Learning Journal 1

        Thought the entirety of the first learning module that I have studied in this semester so far, I have learned about the history of the internet, the Internets origins, and many of the people that have played important roles in making the internet how it is today. The part that most intrigued me was the part that I had to study and present on which was the topic of Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen. Tim Berners-Lee, born in London England, started working as a software engineer, while working he proposed the idea of a hypertext, and wrote about the idea in 1980. To demonstrate it, he built a prototype called "ENQUIRE." In 1989, he used a similar systems to the ENQUIRE to develop the World Wide Web. Marc Andreessen, an American entrepreneur is the co-author of Mosaic, the World Wide Web's first internet software company. After his university (The University of Illinois) let him know that they were unhappy with the naming of Mosaic, the company name was changed and re-branded it Netscape and launched in 1994. It would lead to be one of the biggest evolution's in the Internets history today.

        After reading into so much about the internet and its history, it interested me on how incredibly fast and massive the internet has grown to. With an average increasing rate of five hundred million people per year, and a total number of users increasing over three billion, its incredible to see how far the internet has come in such a short period of time

        I believe that even though I may not have not put in the textbook amount of time that is supposed to be put into this class at home, I have still put a very high amount of hard work and genuine study and interest into this learning module. I always put a very adequate amount of time and effort into schoolwork, as much as I might not enjoy it at sometimes, getting satisfying grades is always worth the effort put into it.

New Terminology

Hypertext: A software system that links topics on the screen to related information and graphics, which are typically accessed on a point-and-click method. 

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): The rules established for web browsers to communicate with web servers. It is why web URL's start with http://.

Cookies: Small text files left by websites, enabling the sites to remember what they know about that user each time they visit the site.

LAN (Local Area Network): A network that connects computers and other devices in a relatively small area.

Learning Journal 2

         Thought the second learning module this semester I have learned about how computer and internet connections work, the differences in certain internet connections, and how computers connect and communicate with one another. The way computers send data to one another is called the Packet Switching Network. All of the information that is transferred is broken up into three different areas which is the address of both the sending and receiving computer, the size of the data packet, and the order the packet is used when re-assembled. The address of a computer is known as an IP address, computers and any other devices that are connected to the internet have an IP address. Along with its own IP address, each computer is connected to the internet by one of eight options. It can be either a POTS Line, Cable, ADSL, Fiber Optics, T1/T3, Wireless, and Bluetooth. Some of these forms of internet connections are much faster, more recent, and more popular that others. 

        After studying more and more on how computers interact with one another, It interested me on how these machines are able to transfer such complicated and massive amounts of data almost instantly with the technology available today.

        This learning module I have been very intrigued on the content I have been studying and learning about. I find the way computers work very interesting and I am looking forward into learning more about subjects related to this one in the future. I found this module slightly more difficult and a bit denser than the one previous, but it is still enjoyable to learn.

New Terminology

IP Address: A unique string of numbers separated by periods that identify each computer by using the Internet Protocol to communicate over a network.

Domain Name: The part of a network address that identifies it as belonging to a particular domain.

Web Server: Manages web sites and provides web pages to clients as requested by the client.

Proxy Server: A server that manages the traffic over the internet for other computers on a company network,

 Learning Journal 4

Throughout this learning module I have learned a wide variety of information on media literacy, internet browsing tips, and how to find deeper information on any topic. One of the main topics I studied for my web lab was net neutrality, which is a very popular topic of discussion in today’s society. Net neutrality is basically how internet service providers spread the access to the internet across all websites and platforms equally without giving any site more access than the other. This can be both a positive and a negative for society, a positive in the fact that large websites and companies can’t run a monopoly on the bandwidth used which gives smaller websites equal opportunity to expand. This can also be a negative in the fact that harmful and/or illegal websites are harder to be stopped with equal access to the internet.

Along with net neutrality, I have also learned about evaluating online information when it comes to real and fake news. Before this learning module I believe that i was already a decent researcher when it came to news and browsing the internet and using google but, I still learned a few new tips for searching the web such as google’s advanced search methods that allow you to use certain characters such as quotations or dashes to specify your searches. Which you can learn more about Google’s search tips here

This learning module I put a solid amount of time and effort into my work. These topics interested me a lot and they were very fun and interesting to learn about news websites, the deep web, and how to access it and find extended information on any topic.

New Terminology:

• Net Neutrality- The principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source.
• The Invisible Web- The vast repository of information that search engines and directories don’t have direct access to, such as databases.
• Meta Tags- Keywords within tags
• Digital Literacy- An individual's ability to access both information and methods of communication through technological tools.

Learning Journal 5

Throughout my fifth learning journal, I studied the world of Social Media tools and how they can effect the classroom, a workplace, and even at home in an even more convenient way than it has been in the past. Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Skype, and many more can all provide benefits to boosting efficiency in the classroom. The social media tool that I studied mainly on was WordPress. WordPress is a website that allows you to create your own website in an incredibly simple format. You simply just say what your site is about, chose a domain name and you're good to go. You can make anything from a blog, to a store, to even a community page that other users can visit and edit on their own at their free will. WordPress is similar to blogger but in a much wider spectrum and much more detailed. Over 75 million websites and counting rely on WordPress which accounts for nearly 19% of the sites on the internets main database. I even created my own website using word press just to show how simple it really is! You can find it here. 

Along with the abilities of WordPress, many of my classmates studied in different social media tools as well, and I learned many tips that these tools provide to help benefit in class. Such as YouTube's new features in YouTube Gaming, YouTube Space, and YouTube Creative Academy which are all ways for different kinds of creators to collaborate and make content on their similar interests. Along with YouTube's new features, I learned many facts and statistics on sites such as Snapchat, Instagram, Skype, FaceTime, Google Duo, and many more. 

I believe that this learning module I but a good amount of effort and work into my studying, social media is something that's a main part of my life and I use it every single day. So learning more about it was fun for me and something I didn't struggle much on when studying on it. 

New Terminology

•  Microblog- A short entity of posts, usually limited to 140-280 characters. Another word to describe sites such as Twitter.
• Wiki- A webpage that displays information on a certain topic, and can be edited by others at their own free will.
• Social Media Tools- Additional content created by social networking sites to simplify and make certain tasks more convenient
• SMS- A "Short Messaging Service" or also known as text messaging or texting. 

Learning Journal 6