5.1 Blog Post Reflection

Come up with three of your own Beneficial and corresponding Harmful Effects of Computing.

Type of Computer Feature Beneficial Effects Harmful Effects
Streaming Sites (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) Videos are simple to view, entertaining, and conveniently located on one website. Access may be expensive, there may be account usage restrictions, and it might take a lot of time or be addictive.
Social Media (Twitter, Instagram, etc.) It is simple to communicate with individuals around the world, quick to obtain news, and entertaining to see what other people are doing. can lead to addiction, be detrimental to your mental health and self-esteem, and result in bullying from others
Wiki websites (Wikipedia, Wikihow, etc.) Excellent for learning “how-tos,” a reliable source of information for essays, and a repository of knowledge. It may contain false information, which can always be removed, and it may not contain any information if no one adds it.

Talk about dopamine issues above. Real? Parent conspiracy? Anything that is impacting your personal study and success in High School? Although it does not significantly affect me personally, there are numerous instances in which people, particularly adolescents, are harmed by the internet as a result of negative remarks about them or their appearance.

5.2 Blog Post Reflection – Digital Empowerment

How does someone empower themself in a digital world? By safeguarding themselves from potential digital threats, a person can empower themselves in a digital world. This could mean securing your data by not posting it online or by securing it with the help of other services, like a virtual private network (VPN).

How does someone that is empowered help someone that is not empowered? Describe something you could do at Del Norte HS. Empowered individuals may be able to assist by directing or safeguarding those who are not. They could also instruct those who lack power to do so for themselves. If someone believes they are not good at what they are doing, for instance, I could teach them how to program or help them feel more confident in themselves and their programming skills. I tried my best, but I’m not sure if this was the right answer.

Is paper or red tape blocking digital empowerment? Are there such barriers at Del Norte? Elsewhere? Yes, digital empowerment is hindered by paper and bureaucracy. When a person is unable to acquire a device or something else due to financial constraints, these barriers can be seen in financial differences. This is prevalent in Del Norte as well as elsewhere due to the global nature of the issue.

Other Questions

Think of three beneficial effects of your projects based on 5.1 Unit. My project makes it easier to find recipes, figure out the proportions, and add new recipes.

Think of a potential harmful effect of your project. My project’s potential to make users dependent on it for recipe information could be detrimental. I’m not entirely certain if there are any drawbacks).

Answer with an opinion and learnings so far this year: What are pros/cons on internet blockers at router and lack of admin password on lab machines at school? An internet blocker has the advantages of preventing a person from installing software that could harm their device or other devices at the school and preventing them from seeing content that is inappropriate for them to view. One of the main drawbacks is that these blockers prevent students from installing or using software or other resources they might need, especially in classes like computer science.

What concerns do you have personally about the digital divide? For yourself or for others. I worry about the future of the world for myself. People who have access to or the ability to purchase devices are frequently left behind, despite the fact that those who do have devices have an advantage. Those without devices may be severely disadvantaged as they increasingly become required for educational purposes and even for purchases. I’m not too concerned about myself, but those without devices have a lot of trouble, which is concerning.

5.3 Questions

Write summary/thoughts/conclusions from each of the exercises above. Focus on avoiding Bias in algorithms or code you write. Intentional or Purposeful bias: Google “What age groups use Facebook” vs “… TikTok”? What does the data say? Is there purposeful exclusion in these platforms? Is it harmful? Should it be corrected? Is it good business?

Why do virtual assistants have female voices? Amazon, Alexa Google, Apple Siri. Was this purposeful? Is it harmful? Should it be corrected? Is it good business? Virtual assistants may have female voices because women are often seen in a ‘helpful’/’caregiving’ type role, which stereotypically happens to be the role of women. However, this may not have purposeful, as simply choosing the voice that sounded the best would have been the most likely option. This can be a good business move, as it panders to customers when the developers try to choose what they believe would be the most appealing to customers. This may not be corrected, but only if this is truly the case, and the female voice was not chosen because women are seen in service positions only.

Talk about an algorithm that influences your decisions, think about these companies (ie FAANG - Facebook, Amazon, Apple,Netflix, Google) Algorithms on websites such as Amazon are often used to influence customer purchases. For example, Amazon will often show products that are similar to what the user is buying, because they may want to buy similar items. Amazon algorithms are also used to recommend products that other people have bought along with the product you are trying to buy, for the same reason.

Does the owner of the computer think this was intentional? If yes or no, justify your conclusion. I think the owner of the computer may think it was intentional, as he seems surprised that it does not recognize him.

How do you think this happened? This may have happened due to oversight in the program’s coding.

Is this harmful? Was it intended to be harmful or exclude? Should it be corrected? Yes, it’s harmful and it should be corrected, as it causes a divide in the ways the program can be used. It likely wasn’t intended to be harmful, however, and was likely just an oversight in the program.

What would you or should you do to produce a better outcome? More testing and from a wider population would create a much better outcome.

5.4 Questions

Think of a use case for crowdsourcing in your project. In my project, crowdsourcing could be used in development of recipes, as my site has a feature in which users can add recipes to the database.

CompSci has 150 ish principles students. Describe a crowdsource idea and how you might initiate it in our environment? Crowdsourcing (if speaking in a general sense) could be used to take results for a survey, such as a customer service survey. This could help with improvements to the project as a whole, as information from others can help make the project better.

What about Del Norte crowdsourcing? Could your project be better with crowdsourcing? Del Norte crowdsourcing could definitely help with creating more recipes, and improving the site and its functionality. Although crowdsourcing isn’t necessary for the project to function, it does help a lot with creating a good number of recipes that users can access.

What kind of data could you capture at N@tM to make evening interesting? Perhaps use this data to impress Teachers during finals week. Random recipe data would be interesting to see, as it would take quite a long time to actually implement a whole recipe into the program, instead of just getting portion numbers.