by Ardhys De Leon, staff reporter

Alan November, who graduated from Harvard, is a leader in international education and one of the most influential thinkers of the century. November began the presentation by explaining that google is a research engine that matches searches with website addresses and because of this many times when students do research they may come across explicit content that is often inaccurate.

“I want to give students a deeper sense of how to do good research, how to protect themselves from bogus websites and I want to encourage them to ask interesting questions,” renowned educator Alan November said.

November proved the search engine’s flaws by typing in the name Martin Luther King into google. In the first page of websites generated by google, he came across a website that was actually operated by a white extremist group which was created to persuade people in favor of their ideals.

However, many students would not have known this, since according to November, research shows that students tend to only look at the first and second page of a search engine, and most of these students usually don’t know who runs the website.

“This presentation made me realize that I don’t know how to use google accurately that can result in fake websites,” junior Leeann Mello said.

To prevent situations like this from occurring, November advised students to check the websites they gather information from by typing into google ‘Link:site name,’ this way students will be able to see if there is another site that controls it. Thus, students can avoid being manipulated by bogus content on the internet.

In addition to this, students can also narrow their search to trusted websites by typing into google the topic and adding next to it ‘site: gov.’ This is because the word ‘site’ makes sure that every web address is a government website.

“This showed me that google can provide more accurate results that I had been receiving and that I can use the new codes I learned to narrow my research,” senior Luca Damasco said.

November also introduced students to Wolfram Alpha, a knowledge engine that can be used to solve problems in subjects like Math, science and writing. This website also provides its users with a list of sources from which it got it’s information from and filters out explicit content.

“Mr. November’s presentation has changed the way I will be doing research and homework. I will specially be using the website Wolfram Alpha because I’m not really good at math and I believe it will help,” sophomore Simone Irish said.