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Research Report: Learning To Become Internet Literate

By: Silas Leger

Introduction

Welcome to my work. This particular work you are at now is my Research Report. I have already published an annotated bibliography, which is accessible via my homepage. I am pleased that you have taken time out of your day to inspect what I have created here. This research report is multidimensional in that is has more than one focus. To understand the various aims of this research report allows one to see that within the multidimensionality it presents, there are central topics that will not be abandoned. These topics deal with self-witnessing of behavior in relationship to students becoming Internet literate and other information literacy issues. You may not know that this webpage, along with all the other web pages I create for completion of this class in advanced topics of psychology are generational. That is, that they will be accessible and accessed by new generation of classes to come.

This is smart a concept that is very much aided by using the information supplying abilities of the Internet. As a current student in this on-line generational curriculum course I am excited to play my part in the building of a discrete knowledge base, as outlined by participation in this class. The class is interesting because I finally get to look at other studentsí academic outputs in a private setting, i.e. my computer at work. I can actually see what others have decided is the best way of presenting findings and making clear connections for readers. Being allowed access to previous generationís work is different and helpful, because it is nice to look at what others have built to get a starting point from which to build my own creations/webpages. I must admit that I stock my webpage report more full of scholarly thought than of elegant design, but this is because I donít have webpage designing skills.

Because this class relies heavily on the Internet for production and completion of assignments, there is a learning curve the entire class must go through to become proficient at executing operations on the Internet. Some of the NEW internet skills I have had to learn as a result of taking this class have been: 1) produce a homepage with hypertext links to my written reports, 2) Mine the internet in search for articles and media related to specific topic questions, 3) learn how to function FTP software, and manage html files on a UNIX server, and 4) become able to search through scientific journal article databases and find relevant article and reports. With the passage of time and hard work I have come to a place where I feel much more comfortable than I did at the start of the class doing these above stated tasks. In the beginning of the class when our professor, Dr. James, was going over the class structure I could not believe that so much of it was web based; almost all of it, minus the in class presentation. I was a little scared at first, but since I knew how to use the Internet and work inside Word and PowerPoint with competence I made up my mind that I would like this class.

Not succumbing to my fear has been a large factor in my ability to perform well for this class. While searching on the Internet for relevant material I sometimes get angry that I cannot find exactly what I want. I come close to getting what I pictured as my goal, but there are times when I cannot locate what I want, at times like this I get scared. Scared that I will have to change my goal or that I will not be fulfilled in my search. But I find that getting scared is only a cop-out mechanism for throwing in the towel early. I find that if I get pass the ìscaryî part of not finding what I want, and let the fear it brings with it go, I can regroup and think positively about how to creatively track down the information that I am in search of. Emotions play a huge role in our lives and affect simple things like doing an Internet search.

To utilize the strength of the on-line generational curriculum fostered by Dr. James I will be reviewing three reports of students who have completed this course in the past. The student reports I will review are reports on learning the Internet and the various stage of learning they go through before learning is consummated via creation of websites and web reports that are the building blocks of the on-line curriculum. I have ever taken a generational curriculum class, and I must admit that having it on-line is much easier than having to access the past generationís work in printed format from the library. The on-line delivery of the generational curriculum is wonderful, because access is not a problem; this makes a huge difference in my everyday life. The learning environment is flexible because of its on-line content. Plus, I love not having to turn in work in the physical dimension, since all of our work is submitted for grading on our homepage. Finally! -A paperless classroom. Within this class the Internet, html documents, and computer screens, replace the need for paper.

I have chosen to review three of my fellow generational classmateís reports on learning stages associated to Internet skill development for the purpose of gaining insight into my own process of becoming internet able by learning the skills required. My goal in investigating these three past generational report, will be to analyze the written content and extract text samples to use in my own report as keystone indicators of a development or learning phases that these student experienced throughout their engagement in learning the internet system.

Section One ñ Reviewing Prior Studentsí Report

First Review of Student Report

1. This studentís viewpoint of learning the Internet is one of enthusiasm and excitement mixed with hostility and anger over becoming frustrated with the learning process. In the beginning of the learning process, during the first few weeks of class, the going is slow and progress is minimal. Proceeding to assert efforts that result in anger and frustration this student quickly encounters feelings of defeat. There is also for this student bridging elements that takes him from negative affects of learning the Internet to positive ones. These gap-bridging elements are hope and motivation. Hope and motivation serves to help our subject break free from failure and to power through to success. Beyond emotional descriptions, this studentís viewpoint of learning the Internet is that it is hard at first but with practice, time, and perseverance it is delightfully accomplished. Overall this student sees the value in learning the Internet and welcomes his learned skills.

We can see that there is a normal pattern for this student, in that he is angry in the beginning of the learning process when he is unable to produce desired results in his interaction with the computer and the Internet. Embedded within, or maybe even under, his normal pattern of anger at feeling incompetent, is the source of his anger: His overriding sense of frustration with the entire learning process. Frustration is what commonly causes anger.

As for his feelings of enthusiasm and excitement, these emotions are the end result of this studentís learning the Internet functions required from this class. This student did go through a learning curve, of course, and he encountered stages of learning Internet skills that did not produce enthusiasm and excitement, as stated above. But once learned of the Internet skills demanded, he was happy and glad that he had advanced knowledge of the Internet and how to create websites and web based reports.

How did this student go from anger and frustration to excitement and enthusiasm? Two processes were at work here. One was the reduction anger and frustration brought about by his slowly learning the skills, and the other was the increase in his feelings of hope that he could be saved from failure. This idea that he was not doomed to failure increased his motivation and sent him into the positive affects he experienced once learned of all the skills required.

Therefore we can make a map of this student psychological path to fulfillment of internet skills. I image it as so on a timeline from start to end:

Anger and frustration -----------> Failure -----------> Hope -----------> Motivation ------------> Enthusiasm and excitement about new skills learned

I must mention that this particular student had, prior to writing the web report I am reviewing, taken a class from Dr. James in which he had already had his initial growth phase of not knowing anything about the Internet and learning it. This he makes clears in his report, and rightfully so, because since his report is on learning something he had already learned it is important for us to know. By telling us that this is his second time learning these skills we can make correct assessments of his report. For example we would want to differentiate his learning of Internet skill report from others who write the same report but are not repeat participants of this skill learning.

Once able to create websites this student wants to learn more about the next step in designing html documents. He wants to enhance his already made but simple pages with what he can find on other website on the Internet. This shows his enthusiasm of learning because he wants to expand his reach and take full hold of his new skills. He is excited by the idea that others can visit his webpage and he marvels at what he has created.

By analyzing this studentís report of his own process of growing his Internet authoring and searching skills, I can clearly see a delineation of stages this student went through on his journey to ultimate success and acquisition of desired skills. As I have mapped out above, so I will expand on below. Following are text samples from this student report on learning the internet, that are representative of each of the five stages of his internet learning process.

A note about these quotations: I have extracted these quotes from this studentís report on stages of learning the Internet. If you want to see them in their original context please refer to this link and once at the report perform a find with your browser to locate the quotation.

1) The reaction to incompetence: Anger from Frustration

ìI think, with everything that's new, we all feel that emotion of ëfrustration & anger!íî
ìI think that learning the Internet at the very beginning was the most difficult thing I ever had to do. I had no idea what I was doing.î
ìThere were times when I felt like throwing the computer terminal on the ground because it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, so I thought.î

My reaction to this phase of this studentís learning process is compassion because I know what it is like to get angry and frustrated over not being able to learn fast, and everything seems so hard. This usually happens to me when I have to learn something new, as is the case with this student. I can really understand emotionally where he is coming from when he writes ìÖI felt like throwing the computer terminal on the groundÖî Frustration is a insanity provoking emotion.

2) Struggling to stay above water: Defeat

… ìWhen you've been working as hard as you think you can and things are still going wrong and nothing seems to be working, you feel as if you've been defeated, defeated by an inanimate object that you're supposed to be smarter than.î

ìBut, you feel as if nothing you do will make it work and you feel as if you have to resort to some other alternative like just giving up and concentrating on other classes and forgetting about this one.î

The feeling of defeat, especially about oneís self and efforts can really be a downer. Itís a good thing that this stage was quickly overcome by the student because prolonged feelings of defeat can lead to some nasty feelings about the self which can further lead to dysfunctional behavior. I can identify with this studentís feelings of defeat, but not in relationship to computers. I have felt defeated at times in life and it is not a nice place to dwell. In the depth of my defeat I felt like totally giving up on life and withdrawing to another place, not earth.

3) When all else fails: Hope

ìIf you are one that is really trying to learn but felt as if you have been defeated by a computer earlier on, checking out and even copying other people's pages and putting your own information on them will help you learn the whole process.î
ìWhen you find that your page is starting to come out the way you want them to, you feel a little spark of confidence that can probably help you to go furtherÖî

I think that we all feel defeated at some point or another and hope or feeling optimistic certainly is a way to pull ourselves out of such a dark and ugly place. The idea that just feeling a ìlittle spark of confidenceî can help us pick ourselves up and get on the positive side of a struggle is in my opinion a genuine and true statement. That spark of confidence comes from our need to survive and prevail over our tormentor, in this case, learning Internet skills.

4) Willing to Learn: Motivation

ìOnce things begin to come together for you, you feel a sense of motivation.î
ìThis motivates you to look around the entire internet to find things that you would like to add to your pageÖî
ìOnce you see your potential, you feel like you want to do more and even try new things on the Internet.î

Motivation is one of my favorite subjects within behavioral psychology, and I can identify with this studentís engagement in it. It certainly makes sense that he would enter into a phase of being motivated after he has experienced the hardest part of his training to learn the Internet skills required. We are not motivated by that which blocks us, but by that which benefits or gives us what we desire or want. At this point in the learning process it is normal that motivation would kick-in and have affects on the subject.

5) Joy in competence: Excitement and Enthusiasm

ìWhen you look at your pages and find that they are what you wanted them to look like, you feel as if you had succeeded and you feel a great sense of accomplishment. The fact that you overcame the whole process is a great feeling.î
ìYou can finally look at the pages and say, ëthat is my work!íî

Finally, skills mastered and securely stored in consciousness, this student has earned the right to his feeling of excitement and enthusiasm. His journey of learning is complete and he is proud of the work he has produced. I can sympathize with him about this because once I finally got my homepage done and then later my first web report (my annotated bibliography) done I was proud of myself and excited that now I could publish on the Internet.

The first two stages of this studentís process of learning Internet skills of which he is unfamiliar with, go hand in hand. One almost creates the other. The first stage was that of anger and frustration over not knowing even the basic of what was presented to him. I like to think to of it like he was being forced to learn a new language that he did not know existed. Maybe he had preconception about how hard or easy it might have been, but whatever he was thinking it got him angry and frustrated. He did not become humble and accept with dignity that he did not know how to do it. So what happened: he felt defeated. To get to the place where you feel defeated is to assume you were not defeated to begin with. Did this student think he knew what he knew he did not know? But, of course emotions are not rational, so no sense need be found here.

This studentís feeling of defeat comes from his negative affects preceding those of defeat, namely anger and frustration. It has long been known that what we feed our mind is what the mind will give us when we push into the unmade future, thus the mind creates the future for us so we donít have to, rather because we canít. This studentís progression from stage one into stage two is a product of his thinking, this is not a special concept, because all of us move from one stage to the next and these moves are products of our thinking. But since we are examining this studentís behavior I bring it to the forefront of our attention.

To go from defeat to hope is a normalizing pattern. One moment we are low and the next we are high. A compensatory mechanism to achieve optimum operating conditions. The two opposing forces work against each other and equalize the experience of the individualís emotional flux. We are disabled when feeling defeated, at this point no one can learn a thing. The power needed to release the tension and disability that defeat brings and make a move towards success is created by hope, with its noble and far-reaching positive affects on us as humans. Once hopeful, the student needs a reason or drive to stay in a satisfied state, this is where motivation comes in. The next stage in this student evolution from Internet novice to advanced user.

When we receive benefit from something we are motivated to do that thing. This is the basic idea behind the function, or at least the psychological understanding, of motivation. How does this student hook into this pattern of doing because he is motivated from benefit received from accomplishment? First of all, since he is functioning within a college course, there is motivation for the purpose of high-grade achievement. Note, that when the student was in stage one of the learning process he was not motivated, because to be motivated is to receive benefit or reward for work done. In stage one the student could get no reward because he could produce no work. Second is the studentís own sense of self-worth that rises from the raise in his ability to tackle the new skills.

The motivation here is that he feels better about himself, which functions as reward for work completed. Lastly the above discussed learning stages, erupt into the final stage, which is excitement and enthusiasm over the mastered skills and over the initial stage negative affections and for lack of nicer term, hatred of the self. For we can see that this student was not kind to himself or the participant of his learning Internet skills. We see this in his quote - ìThere were times when I felt like throwing the computer terminal on the ground because it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, so I thought.î

Second Review of Student Report

Here in this second report reviewed the studentís viewpoint on learning the internet is that she feels privileged to learn about computers and the internet, because they amaze her and she sees them as being powerful tools for information gathering. More specifically, this student thinks that learning the internet within the community based cyber-classroom of the generational curriculum that is part of Dr. Jamesí Psychology 409 and 459 classes, is very beneficial because it provides her with peer support and a group oriented feeling when she is unsure how to do a certain internet or computer related task. She asserts that more can be learned about the Internet when training is done in a community of learners who have the same goals.

This second student report I have reviewed varies much from the first report we have just completed analyzing above. Of what is told of this studentís learning process it centers around negative affects to start with and ends with them as well. Her pattern to accomplishment of learning Internet skills is not documented within her report of her learning of Internet skills. What this student did do was give many quotations from other studentsí reports to describe certain stages of learning the Internet. In trying to closely conform with the instructions of building my own report I will fish out what I can from this studentís own writings on the stages of internet learning she puts forth in her report.

The majority of this studentís report lays out a display of different stages of learning the Internet many other generational curriculum students have encountered. The report supports the existence of these stages with quotations from other studentsí reports that example the stages defined. Below I have created a word map of the stages this student chose to focus on. It is unclear in her report if one stage come before the next, or if these stages are just a random list of stages.

| Frustration & stress & anxiety & depression |

My account of this student report is limited to what I have to work with in terms of the student report I am assessing and the instruction I have been giving for creation of this report itself. It may seem like the first student report review I did was stable and thought out, and it was. In comparison, this review may seem to fall short of the first, but the quality of my review is dependent on the quality of the student report I am reviewing. Below I have collected and assembled quotes from the student whoís report this is a review of, and categorized them into the stages she selected to focus on. Since these stages of Internet learning are not in an ordered fashion, please donít assume that they are causatively related or even occur within a normal studentís pattern of learning Internet skills.

A) Frustration: a stage of Internet learning

ìI experienced frustration when my links weren't working properly, and then when my icons wasn't loading up correctly.î
ìI know what it's like going on a computer and it doesn't do what you want it to do.î

Since I work with computer all day long on my job, I can related to this studentís feelings of frustration that arise from ìgoing on a computer and it doesnít do what you want it toî, even when you know its not operator error that is causing the malfunction, rather hardware or software failure. This can really be frustrating because at this point you have control over it. Frustration can result in positive outcomes as long as you keep a broad perspective on the real issue, which is of course learning a new skill.

B) Stress: a stage of Internet learning

ìCan you believe that even I got stressed from this class. I was up to the point, nah no need do the reports, got plenty time. Uh uh. So I wrote down who I was going to make links to, and then from there got stressed again, cause I had to figure out what I was going to write on this report.î

Stress. This word deserves special consideration when it comes to deadlines and figuring out how something you plan to do will actually get done. Stress is compounded by the passage of time that is not utilized in effective manners, as exemplified by this students nonchalant attitude of ìÖnah no need do the reports, got plenty time.î Within the college setting stress normally serves a function of getting works completed. In this studentís case, since she was able to finish her web report on patterns of learning Internet skills, stress helped her power through to success. My own stress levels have been raised directly as a result of being in this class that is Internet based, but I certainly am happy I now have the essential skills needed to publish Internet ready documents and knowledge of how to host them on a server.

C) Anxiety: another stage of learning the Internet

… ìWhen I first used the internet, I did not know what to do or where to click.î

ìMany students, including myself, found it irritating when a homepage took forever to load up.î

These quotes are supposed to represent this studentís feelings of anxiety, they were the best I could find within her somewhat maladapted report. If you look at her report she gives ample text sample of other studentsí anxious moments while working on learning their internet skills, but only very limited and somewhat ambiguous descriptions of her own encounters with becoming anxious while going through her own internet learning process. I was disappointed with the quality of this studentís report, because it seemed as if she focused more on supplying the reader other studentsí quotes than telling us what own personal experiences had been ñ I found this especially true within her section on the internet learning stage of anxiety.

D) Depression: one possible stage of Internet skill building

Note: There are no examples to grab from the studentís report of her own experience of depression as a part of her pattern of learning internet skills, or even apart from learning internet skills, so I will include some of the quotations on depression she used from other studentsí reports.

ìWhen I first began doing emacs work I remembered becoming extremely agitated, as well as depressed with the work that I was doing, I began to mentally curse the instructor for giving us such a frustrating homework.î
ìNormally, I find that I just sit back and try to put the situation into perspective. If I become really depressed, I find that a long hot shower does wonders for me. I usually find that after relaxing like that, I come back with even more creativity, and motivation to do better.î

I have been depressed for a prolonged period of time and I found that while depressed my ideas just adjusted to my thinking style and I thought that I was ìnormalî. But when I really did check in with myself and got in touch with my real emotions I could tell I felt depressed and down, certainly not expressed or acknowledged. My depression came from my rejection of my own feelings about how my parentsí divorce, when I was a small boy, that really did hurt me. For my whole life I had stopped myself from acknowledging that I was in denial of my own feelings, but it makes some sense, because when I finally did decide to feel those ancient feelings of being scared and hurt and confused I cried a lot and needed psychotherapy to help with the emotional pain and discharge process. More over I found that I needed to be brave inside to go back and recall those feelings that I suppressed and denied.

Becoming depressed during a stage of learning Internet skills is different from what I discussed above: one is only for a short while and the other is a major prolonged affect in a personís life. I think that it is normal for people to go through a stage of being depressed while struggling with learning a new skill, because admitting that you donít know, which is the starting place of learning, places you in a low position as compared to others who know. This the ego does not like so you begin to feel inferior and then depressed. Luckily this is a learning experience so you move from being depressed and into another stage of the learning process. This I found was true as well with my prolonged depression; that is was a stage of learning, but this learning was on the grand scale of life, and I really had to face my own demons, namely those that would hold me in depression for so long, before I could move on the next stage of learning about life. The next stage for me was realizing that love could heal emotional heartache.

At this point in my review of this studentís report on her process of obtaining or learning internet skills required by this generational on-line curriculum based class, I am supposed to analyze the pattern of her learning process. By analyzing it I would be able to come up with a pattern analysis of her learning process and also possible reasons why certain stages bleed into others. Also I could apply my intelligence to the patterns I identified and I could find suitable explanations for any one of these stages and explanation for the order they occur in. This I cannot perform because the author of the report I am reviewing does not give her personal account of the internet skills learning process, she only gives accounts of others studentsí stages of learning internet skills. And the stages she gives are not even representative of a complete cycle of learning Internet skills.

Therefore I will chalk this section of my review of her report on blackboard in the area of ìgenerational curriculum blackhole of misunderstandingî. Moving right along I we will now take a look at one more student report from the past, and I will review it as I have the preceding two.

Third Review of Student Report

For this last report I review I felt like I clicked the most with studentís attribution style of stages of Internet learning. We will examine these stages below, but first I want to relate to you this studentís viewpoint on learning the Internet in general. This student feels that learning the Internet came in two distinct parts for him. First there was the beginning of the learning process, which he identifies as confusing and difficult, especially trying to remember all the tags that need to go around the text you want to put in a web page. But then as times passes and his skills increase, and he is able to consult with his fellow students in the community of web learners created by the class itself, his view of learning the internet changes. By the time he is proficient at creating html documents and able to navigate around Internet and search engines with confidence, this studentís view is that the Internet is ìpretty easyî.

This student has divided the process of learning the Internet into three stages. First, he proposes that learners go through a confusion stage, characterized by not knowing and being at a complete loss of orientation to getting started, because of absolutely no experience. He likens it to learning how to ride a bike for the first time. Everything is so new that the learner is in a state of dismay and confusion. According to this student, next in the process of learning the internet is the resistance stage. I found this delightfully well assessed because it addresses our internal desire to abandon learning a difficult skill, that is hooked into technology which can make it seem even more difficult. This stage is somewhat harder to detect than other stages of the learning process, because it almost seems like the preceding stage of confusion, but it is a distinct stage that brings with it the desire to quit, drop the class, or give up.

Lastly, once Internet skills are becoming commonplace in the routine of students and they feel confident using them and relying on them, they have entered the stage of learning called the spider man stage or also dubbed the transformation into ìweb slingerî stage. This stage is defined by the radical change that students encounter when they are able to do what they once thought impossible. There has taken place a metamorphosis, like that of a worm into a butterfly. The student has gone from resistance to ability, and with that ability the desire to produce with the new acquired Internet skills.

So, for the purpose of visual display I can make as I have above a word map of this studentís interpretation of stages of learning the Internet. It looks like this:

Confusion -----> Resistance -----> Spider Man stage or web slinger stage of being able and willing and excited about skills learned.

Now, below I will provide text samples from this studentís report that represent each of these stages of learning the internet he has prescribed. A note about these quotations: I have extracted these quotes from this studentís report on stages of learning the Internet. If you want to see them in their original context please refer to this link and once at the report perform a find with your browser to locate the quotation.

1) Confusion: Stage One

ìWhen I first got on the Internet, I felt confused and disoriented. I didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing and I felt a lot of anxiety because I wasn't sure that I would be able to complete all of the tasks.î
ìWhile on the internet, it seemed pretty complicated, somewhat confusing, frustrating, and difficult to find particular topics and items, especially when there's no information given on the "how to do something" functions.î

Confusion overload in the start for many learners of Internet skills is not uncommon. The Interne, it seems, has two sides or faces. One is the user side; this includes the use of search engines and accessing web pages, and sending emails. The other side of the Internet is the developer side, this includes creating the web pages and search engines the users use. In this class the user are being made into developers and this bring confusion. Also what is happening is that some non-users are being made users and as well being made into developers at the same time. Pretty confusing until one gets their bearings. But once we can see past the confusion we than want to resist because we then understand what is involved and it seems likes too much.

2) Resistance: Stage Two

ìThen it became more complicated. We had to type in all kinds of commands just to make our reports look like regular word processing. What was I getting myself into? I had serious thoughts about giving up and dropping the class.î

Once we understand how complicated web authoring can be, we want to withdraw and back-out of our prior commitment to the class by dropping it. This is certainly the resistance stage. We donít want to put in the extra time it will take to acquire the new skills needed for success in this on-line class, we would rather not go through so much struggle just to complete a psychology college class, but remember that this is only a stage of the learning process. We get over our lazy inclinations to give up and resist as we progress and became web slingers that can actively add to the Internet and fully understand how to navigate within it.

3) Spider Man or Web Slinger: Stage Three

… ìAt first, navigating through all of the files began to confuse me, it all seems like a big blob. But as I practiced using the links, going to and from my home page to other people's documents and the instructorís home page, things began to come together. All it really takes is a lot of practice.î

ìMy newest hobby is browsing through the World Wide Web. I wasn't into computers before, but after taking Dr. Leon James's course, Psy 409, using the computer has been a part of my daily life.î
ìMy homepage was a little more fun to make, although, I wasn't quite clear from the beginning what was expected. But, gradually, I caught on.î

This last stage of learning is rewarding to the apprentice. Finally their hard work is paying off by bringing competence into their interactions with the Internet and web page creation. The skills they have struggled to learn have now taken shape and allow these new web slingers the ability to feel good, instead of confused about computers and the Internet. They can now proceed to fulfill the rest of the class work that requires heavy amount of web page creation, hyperlink integration and analytical reviews of other studentsí past web work.

The above outlined pattern of learning the Internet is the most positive assessment I came across out of the three student reports I have presented here and also others I reviewed in deciding to which to review for this report. The three stages proposed by this student are interlocking and well supported by the quotations form other studentsí works on their own patterns of learning Internet skills for this class. To comprehend that confusion is the first stage of learning the internet shows that this student is thinking from a standpoint that takes into account not only emotions, such as anger and frustration, but also mental qualities like constructs and mental maps. This is because confusion implies the idea of misunderstanding, and to see and understand misunderstanding requires mental activity separate than feelings. Beginning the learning process with confusion this student has realized that what is happening to the learners of internet skills is not based in emotions, but more mental and a question of primarily their ability to grasp new concepts.

Where does being confused get the initial learner of Internet skills? It internally tells them that they need help as well as to slow down and accept their inabilities. As identified by this student, the next stage flows from the first one, and rightly so because having to accept our inabilities often makes us want to resist what whatever we are having a difficult time with, because engaging in it more shows that we are inferior and the ego foresees this and starts our motives of exit from humiliation. To admit that we do not know how is the egoís worst enemy because we are not listening it at this point, it has lost control of us at this point, for we have stepped in to the wonderful state of modesty. Appropriately, the stage of learning is called the resistance stage, and it is characterized by the learnerís wishes to quit the entire class for sake of not having to learn the Internet portion of it. Note that these student do not want to quit and give up because the psychology being taught in class is too hard, rather it is the Internet skills that drive them to this place of resistance. How does resistance to learning and embracing new and useful skills turn into owning and loving these skills as suggested in the next and final stage of the learning process? This we will examine next.

The answer given by this student is that it is some sort of magic that takes place. He describes it as a metamorphosis, like that of a worm to a butterfly. We all know that amazing things happen in life and I see the drastic change from resistance to spider man or web slinger as being of this nature: amazing. It is amazing what happens within our cells every moment of the day, and so amazing is it that no scientist will be able to replicate or artificially create ever, because it is not within human knowledge, it is how we are which is a mystery to our conscious mind. The subconscious mind takes care of these details for us.

I propose that the magical agent at work here is the subconscious mind. I would predict that since some of the class students who reach the resistance stage of learning Internet skill do actually drop the class, as has happened within my own generation of the class, that our motives are the cause of this magical transformation. We instruct the subconscious to an end that we desire, be it to drop or to continue. The subconscious make no judgments for it serves us without question, and carries out our request. If it be that we wish to overcome our resistance and work through to success, our motives are altered by the subconscious and we begin to act differently, using what we have learned to build our new understand of goals. If it be that we wish to drop the class, our subconscious makes us get in touch with the right people to help us perform the withdraw from class. So is the subconscious, ready to serve us and perform magic when ask to. This is my assessment of the last stage of this studentís outlined stages of learning Internet skills.

Section 2: Self-observation Data

Part 1

In this section of my research report we take a look at certain behaviors and thoughts I exhibited during my search sessions I did to gather sources for my annotated bibliography. Our professor, Dr. James, gave us an inventory of questions to answer each time we did a search, the answers to these questions is what this section focuses on. For your viewing ability I have included the completed questionnaires, aka search forms within class discussions, so that you may become familiar with the questions asked and how I responded to them. This link will take you to the forms I completed.

Part 2

For locating and collecting the articles and resources for my annotated bibliography I always used the Internet. Although I always used the Internet, my sources came from a variety of different categories. These categories included, on-line editions of newspapers, searchable on-line databases of scientific journal articles, Internet web pages, on-line versions of printed magazines, and user group discussion posting environments. I found that using the Internet to conduct searching activities was a very positive experience. It enable me to reduce the amount of time spent searching for materials because so much access was all in the same place, that is on the internet, and on my computer connected to it. There was never any actual travel time I need to take, in the form of going to the library, because I could pull it up on my computer screen.

I was surprised at how much information there is available in the form of web pages on the Internet, and at least four of my sources that I used in my annotated bibliography were web pages. I was able to find current sources that specifically dealt with the topics I was in search of information on, because the Internet is so up-to-date. I can imagine that the library would not have as up-to-date information as the Internet does. At this point before pushing ahead I would, again, like to invite you to look at additional background materials that will give you better understanding of this report here. These background materials are the instructions for my annotated bibliography, to which this section of this report is closely related, and also instructions on weekly Internet forum postings we were to do on our search sessions for our collection of references for our annotated bibliography. A note: Just remember to come back here and complete what you have started. Here are the links | Instruction for the annotated bibliography | Instructions for the weekly internet forum postings |.

To fill the form of questions out during my weekly search session was trying, because sometime the answering of the form itself took longer than the search session. To answer the form took about 30 to 45 minutes depending on how long my written explanations to my indicated scale ratings were. It was convenient to have the forms computerized so that I could type in the answer instead of writing them on paper with a pen. The form of questions was presented to the class as an html document and we were instructed to copy and paste it in a Word document and work with it from there. This worked great, because handling the multiple forms that became more and more each week was easily done, within one word document.

The questions in the form seemed to track my expectation of what I thought about my search session before doing it, with questions like ñ How much time do you think this search task will take? + How upset would you be you did not find anything on your search topic? Then after the search was over, the forms tracked my feelings about what happened during the search. There were questions like - How irritated did you become during your search today? + Were you supportive of the computer and search engines you used today? By asking me pre-search and post-search questions this created a situation where my expectations of that dayís search may be analyzed against real outcomes my search activity. This we will explore later in this section.

I found that filling out the form made me want to be more efficient in my searching because the form took so long to fill out, as I said above at least 30 minutes. I found that while searching I would not follow irrelevant hyperlinks that could sidetrack me and waste my time, because I knew that filling-out the form had already consumed some of my free time for that day. At times I found filling-out the form bothering and trouble some, and sometimes I did not want to do it, and so I put it off, to do some other day with the start of some other search session. Beyond becoming annoyed with the forms, I also found them enchanting, in that they provided me with an example of how to monitor myself in a real world situation. The questions of the form were all about my thinking and feeling in relationship to the search session preformed.

I have limited experience with taking an inventory of my feelings about anything, so this was a good practice to understanding that it is doable, we just need to schedule it into our lives. This form filling activity was scheduled into my life because it was part of a class at school, but I think it would prove beneficial to all of us if we recorded what we think and do throughout the day, so that we could have a written account of our selves at the end of that day. This is illustrated by the fact that I would never have attributed becoming irritated with my search session if I had not been asked to say if I had or not. I would have just thought that if I did become irritated by the search session that the irritation was to be combined with whole search experience and not singled out as a specific emotion. This may seem weird, but I have the tendency to avoid my feelings, even in unusual ways. Filling-out the forms had me get in touch with my emotions, and this is an area I need practice in, so I welcomed doing the forms. And since filling-out the form was done in private I was able to open up about the way I really felt at the moment of answering.

As to the accuracy of the forms, I want to establish this first. The forms only measured certain parts of the searching process, of course, if it had measured all the parts it would have been much more involved then it was, taking days to complete rather than 30 - 45 minutes. Within their limited scope of providing information about me before and after my search sessions, the forms were accurate. They closely mirror what I felt about my search sessions before I did them and what had actually happened during my searches. When that forms indicate that I was frustrated with my search session I really was. The forms also tracked the specific search engines I used, which is good because I can see what search engines attributed to positive and negative affects while I searched the Internet.

Third, summarize the data from the Forms. Use averages and ranges where appropriate. Do you notice any pattern? Does anything in the data seem valid or invalid? What's the difference between the information on yourself from the numbers and averages vs. the information you provided in the explanations?

Part 3

The nature of the forms Dr. James had us fill out for the search sessions we did for resource accruement towards our annotated bibliography is so that it allows for examination of changes in search attitude overtime. This is true because each time we filled-out a form it was the same form we had filled-out the search session before. The end result being that I had filled-out the same form of questions 10 times for 10 different search sessions. The instant value I see in the way the forms were administrated to us is that if we had been internet novices then we would see marked changes in our answers to the questions in the form as we became increasingly more comfortable on the internet and with using and know about search engines and library usage via the internet.

These marked changes in answers across time are not what I notice in my answers on the form, mainly because upon entering into this class, I was already versed at incorporating the internet for both commercial (on the job) usage, as well as scholarly usage, i.e. web based research. I have been fortunate enough to have had and still to hold a job that involves computer lab maintenance, which is something I enjoy and feel, satisfied doing. The positive side of this type of job is that you get paid to learn about computer and programs on the computer, so I have learned a great deal about MS Office as well as many other software programs.

I would like to zoom in specifics at this time, and make an analysis of some of the questions presented in the forms.

Lets focus our attention first on question # 5, which dealt with how long I thought a search session would take before beginning it. I have complied the total time I thought all my searches would take (all my answers to question # 5) and the result is 480 minutes or 8 hours even. To make a comparison of what I thought to what really happened I have calculated the real time it took for my searches, as record in question #s 2 and 3 of the form. The total minute I spent actually searching was 420 minutes, or 7 hours. So I was off by one hour over the course of 10 search sessions. And not only was I off but I had overestimated the time I thought it would take, so I was able to get the searches over with faster than I thought.

I think that when I gathered materials off the Internet instead of from scientific journal article databases my searches were faster and also easier. We can investigate this hypothesis by looking at how long search sessions were that involved using internet search engines vs. long search session were that involved using journal article databases and then by also looking at how anxious I became and how much effort I expended during this searches we can measure how easy I thought each was. Let me find out. To simplify this task I focus on only one sampling of each type of search session. I made these selections randomly so that there would be a fair representation of data. What I found was that indeed the web based search session did take less time clocking in at 10 minute and the scientific journal article search session took me 30 minutes. Was on easier than the other? During the search session involving looking through the scientific journal articles I scored a 5 on the anxious scale and a 7 on the effort scale as opposed to the scoring a 1 on the anxious scale and again a 1 on the effort scale for the web based search session. It is reasonable to say then that searching for web based information is easier and faster than looking for scientific journal articles, at least by my hand.

What was the one search session that got my emotions flowing in the negative direction, as indicated by high scale rating on the emotion of frustration, irritation and axnity and rage? The search session that really did it to me was when I set out to find information on how men and women handle relationship differently from getting a posting on a internet forum discussion user group. It also turns out that this search session was one of the longest one I had too. For the affective scales I scored the following: Amount of irritation: 7, Amount of anxiety: 7, Amount of frustration: 4, and Amount of rage: 9. Why? Because I had no experience with user group discussion postings sites so I was very confused as to how to search and navigate within a topic.

Across all my searches I was 90% fixed to what I started out with as an objective when I finished. The last question on the form, #26 asks if we changed our search goal since we started, and I found that I only changed my search goal once. This indicates that I am tenacious I donít give up easily. Not just tenacious for a short while, but for the long run. Also in this light I noticed that I had clearly defined search goals that I listed in question # 4, and these helped me stay on target and not lose track.

Lastly, I found that I was always pleased with and supportive of the search engines and computer facilities I used to conduct my searches.

Part 4

A. When it comes to how I behave concerning information and the collection or gathering of it I can see that from the forms of questions I have completed I am very stubborn about getting what I want even if it take me longer than I want to spend. In my mind I know that what I am looking for is out there, and I know that it is only a matter of finding it and downloading it. This is shown in my never changing of my initial search target, and the fact that all my searches were successful. I found that staying focused on what I was looking for really helped me mentally figure-out how to locate it on the web or databases I was looking in. Past me being stubborn I am also pretty optimistic about there being what I look for on the Internet or a connected database there of. When asked in my forms questions if I felt like it was likely I was going to be able to find something relevant to what I intended to seek for, I always mentioned that I was pretty sure there would be something close to what I was looking for.

When in pursuit of information I am able to keep a cool head, that is I did not became irritated or frustrated or enraged that often. For me, I have the preconception that searching takes time and that time is indeed money, so I need not become angry when my searching takes over an hour, because I am prepared for this outcome and I also am willing to accept that life is expensive but worth it. I did not like to assign luck to my searching of the internet for I think that when you are dealing with such in inhuman thing as the internet which is entirely based on machines, I think that oneís results are more based on the search engines used and the search phases searched for.

B. From reviewing the data recorded in the forms, I can see some strong patterns I have when it comes to the computer I like to use while searching and the search engines I prefer to use when in need of information on-line. First, since I donít have a computer at home I always used a computer at work to do these searches. I work at the college of education, and maintain four computer labs there with other computer lab techs. We have both Macintosh and Windows machines, but I always used the Macintoshes because I feel more comfortable on the Mac OS then the Windows OS. I guess Appleís investment in stocking my high school with free computers to indoctrinate us young ones pay off. I will always opt for a Mac if the choice is present. To buy a Mac is a different story, but at least it is certainly a serious consideration when I think about a computer purchase.

The search engines I chose to use fell into different categories. There were the search engines I used to search for materials on the Internet and search engines I used to look for scientific journal articles. My usage pattern of search engines used to the Internet mostly focused around google.comís search engine. Others included Search.comís metasearch function, which is handy, because it is a search engine that searches other search engines. I also used the search engine at hotbot.com, of which I found out about from a computer magazine I once read.

For searching out research articles using the Internet I found that accessing the University of Hawaii library website was very helpful. The web page system of the library is called the Voyager system. From the homepage of the Voyager system you have many options to choose from. There are university-sponsored links to many scientific journal article databases such as, Medline, Science Direct, EBSCOHost, Ingenta, Hawaii Pacific Journal Index, and various others including newspaper and magazine article databases with search functions built-in. In addition to using the library for accessing newspaper and magazine reports, I went directly to some newspaperís websites that I am familiar with so that I could search directly on their achieves for materials. One such newspaper site I used was the Seattle Times website, because Seattle is my hometown.

Every since I been introduce to the search engine at google.com, I have always started my Internet searches there. The big difference between googleís search engine and those of say Yahoo, MSN, Excite, or Netscape is that the latter are commercial portals to the Internet that also incorporate a search function or search engine. Google is not in this category; it does not function as a portal or starting place to the Internet, and is not commercial on its surface page. Once you start to search google does have commercial links, but it keeps these to a minimum.

Using google each time I needed to find resources that I knew would come from the internet itself was very pleasing. Actually, more than pleasing, to have such a great search engine within my reach is truly a blessing. If I were to be searching the web 7 years ago, I would not have the luxury of using google because at that time it did not exist. In combination with the fact that google is such a powerful and streamlined search engine is the fact that the hardware that drives the entire Internet from my own computer to the server that hosts googleís website and search engine, is incredibly fast and modernized. Also the actual backbone structure of the internet, the wiring that connects computer to computer has undergone major technological advances too, to increase its bandwidth and speed of transmission.

The rate at which computer technology is advancing is totally the reason why the Internet is having the impact on our lives that is it. We use the Internet daily now, where as 15 years ago we did not. What has changed? Technology has changed, and according to Bill Gateís wallet so has our interest in it. We could make a blanket statement that would probably hold true to the effect of: If by the year 2000 a modernized country had not taken advantage of the internet in a major way, it could be viewed as clueless. The fact is that no modernized country falls into this category.

Section 3: The Counseling Session

1) The counseling session was an experimental setting. During the start of the counseling session I was asked to sign a consent-form agreement allowing the counselor to conduct research with me as a subject. I thought this was funny, because the experiment seemed relatively harmless. After I had completed the consent-form release statement I was given verbal instructions about what the counseling session was going to involve. The counselor was very precise in the instructions she gave at this time. It was a road map of the time we would spend together.

She told me that I was going to do 3 ten-minute searches on three different subjects requiring to only gather information on the internet, using their supplied search engine ñwww.vivisimo.com. Then before I sat down with her at the computer and started to accomplish the searches she had described, she had me fill-out a questionnaire with questions about my thoughts and feelings in relation to the searches I was about to attempt. An example of one such question is:

How likely you feel it is that you will find the information you are going to be looking for?

Please indicate your answer below:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Highly unlikely Very likely

There were at least 10 questions, and no more than 20. I completed the questionnaire and submitted to the counselor. We both then moved from the table where we were, to chairs at an Imac on a computer desk. The counselor had given me the choice of either using the PC or the Mac they had set-up since the other person who was signed-up for the session did not show up. So, I had my choice and I chose the Mac. I have a bias toward the Macintosh since I grew up using the Mac OS. I just canít stand Microsoftís imitation of it (windows). Especially, since their latest OS, Windows XP, looks exactly like the New Mac OS as well. I was pleased to be on the Mac because it adds confidence to my Internet presence. I feel more musical when functioning a Mac.

The counselor then set the timer and I begun my first 10 minute search on my specified question. The question for the first search asked what was the name of a museum director of a national museum in London. The exactly name of the museum escapes me now, since it has been weeks past my engagement in the study. I used the supplied Internet search engine to track down the name of this individual. I was able to do it within 5 minutes, because I found the official website of the museum and the museumís director was profiled in the administrations area of the website. Finding the information was expedited by vivisimoís clustering of search results into categories base on the title for the linked Internet page. The next search was more complicated than the first. It actually was a set of questions about the disappearance of the famous painting the Mona Lisa that had been on permanent display at the French art museum the Louvre, in the late 1800ís.

I returned back to vivisimoís search engine, and started my hunt for information on the disappearance of the Mona Lisa. I thought to myself that this was going to be easy. It was easy. I first went to the Louvreís official website, but it was all in French and I could not get the English version, so went back to vivisimoís search engine and searched for information on the disappearance on the internet. I found a web site dedicated to explaining the whole account and it answered all my questions I was in search for answers to. Finding this website came late in the 10 minute allotments of time for the task, maybe around minute 7.

Only one more search question remained and I was less optimistic about being successful on locating the answers to this set of questions. The questions for this last search sessions were on the huge tobacco industry vs. individual states, court settlement in 1998, which gave over hundreds of millions of dollars to state governments to help the health of the population, with a focus on reducing smoking habits. I had to find 3 of these states that received money from the tobacco companies, and also find what they did with some of the money they received from the settlement.

Using vivisimo I was only able to track down only information on one state and what they did with some of the money. Just as the 10 minutes were almost done, the computer froze and crashed, so we called it an even 10 minutes and ended the searching phase of the experiment. I was less effective at this task because it was the most questions within one search session, and rooting around for this type of financial and court document data requires more time then 10 minutes. I would say I could have answered all questions asked with more time.

Next, after the search sessions were done, I returned to the table I was at in the beginning and filled-out a questionnaire for post-search assessment. This second questionnaire was similar to the first in that it had questions about my experience while searching that pertained to my emotions while search and my affect about searching for the specified information. Again there was a rating I was to assign each answer in the form of 1=least and 10=most. Then the counseling session was over. I parted from the research room and exited the LIS floor of the library.

2) I am knowledgeable on how to use a computer. I know the basics and I know the more technical side, because my job is maintaining computer in a computer lab that is linked to the Internet. In this regard the counseling session did not provide me with new learning. Using computers to accomplish things makes a lot of sense to me. They can be our memory banks that can hold tons of editable data in a super small space. They can be entertaining, when you use them to play games and surf the Internet for fun. Computers are wonderful and I fully embrace what they have to offer for the acceleration of growth of knowledge awareness. The Internet is undoubtedly this phenomenon. I know how to use Internet Explorer, so in the operation of MS IE I did not learn or gain new skills or knowledge.

The one thing I did learn from this counseling session is that vivisimo.comís search engine is comparable to that of google.comís search engine and that vivisimoís search engine is a special search engine that has visual clustering of results by category. This was new to me, and I have used vivisimoís search since experiencing it during the counseling session. The draw back to the vivisimo website search engine is that the interface is crowded when the search results are displayed because, some of your internet browser window is take up by the visual representation of the clustered search results, this is not a problem if you are working on an industrial strength computer with a 19+ inch screen but, on an Imac (15 inch screen) it is frustrating. The counselor told me at the start of the first search, that I could consult with her if I felt like I needed some creative help in finding the answers to the questions. I did not ask her once for her help because I felt I was doing my best was getting good results.

Overall I did not learn much from this counseling session because my skill level on function a computer and using the internet were already pass the point where I could be taught by what was being offered within the counseling session.

3) The Internet is an essential component of much of our lives today. The digital revolution is permeating society and culture like wildfire. More and more universities, like the University of Hawaii, are now only allowing registration via the web or by telephone. This is exactly what I am talking about. Why -Because computers are helpers, especially when coupled with intelligent graphically interactive programs like the MS Windows OS, and all the programs that use GUIs (graphical user interfaces). Programs like Netscape, MS Word, MS Internet Explorer and so many other that present a working environment in terms of graphics that we manipulate with the mouse to accomplish work. GUIs make computer personable and workable, thus approachable by the average person ñ no special schooling needed. The other attractive aspect of computer technology is that computers can be linked together to create networks that allow for multiple access points to the same information, which is good because, no one has to wait in-line for information they need from a network. For big business computer are extremely important, because they can easily run entire factories internally with intelligent production and mechanism (machine) assessment and management.

For only the cost of a computer, and the software of course, business is within your reach. The actual cost is pennies when analyzed in the long run. For example, if I own a car production plant and need to update my aging computers that run the backbone of my factory, I see the need for getting new computers. I invest $100,000 in high-powered industrial computers that do the job for the next 10 or even 15 years. If you break down the cost to a per day figure; thus 100,000/(10x365) = $27.3. About $28 a day is what I ended up spending on running my factory from a computer that never calls in sick, never sleeps, and never asks for a raise. Or from an academic stand point the computer offers an environment that can produce sharp looking documents and helps to promote the ability of anyone to at least look professional on the surface because the technology is within they reach. Also, the idea of a web of information for sharing purposes was the brainchild of top universities in our country, so we see that the Internet emerged out of the intellectual breeding ground of academia. On the flip side of computer bliss, is the fact that computers are not failsafe, they break and malfunction, which is frustrating, especially when you donít have time for such inconveniences and have structured our lives around them not malfunctioning.

For the future student who will be in need of suggestions for general computer tactics and effective ways of navigating the overflowing vastness of the Internet, I present the following guidelines.

Learning Suggestions

€ Get to know more about the computer itself. Understand how the hard drives saves your work when you tell a program like Word to save your document. Understanding the computerís internal function helps you get along better with the general computer environment.

€ Donít be in fear or afraid to ask for help. If you feel like computers and yourself donít get along, find out why, there is probably a reason. If anything, make a point to see Dr. James after or before class and ask him questions you have.

€ Try to add extra motivation to the learning process you go through as a result of signing for a class with Dr. James. Tell yourself you really want to learn anyway even if Dr. James was not making you. Do this be setting specific personal satisfactions you get out of learning the internet and more about computers.

€ For using the Internet for searching, find a search engine you feel comfortable with. One you intuitively understand the interface of and one that is pleasant to use, in that it gives more target results than not. I have used google.comís search engine and rely on it as a portal in searching the Internet.

€ Donít lose hope. If it seems hard, it probably is. Just sit in it and let your feelings come and pass, they will not take you with them. You will remain, unfulfilled, but you will be able to do something different. Seek out a helping hand, a computer savvy friend, the professor, on-line help sites for computer beginners ñ Whatever to get you what you need.

€ While on the Internet remember to stay focused. The Internet is extremely full of everything kind of thing that exists in our world (and even things that donít). There are more than 2,700,000,000 website on the Internet. The amount of information available on the Internet can be distracting if you donít stay on target and focus on your goals.

€ Lastly, for the Internet and computer too, remember to have fun and understand how these technologies could benefit your own life at home. By relating it to you, you will become more involved in being genuinely interested and personally encouraged to learn more.

€ Here is a link that will help anyone with fears about computer competence or Internet navigation, just click here.

Section 4: The Psychology of Information Literacy

1. The idea of a generational curriculum approach to teaching at the college level has been conceived, nurtured, conceptually thought-out, and most importantly put into practice by Dr. James, a tenured Psychology professor at the flagship Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii education system. The roots of Dr. Jamesí efforts to invent the generational curriculum method of creating a more fertile and learning conducive classroom environment started to take shape as early as 1971. His initial use of generational curriculum was activated by his quest to get students to voice their feeling and opinions about an assigned topic, in formal written papers. He found that the written work mirrored too closely the source assigned for reading, this bordered on plagiarism. At the same time, the students having only recapitulated the reading assignment in their written assessment, where very original and vocal when discussing the assigned in groups in class.

This struck Dr. James ñ it was not that the students did not have opinions or original thoughts about the reading, just that the writing assignments are not extracting it. His solution: Have student write papers with the intended target audience of other students ñ other students being those of the next semester and so on. In addition to bettering the papers of the students, Dr. James came to realize that students learned better when they related what they were learning to themselves and to other students in the class. The generational curriculum approach to teaching is based on idea that a present generation class, that of today, draws on and uses the written work of class generations from the past as part of class assigned work. Over years of implementing his generational curriculum approach, Dr. James has observed both the growth of amount of generational material available to new generations, and the positive effects of peer-to-peer learning that is promoted by using a generational curriculum approach to traditional classroom instruction.

Dr. James had started something that would stay with to the present day. The seeds of a fully integrated and fully functioning generational curriculum community based classroom were planted and cared for by these discoveries of diversifying and tinkering with education. During the 70s and the 80s, Dr. Jamesí generational curriculum classes involved printed materials from generation of classes who had completed the class in semesters pass. The students of such a class were assigned, as part of the class to review and inspect the prior generationís works and to base some of their own work off of this generational curriculum. As time progressed technology was getting ready to affect the function of Dr. Jamesí print based generational curriculum.

In 1993, Dr. James made a bold move and begun to publish the generational curriculum on the Internet. Commercially in 1993 the Internet was a new idea, but within the university setting the networking of information via computer systems and email had been around for at least 5 years. The introduction of the Internet into the model of the generational curriculum teaching method brought new learning to the curriculum itself. Namely learning about the Internet, how to search it, and how to create Internet ready documents - e.g. html formatted document. As part of the new style of producing the generational curriculum, Dr. James saw fit to incorporate information gather and research to be done the Internet as well. With the introduction of using the web as a permanent posting area for the generational curriculum, accessibility of the generational curriculum become centralized and computerized, and much easier. Dr. James made half of his class period devoted to computer lab usage at a dedicated lab, while the other half was spent on in-class discussion and formal presentations.

Enter the importance of hyperlinks. As the generational curriculum went ìon-lineî it was subjected to the new rules that govern the cyberspace domain. One of these rules and mainstays in world of web pages and html code is the idea of a hyperlink. The ability to link text with text is at the core of the function of a hyperlink. How did hyperlinks add to the generational curriculum? Consider if you will the practical task of going to the library and checking out volumes of generational works just to do a single assignment. Then you are quickly working on finding what you needed when you see that a prior studentís work has referenced anotherís work, and you want to track it down. Then what? You go back to library and search for the referenced work. With the ability to hyperlink documents to each other, the above stated task is minimal, only the click of a button. Much time is save with hyperlink technology, as well as the creation of a virtual environment that can be so wide open.

The usage of the Internet as a holding tank and access point of the generational curriculum has proved excellent. It provides not only superior but equal access to all of the on-line content of generations past. In addition, being Internet based forces the class generations to become Internet intelligent or Internet literate. Since administering the Internet portion of the generational curriculum, Dr. James has observed stages of growth of Internet learning within his students. The stages have been identifiable through assignments that record what a student is experiencing while functioning a computer on the Internet and engaged in class specific assignment. These assignments are usually in the form of a questionnaire about the participantís behavior and feeling about their time on the computer and Internet. Through analyzing such measure of studentsí experiences with the computer and internet, Dr. James has identified three stages of internet learning a student goes through. These stages of learning computers and the Internet, are substantial because they are intergenerational, that is across multiple generations of classes. This means that the identified learning stages are not based on anomalies, rather on spanning patterns that show stability over time and personality. What are the learning stages Dr. James has uncovered? This I will cover now.

Dr. James, a scientist at heart, not only uses the on-line generational curriculum as a way to enrich his studentís experience of his university course, but he analyzes the production of such an implementation. The classes in which Dr. James uses the on-line generational curriculum approach are required to record their mental and emotion states as they work toward completion of their class related web pages and web searches. The recorded attitudes and feelings about their experiences on learning the Internet are catalogued this way. In fact, these recorded self-witnessing activities are part of the studentís own analysis of their growth to becoming more Internet savvy. After research and analysis of his own, Dr. James has identified 3 stages, or ìphasesî, of learning of Internet skills. These phases are: 1) Achieving focus on the Internet, 2) Achieving engagement as independent learners, and 3) Personalization of the community of the generational curriculum practice. The stages or phases can be thought about in the basic skill categorization format of: beginner ñ intermediate ñ advanced.

Included in his breakdown of learning phases, Dr. James couples the idea of different human faculties working together to accomplish the learning within each specific phase of learning of Internet skills. Three differentiated mechanisms can be seen through different action and behavior patterns within each learning phase. These three areas that combine to create the whole manifestation of a particular phase, according to the personís progression within the class structure are: 1) Affective skills, 2) Cognitive skills, and 3) Sensory-motor skills. It is stressed by Dr. James that these components of human learning are present at all phases of studentís learning of internet skills. Of course, at each progressive phase these psychological components are functioning differently. I will provide a few excepts from Dr. Jamesí formal explanation of these three mechanisms to give you an example of them:

ìÖlearners begin modeling and can acquire the motive of sustained effort and project completion (phase 2 affective skills).î

ìBy identifying with prior generations, learners empower themselves to acquire disciplinary and cultural content that members refer to and discuss (phase 1 cognitive skills).î

ìGoing further with generational modeling, learners begin cumulating their role activities and coalescing them into a sustained, meaningful project (phase 2 sensorimotor skills).î

A description of the process involved in each of the taxonomy assignment of these phases of learning skills for the Internet is in order. Dr. James, since having acquired his relatively new on-line generational curriculum method of maintaining and using a generational curriculum approach, did set up a quantitative measurement system that funnels the comments of studentís into such taxonomic phases of learning. Phase one of learning the internet, as stated above is called the ìAchieving focus on the Internetî phase. It is characterized by studentís attempts to maintain engagement in their searches of the Internet and in their preliminary struggle to create html-formatted documents.

Within this first phase, the learner is functioning at novice levels, and is acting on out external functions to prepare his/her mind for more advanced internal learning, that is of thinking in conjunction with learning, this is not the case with phase one. Phase one is more a hands-on stage that supplies basics of a learning environment. As students progress in the timeline of the course, they gain enough learning and start to exhibit patterns of phase two of the learning process. Phase two marks a definite jump in abilities and competence of Internet skills, as well as information literacy. Students are required to do a least one full search session per week, after a month or two, they have preformed at least 7-8 searches, as well as being responsible for a creating a homepage with functioning hyperlinks and pictures.

About 20% of the original class drops the class before they get a chance to reach phase two. The learning that will take place within phase two is learning how to become a self-directed autonomous learner. Building on what has been learned in phase one, students no longer struggle with understand how, but now move onto more internal areas of learning the Internet. This need to take the learning inward and start to solidify it within the constructs of our very self is aided by the set-up of the on-line generational curriculum teaching approach. This is because the on-line generational a perfect place for students to reach out for a model of what to do in the uncertainty of not knowing the next step. A huge super map of generations past is part of their class, and they are required to incorporate it in their own works. This map of prior works completed helps student understand that they too can become self-directed autonomous learner, just as generations from the past have.

Phase three is the ultimate place of internalization within the individual of the generational curriculum method of learning. This phase represents the learnerís experience of becoming in master of operations within the generational curriculum walls of existence. The hard work has paid off and the rewards are handsome; as well as the studentís near completion of a complex and challenging course, they have also completed their contribution to the generational curriculum of higher meaning. Personalization is what is attained at phase three of learning to function the Internet and be are part of the generational curriculum. This personalization generates good feelings within the student and places them inside of group that they belong to, which helps to foster loyalty to the function of the generational curriculum approach. They are often proud of their hard work.

These three phases of learning the Internet and associated skills, begin with outward learning and progress to internalized understandings and mental constructs that allow for more creativity and inventiveness. By becoming competent at doing something we certainly raise our internal understanding of it and began, from this knowledge, to approach the tasks in diverse fashions that compile and make up a functioning system of getting something done in our own unique way.

Dr. James highly recommends the generational curriculum class approach to any educators who are in search of alternative methods of fostering more community activated learning. The required daily maintenance by Dr. James for the up keep of the now on-line generational curriculum is about 3-4 hours, six days weeks. This is a considerable amount of time and Dr. James confesses this. From the standpoint of being a professor Dr. James offers an extended view into the educational principles of on-line generational community classroom. Prime among them is creating community-building forces among learners. Since community based projects are normally carried out by groups, is it imperative that there be a clear and visible communal product, which is produced by everyoneís contributions. This product needs to be real, believable and authentic, for success of the individuals and the class itself.

More of the educational principles of on-line generational community classroom include the idea of intentionality and generational aspects. Intentionality is the best described as adding a student focused purpose to learn materials and assignments. Dr. James found that having his social psychology students apply to themselves what they were learning, in activities that were carried out in interaction with others, produced the positive outcomes of intentionality. So, to somehow relate the taught material to the student was a way to promote class critical intentionality. Of course you need generations of classes to have or offer a generational curriculum class.

Generations are funny things ñ each year the same materials are being taught to new learners, these new learner are the foundation of each successive generation. These learners come and go, but what they do stays when they leave. This is the basis of the generational curriculum approach to teaching. The cool thing about the generational curriculum approach is that in having current generations orientate themselves to the idea that their work will be accessed in the future by other students, they become more creative, excited, and expressive, coming away from their normal operations of scholastic survival.

By using the Internet as an integrated component of his generational curriculum classroom, Dr. James is afforded the opportunity to get student more information literate. This is, to become skilled at reading information. By taking his on-line generational curriculum class, students overcome fears they have about technology and information and actually start to feel enthusiastic about it. They become familiar with using electronic mediums of communication like email, ftp, and web page building. Very important for all college students to know is how to use the internet in general and search engines on it, this they learn in class as well. In addition to learning about how to use the internet, the students learn to write for a public audience, because not only will there written materials be reviewed by the instructor for grading purposes, but also by future generations and others who can access their works via the internet.

Dr. James has built his generational curriculum classroom upon the idea that students benefit from it. By having students orientate themselves to the idea that other students will be accessing their works, Dr. James has seen a marked increase in student opinion being displayed in their written works. This is excellent from a teacherís standpoint. When the generational curriculum went on-line in 1993 a whole new dimension was added to the generational curriculum, that is the learning of the Internet and skills needed to publish works on it as well as search out information from it.

2. As the latest induction in to the generational curriculum, I find myself not feeling fully engaged in the process of being generational. Its kind of the idea that when we think about generations of people we are not going to consider our generation as much as the generations that has already made it to death. The ending of a generation is what concretely makes it a static generation. Lets say if this current generation was to be disrupted by a university strike, as we experienced one not too long ago. Suppose that the strike lasted all semester long and this yearís generation was felt uncompleted, then what? This is how I initially feel about my class generation. Now that the semester is bit more than half way done I feel more secure in the completion or death of my generation.

As you read the text entries I have typed here, you are involved in the access of my layer of this on-line generational curriculum. I have a central homepage that severs as a starting point or index of my works completed for this class of driving psychology and other diverse topics of psychological study. Just as the prior generations of classes have accessed other generations of published works to give them an example of what others, faced with their same tasks have created. My homepage will become a learning center for future generations to come. This does indeed increase my willingness to do quality work, since it will be publicly viewable and also peer viewable. Not only does this increase my motivation to produce quality, but is gives me a sense of pride from knowing that I have actually published my research report and annotated bibliography on the internet for the whole world to view, if they can find it.

I am part of something that will keep on growing and I have lent my own individual style to the whole. And in addition to being part of this curriculum, I have the chance to help others, by standing as an example of what a creative person did to accomplish the tasks set out by Dr. James. More specifically this particular report, my research report, is connected to the generational curriculum because it the amalgamation of my self-witnessing data I collected from my web searching session, which provide critical data to the understanding of my actions while learning the Internet and my quest to build information literacy.

I can see more value in my generational contribution in years to come, when I have completed my input, and others are actively using it their benefit. This is when I feel the full effects of having spawned a layer within the every mounting mountain of student homepages and research reports within the generational curriculum. I will feel good when I go on Google.com and type in my name and find that I am returned a search result that links me to my work published in this class.

3. To fully understand what is meant by the term ìinformation literacyî I have collected a major definition of it. As I searched the Internet for exact definitions of information literacy, I noticed all the sites that offered substantial descriptions or definitions of information literacy, were related to library services or library studies institutions. It appears as if information literacy has to do with libraries or places where massive amounts of information are stored. Or at least information literacy plays a big part in library structure and planning. Before I reveal the exacting definition I found on the Internet, I want to do an analysis of the two words in the phrase ìinformation literacyî.

For me, the phrase ìinformation literacyî means what it says, that is the ability or competence of a person to read information. Literacy means the ability to read and write, so applied to information to me it means the ability to ìreadî information. What does that mean? I propose that the reading of information has to do with oneís skill level of finding, assessing, and judging information as related to a specific goal they in the midst of obtaining. Deeper than the detonated meaning of words, ìinformation literacyî also carries connotative meaning to it. Personally, the connotation I get from reading and saying ìinformation literacyî to myself is the feeling of ìan ability to not get overwhelmed by the massive amounts of information that exist, while navigating pass information that is not useful, and arriving at information that you seek, all done in this day and age, with mega libraries and huge on-line databases.

How close is my interpretation of the meaning of information literacy? Now, I will put forth the formal definition of information literacy I found on the Internet, within a web page hosted by the library services of the State University of New York (SUNY). The definitions I found is part of an initiative statement that involves promoting information and library services across the many campuses of the SUNY state system. In using the phrase of information literacy they gave the following definition:

"the abilities to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, effectively use, and communicate information in its various formats".

State University of New York (SUNY) Council of Library Directors.

Information Literacy Initiative. Sept. 1997.

http://olis.sysadm.suny.edu/ili/final.htm

(Location within the online document ---Under Charge One of Recommendations.)

The above definition of information literacy closely mirrors other valid definitions of the term. I did find that 4-5 varying definitions, but they all centered around the ability to assess the need for information as well as being able to find or locate information, and once located engage in effective use of it. The one outstanding part of the above definition is that it includes the communication of information in its various formats, not only the acquisition of knowledge in its various formats. I chose to present this definition over other definitions I had encountered because it was the only definition that encased transmission of information.

An integrated understanding of information literacy will provide underlying support to those of us who seek out information on a regular basis. To examine the definition of information literacy is essential. Who is information literate? According to the above technical definition of information literacy, a information literate individual can: 1) recognize when a need for information has surfaced, 2) find the specific information they have recognized a need for, 3) make critical analyses of found information as to the relevance of it to their needs, 4) use the found information in practice, and finally 5) communicate any information using different methods or formats. We might think, being constrained within the confines of a University setting all day, busy at our workstation that information literacy would be a wide spread skill, but this is not so. Just as we might thing that literacy, the ability to read and write, are widespread skills, but they are not.

Becoming information literate is part of this class we are in. Using the Internet as a viewing point for class related works is very much being information literate. Our constant web searching for articles, write-ups, reviews of research, and Internet material, is sharpening our information literacy skills and getting us accustomed using our brains to maneuver through information to arrive at what we ultimately seek. For me learning how to post a homepage and create even a functional hyperlink are direct evidences that I am becoming more information literate with the progression of this class. It is certain that my personal level of competence on creating and maintaining simple websites has increase greatly as a result of this class. Before this class I was shy about creating websites, and I was so baffled by the idea of FTP and HTML.

I do have work experience with printed media, so I understand enough about computer design programs to grab the idea of how to design a webpage, but then you have deal the code and I donít want to do that. With the advance in computer program technology, we can easily create websites from our Word documents, with the click of a button. This is helpful, because no code is required; thank you God and thank you Bill Gates.

4. The sum of the pieces is not greater than the collective amalgam of those pieces. This is a proponent statement to the quality of group function. Basically this statement rests its weight on the life fact that all things are connected. And it is true all things are function of each other, in relationship at all times. There can be relationships that are more centered in our immediate consciousness, like the relationships we share with significant others, or with our children. But just because we are not consciously aware of our connection and relationship with person x in country x, does not mean that our connection and relationship with him/her is non-existent. Think to yourself about a connection with someone you have not seen in a long while. Does time passage remove your relationship with them? It may change it, but the connection is still relational. Just as some relationships and connections are self-evident, such as marriage and children-parent connections, my research report is embedded in a connection system that is relational and more over evident.

The context that houses the evident connection of my research report to the generational curriculum is my attendance of Dr. Jamesí psychology class that involves creation of such a report. What I have come to understand is that my research report is only piece of the greater whole of both my own personal homepage, and the entire generational curriculum. My homepage is the whole of my efforts, for it contains all my published works, but in connection with the multilayered vastness of the generational curriculum it is only a small component. My homepage, which includes this research report, is now a fundamental rung in the ladder of the generations of published work, this is how my research report is connected to the generational curriculum. The goal of Dr. Jamesí class is for the most part based on becoming Internet savvy. But not only Internet savvy, we are pushed to gain information literacy, of which I have formally address above.

Does my participation in the creation of my research report connect to information literacy? And how is information literacy connected to the larger more all-encompassing arena of the generational curriculum? First I will address the clear connection between my research report and information literacy. The building or preparation phases leading up the commencement of my authoring of this research report required that I do research using a computer to search the Internet. The Internet is full of information and some level of information literacy is needed to get what you are looking for out of the Internet system. This is especially true if you have to do constant searching, over a long-range time frame as I did (at least 1.5 months). My ability to find and use effectively the sources of information I found was put to the test. As well as my ability to transmit information, as I am doing now with the creation of this web based document I calling my research report.

My skill level of information literacy has determined the quality of my annotated bibliography and also this research report. Heavy is the important of information literacy to the process of research, and also to the process of creating a research report. It is that information literacy is so basic a requirement for a college student who is research concerned that such a student almost forgets that he/she is using information literacy when wading through useless information in search of what is really needed. I did not know of information literacy until I was shown it by this class. I just assumed it was general self study that told people an effective way of searching for information and once finding it the ability to use it, is a good tool to invest in. I had what I call a mental scheme of doing information collection and I saw that this was a good tool to have and create. I see that I had a mental construct of how to find information and once found I could effectively evaluate it, use it, and then communicate my own ideas about it.

I want to say that the assignments of doing weekly searches and the authoring of this research report have increased my own information literacy. The simple fact of the matter is that mental preparation is the single most effective way to become more adapt at doing something, and this mental preparation is best conducted in real world situations. So doing is the best training, and the processes of both being part of an on-line generational curriculum class and having to search the Internet on a weekly basis have put me into continual real-world development of improving my information literacy. This is how information literacy is linked to my research report, by way of execution, practice, and need.

Links:

To My Homepage | To Dr. Jamesí Homepage | To The Class Homepage | To My Annotated Bibliography