Research

Social Media and Plagiarism

During the summer of my junior year, Sai, did research on Plagiarism in Social Media. This paper currently in the process of having it reviewed and looking to publish it. Below is my finished research paper.

Her summer project starts this way.....

If I post this following quote on Twitter or Facebook, the first few thoughts anyone
would get is ‘wow, what an inspiring quote’ or a half-hearted response of ‘I have heard this a million times before.’ Not many would begin to think, ‘hey that is Carol Burnett’s quote, this user did not delegate any credit to him.’ “Only I can change my life, no one can do it for me.” This is precisely the issue, plagiarism is carefully monitored only when it is turned in for credit or when it is found in pieces of works by professionals. The lack of monitor ship on social media makes it so easy to intentionally or unintentionally steal another’s work post it as one’s own.

For full Research paper can click on the below link.

Social Media and Plagiarism

Education in Rural India 

For most of my life, I studied in America. In America, schools have AC’s, projectors, smartboards, computers, ipads and libraries. These facilities are there to the learning environment the most optimal one for the students. Facilities and amenities such as these motivate the students to learn more and be more active in school. The average teacher to student ratio in schools is 1:30. This allows teachers to learn more about the kids they teach and their circumstances. These are what public schools look like in America. In contrast, rural India is the complete opposite. Schools do not have air conditioning, smartboards or libraries for students to use. The average teacher to student ratio is 50:1. The students do not have individual desks. Public schools in rural India are hot, cramped, and devoid of any motivation to learn. Most of the kids, if not all come from agricultural families. A common trend among students is that they believe school is not beneficial to them and tend to dropout to go work in the fields. The schooling environment discourages students to gain a higher education and become much more than just farm hands. My parents say that they are very blessed to receive an education and say that because of it they were able to come to America and make such a living. Growing up, I too feel that I am very blessed that I am receiving schooling in a wonderful environment. I believe that education is the key our dreams. If I am fortunate enough to receive such a blessing, I hope everyone can receive the same blessings as me and take hold of their own life.

Although, I may only be a teenager, I felt that I had to start now if I wanted to make a difference. I contacted my aunt who is a 3rd grade teacher in a village called Repalle in Andhra Pradesh, India. Together, we made it possible to implement my ideas of reducing the dropout rates and increasing attendance rates. It was a simple task. I approached the problem with the mind of a nine year old. When I was that age, I was always positively reinforced with presents and treats. I applied the same logic to the kids back in India too. For every assignment they complete, my aunt handed out one of the sticker I sent to India. Just one  simple sticker did the trick and the kids completed more of their assignments now knowing that there are stickers awaiting them. 

The next obstacle was trying to help them retain the information so the students would perform better on quizzes and tests. As someone who was a 3rd grader in India, I know from experience that worksheets are very boring to look at. They gave us hundreds of problems in hopes that we would memorize the answers and not actually learn the concept. This too had a fairly simple solution. First, I looked over their curriculum and found worksheets online that not only matched what they were learning but also had some interactive activities like coloring in the even numbered answers red and the odd numbered answers blue and so on and so forth. I sent them worksheets and stickers up until their semester exams. Based on the data reported by my aunt, there has been a significant increase in grades and moreover, students were not missing school and actively participating in class. 

In the future, I would like to expand my work to more schools and I would also like to work with the department of education of India.