User:Rileysmall277

''' Hello Wikipedia (en)! '''

Welcome to Rileysmall277's official userpage. I am a 25 year old, being born in March 1997 and raised by my loving parents in Pacific Grove, California, a small town suburb of the famous Monterey, California. My journey with MediaWiki and Wikis in general began between 6th - 8th grade in what we Californians call "Middle School" (between Elementary and High Schools). As these were the years I began attending a more academically advanced private school, and I believe in general are the years when students begin their "formal education", I started using computers for the first time for reports, reference material and learning all together. My father got my my first laptop during this time and I began exploring the even more vast world of the internet.

Wikipedia as a source of information was and is amazing to me independent from school, especially knowing all of its content has been contributed by its users voluntarily from across the globe. I've always loved to learn, through exploring new interests and expanding my understanding of topics I already love. I was very lucky to have a close relationship with the head of school I was at, and she took a lead role in my personal education. Unlike many other teachers and educators at the time who discredited Wikipedia all together, discouraging or outright banning its use in the classroom, she supported it as a great way to find primary and secondary sources as well as a way to get a basic understanding of a particular subject matter as a starting point for greater research.