This week we finished a lot of stuff up. This is our last blog and we had to turn our Wikipedia assignment in. In Wikipedia, my topic was Saxon Math and English. I was homeschooled second through sixth grade and had used this curriculum. I actually updated the Saxon Math Wiki post. I found several old sources and added a paragraph to update the previous article. In our content post for this week, I learned about how much damage could happen by just accepting terms of service. By accepting most of these you are agreeing to let other people look at all of your information. People will sell and collect all of this information. Make sure you always read through terms of service before accepting. Your personal information could be let out in the blink of an eye. Hope everyone is staying safe!

This week I learned about piggybacking. Piggybacking is when a neighbor or someone links to another persons internet. This is very unsafe. Piggybacking can cause theft of personal identification and can cause something as severe as stalking your social media and stalking you. This is a horrible thing that can happen. In MindTap this week, we learned about a lot of online communications. As we are going through this rough time, online is our main way to communicate to people as well as doing school work. Please keep security in mind when you are ordering online items, or communicating on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram and be very careful if you do Tik-Toks. These websites can be very dangerous if you are not following proper protocol including monitoring your passwords, friends and others who is watching your videos or trying to hack into your personal information or habits. This week in Wikipedia, I finally went through a list to make sure I have everything done with my article. I made all of the final touches to get ready to submit it. Please watch for my official editing and post of my Wiki on Saxon Mathmatics.

This week I learned about a lot of new technology and news. This week I researched into new types of operating systems. I researched Mac, Linux, Chrome, and Windows. All of these systems have strengths and weaknesses to make them great and growing systems. As I researched, I liked Mac the best. Even though Mac was the most expensive it is a really reliable source.I liked how Mac offers a very straightforward approach to computing. Apple is also a software developer and a device manufacturer. This means that they have optimized the MacOS to work seamlessly with all of the hardware components of a Mac device. This was also our last week for our Wikipedia article. I went through and touched it up, made all finishing touches and need to publish it. Stay safe and Healthy.

This is week 3 of social isolation. People are getting used to being online more. They are having to do things such as shopping, school work, and jobs online. Social media is the main way to socialize during this hard time. While students and parents are working from home they need more storage on their computers. They might also need external devices. This is when storage media comes in use. Storage media can store photos, videos, and a lot of information. External devices such as a mouse or keyboard can also be very useful as you are working from home. Everyone stay healthy and maintain social distancing.

This week I learned about input and output devices. Some input devices can include a keyboard, mouse or camera. An input device is a piece of computer hardware equipment used to provide data and send signals to a computer. An output device is any piece of computer hardware equipment which converts information into human-readable form. Output devices can include printers, monitors, and speakers. While typing this, I am using input and output. I am typing the words on a keyboard and this is sending the data to the computer to be displayed on the screen or monitor. The input and output devices work together to create newspapers, books, and any other written media. This week in my fine arts class I learned about different varieties of music. I listened to opera, jazz, decade music such as the 20’s and music styles I have never heard of. To create music, input and output devices are used. A microphone would be an input device and a speaker would be an output device. You could list an input device for almost any function that is done. That would be a neat information technology game you could play with your friends. Since this week has been filled with fear of the Coronavirus, I hope you all are well. Take Care!!

This week was basically a catch up week. I started working on peer reviews this week. A peer review is when you review one of your fellow students work and critique it. I always try my best to tell this student what is good and what is wrong with their work. While critiquing your peers, you should make sure they finish the assignment properly and have supporting facts with it. When critiquing an article, you should always check sources and check if their information is bias or unbias. It is also a very good idea to be as kind as possible when you see issues. A peer review should be helpful and explain the problem while offering an example of what you feel a solution would be.

This week in I learned about neutrality in Wikipedia and found new, current sources for my article. Neutrality in Wikipedia means you don’t take sides on an article. It also means you don’t have an opinion about it or show any bias. A researcher of a product would not want to get his or her information off of an article that only states opinions because he or she would be buying a product that someone else liked or disliked. This week I also changed my sources on Wikipedia. In researching one of the questions on the content post, I determined that outdated sources are the same as no sources. The reason I feel this way is because information changes frequently and a person would want the most up to date information when doing research. For example, my stepdad fixes the car when something minor is wrong. If he were to do research on a car part, there is a big difference between a Ford Truck from 2020 and a Ford truck from 2000. Without the information from 2020, he could not find the part he needed. This is the same with sources. If an article uses a source from 2000, it is most likely outdated. I went through a lot of websites just to find the most current information on the Wikipedia article I am updating. I found three new useful websites that have very good information on them. I also found all of the websites that were outdated or didn’t have good information on them to take out of the article. I recommend when reading an article, always look at the dates on the sources before pulling any information on them, you might be looking for a car part from 20 years ago that is obsolete. Now onto peer reviews, stay tuned…

This week I learned about viruses and how to protect your computer from them. I also learned how to write in my sandbox on Wikipedia. A computer can catch a virus like humans can. When we see people with the flu or a cold we wouldn’t just go eat or drink after them. We do this because we don’t want to get sick. Just like there are ways to protect yourself from viruses computers need protected as well. One of the main ways people protect their computers from viruses is purchasing software that has antivirus. Norton has a very good antivirus protection software. The second thing I worked on this week was the sandbox in Wikipedia. A sandbox in Wikipedia is basically where you use your ideas and change the article ,but only you can see what you change. It is like a draft email. I researched several articles on Saxon homeschooling books this week and how parents do with Saxon materials. I was homeschooled for most of my elementary school career and my main math and grammar books were Saxon. I can add a homeschooling aspect to the Saxon Math article I intend to edit.

This week in Wikipedia, we reviewed citations. I already have experience with citations using MLA style formatting. Citations are very important to use in writing papers. Citations recognize the work or ideas of another person if you have used their work. Using citations properly will prevent plagiarism. If you don’t know whether to cite something or not you always should. If you cite any material you have looked up, you should never get accused of paraphrasing or plagiarism unless you copy it word for word. It is your responsibility to understand plagiarizing and to know the consequences of cheating. In addition to cheating, there are other unethical forms of cheating or lying in school or in life. We read a good article this week about software engineers and the impact of the deliberate programming errors that are made. The potential impact could lead to death or injuries. When a person is capable of cheating on papers they could possibly cheat on anything. In this article, the programmers were cutting corners and their bosses knew they were doing this and in some instances pushing them to do it. I would never want to ride on an airplane or drive a car that has had a programmer that cheated. Have you ever heard the saying, “Cheaters never win”? I believe that is true and would recommend not taking the chance.

Hello! This week I learned about content gaps and how to select a article on Wikipedia. Content gaps exist when an article has missing or outdated information on Wikipedia. It is an actual gap in the content. Content gaps are not desirable when you are searching for information but, might be something to look for when editing or choosing an article. When evaluating an article, you always want to pay close attention to your sources. A poor source could result in a content gap or be a sign of a biased article. A Wikipedia article should be unbiased. In Wikipedia, this means there has to be credible sources. I reviewed potential article topics. I found an article on Saxon Math which peaked my interest. Saxon Math is commonly used with homeschooling. This series of math books is what I used four years while I was homeschooled. Wikipedia flagged this article due to source issues. The article is missing inline citations which makes its’ sources unclear.