propagate its proud heritage into the twenty-first century.
Hardcover, 220 pages
List price $15.95

Better Than Good: 
A Black Sailor's War, 1943 -1945
     Author Adolph Newton became one of the very few African Americans to serve in the general enlisted ranks rather than as a mess attendant. In this intense, long-overdue memoir, he describes his life as a black seaman on an integrated warship, explaining how he dealt with discrimination and personal freedom and how, despite the difficulties, he developed a lasting affection for the Navy. Newton's story is representative of a generation of African Americans who came of age during the war, needing to prove themselves by fighting for a country that had denied them the full benefits of citizenship. A landmark work, it is the first memoir to be published by a black sailor in the forefront of Roosevelt's order to integrate the Navy. Based on journals he kept during the war, the book retains the raw emotions and expressions of a young sailor in the 1940s. He speaks candidly of race relations and how his views evolved from conversations with southern blacks, confrontations with prejudiced whites, and encounters with Europeans. And his story does not stop at war's end. Unable to find civilian employment that utilized his technical skills, he reenlisted in 1946 only to find the Navy more rigid than during the war. His reflections on life as a young black man who knew that just being good was not good enough make an important contribution to the record.
Hardcover, 208 pages
List price $28.95

On Board the USS Mason: 
The World War II Diary of James A. Dunn
Hardcover, 130 pages

I copied and pasted this from the website. I own the book Proudly We Served and I am going to look into getting some of the others for my project. 

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Styles of infographics #2

Historical infographics are really popular. I believe this is because infographc are easily created from timelines and timelines are a huge part of history. These could also fall under the category of educational infographics but I believe these are so popular they deserve their own post.

Again if you cant see the picture very well check out www.coolinfographics.com because some images just don't handle getting put on blogger very well.

2000 Years of Continental Climate Changes

I really like how this one displays data so nicely and efficiently using almost no words.

The History Of Famous Logos

This infographic is more of a "fun" historical infographic it also has a really cool design and layout that makes it more interesting to read. 

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Will Richardson Ted Talk

We watched a Ted talk about making the learning process different and better. Although I love and try to use some of the ideas he speaks about in my everyday life. I have an ipad, in fact I'm on it right now. I can use the ipad to teach me everything my teachers are supposed to and way more. I utilize the opportunities given to me in order to help me be more successful in learning and life. The learning system that I am deeply engulfed in is troubled. The American learning system is failing many children. We need to adapt to the resources students have and the WAY STUDENTS LEARN. We have fast paced classes and slow paced classes but we need to add creativity into the learning process. Change will be hard change can take a long time. It needs to happen but I don't think it will, at least in my generation it won't. But that's not going to stop me from using it to help advance my sucess as a person.

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Styles of infographics.

So I haven't been on here as much this month because I have been really trying to boost the progress and group moral of my group blog but I have been working on a little series of posts where I  compare some popular styles of infographics. I have no idea how long I am going to do this or how many posts it will be because whenever I give myself any kind of guidelines like that I end up getting bored and or frustrated trying to live up to the expectations I have set for myself.

Ok so the first section is the advertisement. This is an infographic that is used to promote a company or topic. I posted a while ago about the PF Changs one which I really liked but there are so many more. I don't think using infographics as ads is a bad thing. I like how it incorporates more facts and statistics than a normal advertisement.

Some of these came out pretty badly in the save/insert process but you can see them all in their full glory on coolinfographics.com

Examples:

Hotels.com

Project Prediction

Sony Walkman

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Boston Explosion Infographic

Here are some infographics I found about the Bombings in Boston. They help visualize what happened and put it into some perspective. Some of them are kind of small but I tried to get the best quality/biggest version.

This one is my favorite its actually a gif. If you check out the website I linked you can see it in its full glory. 

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The importance of social media during a tragedy.

The idea for this post has come to my mind too many times recently. I'm not sure if this era has caused more tragedies or if it is publicising them more but modern journalism seems to rely heavily on tragic events. One of my teachers was talking about some information she had learned from a seminar on how to act during a school shooting. She said that we should stay off all social media and resist posting what is going on to twitter and to not try to contact any of your loved ones in order to keep the phone lines clear. And I agree with that...to a point. I agree that it probably smarter to resist calling people/the police in order to keep the radio towers clear. But if you have taken a picture or feel your life is in danger or have vital information regarding the incident I believe it is important to post it or share it somewhere. It is always important to stay safe and protect yourself before using social media. Social media connects us and allows people to share their vantage points on whatever they are doing and this is never more important than when people are killed or are in immediate danger. The internet holds so much information that could be really important to the officials trying to solve this crime. I believe that using social media to share info about a tragedy is a good thing

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Post Winning Entries

I am going to post some of the sample winning entries from the competition website. There are some really good ones in here. I don't know what to expect when I get there but If its anything like this I will definitely need to step up my skills a bit before the competition. My main goal is not to win it is to gain new experiences and try to create something I actually enjoy.

Year 2011-2012

This one is my favorite I really enjoy the little characters and how professional it looks. 

Year 2010-2011

I like the simple and straight forward approach in this infographic. I feel like I might be able to make something similar to this one. 

Year 2009-2010

This one is rather busy but I really like the theme and layout of the information.

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Making infographics.

Yesterday I made an infographic following the guidelines of the practice prompt for the journalism competition. But as I went to save it I messed something up and it deleted. I still wanted to document the progress I have made so I drew a very rough sketch of what I had made. I created this infographic on ease.ly and in order to make it more like the actual competition I didn't use any of the premade items and themes. 

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