Acquiring Cyberspace Citizenship

From Trials and Tribulations to Success and Satisfaction!

Introduction

What an experience this has been! When I first enrolled in this class I thought "how bad could it be?" I thought "I've played on the internet, it's fun, so a class about cyberspace should be fun,too! No?" Well, as I sat down in my first class, I was greeted by Dr. James. One thing I'll give Dr. James is his honesty. He was extremely frank with us, and told us that class was going to require a lot of work. OK, I've had classes like this, I can handle work! Yet as the class progressed I realized that not only would I have to do the work, I would be forced to learn a lot about myself along the way.

This class has given me a new perspective on the way I learn and tackle difficult issues...like fear and frustration. It has been feat to complete this class sane, but for those who have, it has been a trip well worth it. I've come out with a greater knowledge about the internet as well as my innerself.

Data Collection

My Feelings, My Thoughts, My Actions

The following charts contain the data I collected on myself when I was using the Internet and doing my assignments for this class. The red number indicates the level at which my thoughts and feelings were at, on the date of the observation. Below each chart is my evaluation of the data.


Data Collection for 8/30
stressful ____-3____-2____-1____0____(+1)____+2____+3 pleasant
dissatisfied ____-3____-2____-1____0____(+1)____+2____+3 satisfied
wasted ____-3____(-2)____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 valuable
confusing ____-3____(-2)____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 clarifying
discouraging ____-3____(-2)____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 hopeful

Evaluation

Overall, this first experience I had with e-mail and the Internet was a negative one. Although it was mildly pleasant and satisfying, I did feel a great sense of confusion which led me to be discouraged, in turn making me give-up early. Once I gave up I felt that all the time I had spent on the computer was a waste because I hadn't finished my assignment. At this point I hadn't come to the realization yet that any time spent in cyberspace, is time well spent, not time wasted. Since this was the case, the data I collected was marked with spite.

This initial reaction, I have since learned, is a common one. Many people, who are infected with technophobia(a fear of technology) are overwhelmed with the Internet when they first encounter it. Being that I had a bad case of the technophobias I easily succumbed to my fears, and instead of working through my doubts and confusion I used them as excuses to quit. This initial reaction could have very detrimental effects to new travelers in cyberspace.. If newcomers and beginners to the Internet world allow their technophobia to take control, they will reject the Net and all that it has to offer. Individuals who don't have the ability to work through the initial confusion, myself being one, should find someone to guide them.

Data Collection for 9/7
stressful ____-3____-2____-1____(0)____+1____+2____+3 pleasant
dissatisfied ____-3____-2____-1____(0)____+1____+2____+3 satisfied
wasted ____-3____-2____-1____0____(+1)____+2____+3 valuable
confusing ____-3____-2____(-1)____0____+1____+2____+3 clarifying
discouraging ____-3____-2____(-1)____0____+1____+2____+3 hopeful

Evaluation

At this session I was at home and attempting to complete part 6:UNIX Commands. Have you ever had to create a directory in your UNIX account. Well let me tell you, if you haven't you have a treat in store for you. To start, I sat at my computer at home, in total silence, took a deep breath and read each line of the instructions as if they contained the secrets to life. About an hour later I had successfully completed the task at hand, but not without going through a spectrum of emotions. By the end my evaluation of emotions came out to average. I neither felt elated nor disgusted with my accomplishments, I merely felt finished. I felt mild amounts of stress, confusion and discouragement, and a slight satisfaction that my completion part 6 had some value. I will admit now, that I have never used my directories that I had completed, and still lost to their purpose. But as it is now, if someone wishes to learn my favorite dishes I can show them a nice simple directory on my UNIX account that contains that very information.

Data Collection for 9/16 (Home Session)
stressful ____-3____(-2)____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 pleasant
dissatisfied ____-3____(-2)____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 satisfied
wasted ____(-3)____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 valuable
confusing ____(-3)____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 clarifying
discouraging ____-3____(-2)____-1____0____+1____+2____+3 hopeful

Evaluation

Have you ever wanted to yank the hair from your head or throw inanimate objects around your living room, then I invite you to try doing Part 8: Downloading and Uploading. AAAAAGGGHHHHH! Two pages of what appeared to be simple instructions simply turned this somewhat sane girl, into a raving lunatic. Up till this joint I managed to muster my way through the activities, deciphering what seemed to me a foreign language, but on this day I was lost without a map. After an hour of reading and re-reading the instructions I basically lost my patience. I became irrational and from that point all hope of completing this assignment was lost. "When you are logged in create a new directory using the ftp software menu command or ftp>mkdir and call it exactly the same name as your uhunix login name" WHAT? By the time I reached this line, someone could have told me to add 1+1 and I couldn't have done it. After this activity I came to the conclusion that once you've entered into the mind set that you "can't" do something, you never will. Negativity is evil, especially when you've got a bad case of technophobia.

Data Collection for 9/16 (Lab Session)
stressful ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) pleasant
dissatisfied ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) satisfied
wasted ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) valuable
confusing ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) clarifying
discouraging ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) hopeful

Evaluation

Now take a quick look at the last entry for 9/16 (home session) and compare it the data in the above 9/16 (lab session) chart. Notice a difference? You should! In both session I was attempting to complete Part 8:Downloading and Uploading. Yet, as can be seen above, I had a dramatic breakthrough. I included this entry for one major reason, to emphasize the importance of group dynamics. Alone I was close to tears of frustration as I attempted to complete this assignment, but in the lab surrounded by my classmates I was close to tears of joy as I successfully completed Part 8. A major part of this class is to work on assignments on your own, alone to face your computer fears. Yet the rest is the growth of a classroom community that helps each other through assignments via personal tutoring at labs, or through e-mail. This classroom community becomes a great support system, and it offers a place to get help when you feel totally lost and overwhelmed. This class has helped me face my computer fears and work through problems alone, but it was because I always knew that I could get help if I needed it! So to my G7 classmates, thankyou for keeping me sane!

Data Collection for 10/12
stressful ____-3____-2____-1____0____(+1)____+2____+3 pleasant
dissatisfied ____-3____-2____-1____0____(+1)____+2____+3 satisfied
wasted ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____(+2)____+3 valuable
confusing ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____(+2)____+3 clarifying
discouraging ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____(+2)____+3 hopeful

Evaluation

Things are progressing, when this data was collected it was two days before Report 1 "Identifying Attitudes Through Newsgroups" was due. I have attained a sense of confidence and the only thing that seems to be posing a problem now is time. Reading Newsgroups is a very educating yet lengthy process. I had never realized before that so many people had an interest in topics like "aggressive driving". As I entered my first newsgroup, I was greeted with over a thousand entries under "Road Rage". WOW! this was quite overwhelming. Creating the report didn't pose that much of a problem, organizing all the information I had found in my newsgroups was. In the end I was mildly satisfied with my first official Web report, and began to stress about the next one!

Data Collection for 11/16
stressful ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) pleasant
dissatisfied ____-3____-2____-1____0____(+1)____+2____+3 satisfied
wasted ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____(+2)____+3 valuable
confusing ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____(+2)____+3 clarifying
discouraging ____-3____-2____-1____0____+1____+2____(+3) hopeful

Evaluation

The end is near! Report 2, the very one you are reading is due in two days. So what do you think! Did I do good? I breath a sigh of relief because I no longer face the frustrating technical difficulties I experiences in the beginning. HTML and FTP have become less foreign, and rather than just completing my assignment on time, I stress about making it visually appealing! Once I had a little experience under my belt, one would think that most of my problems would come to an end. WRONG! To my amazement, the knowledge that I have attained has created new problems. Dissatisfied has taken on new meaning Now rather than it being dissatisfied because I was unable to finish my assignment, I am dissatisfied because I know I can make my assignment better. I am always looking for ways of improving, by adding bullets or changing text or font size for easy reading. Now that I know how to do these things the possibilities seem endless. I have learned a great deal in this class, and if you are to glance back at my first data collection you'll notice "I've come a long way, baby!" It was worth the initial stress and frustration, believe me!

Trials and Tribulations of Learning the Internet

From Chaos to Confidence!


Cobb's Report on Attaining Cyber Citizenship


Cobb broke down his internet experience by three domains: the Affective, the Cognitive, and the Sensory Domain.
He explains that the Affective domain is the feeling phase, which inturn leads to thinking or cognitive phase. He chooses examples from other's reports that express their emotions, such as "I was feeling confused." He stresses the importance of this phase because it is the feeling stage that leads us toward the latter two.

In the the Cognitive is the stage where our thoughts develope. One again Cobb uses examples from other's reports to illustrate tthis. "Feeling confused, I thought of quittting"

In the the last domain, Sensory Motor, actions come into play. Thoughts lead to actions in the body. Cobb states that this is the stage where students are actually "doing something." When the students were feeling positive, it led to positive thoughts then inturn to positive actions. Likewise it true for the opposite, for instance: "I felt confused, thought of quitting and so I stopped doing my assignment."


Ross's Report on Attaining Cyber Citizenship

In the first week of being a cybercitizen, Ross hated the emacs and the time limits. I too was frustrated with the time limits the UH server has, which is a two our limit on computers and/or the Internet. As many of us now know, two hours flies by when your surfing the web. To deal with this frustration Ross makes some usefull suggestions:

Ross also states that reading other's reports makes one feel like they are not alone in Cyberspace, and that not only they are having major difficulties. She also loved the instant gratification that the E-mail gave her.
This frustration didn't last long, thank goodness, and by week seven Ross was feeling confident. She was even helping people turn on their computers!
All in all Ross states that her time spent in this class would be time she wouldn't trade for anything. She feels the knowledge she has attained in the class about the internet is priceless.

Diane's Report on Learning the Internet

In Diane's words learning the Internet was a "frustrating experience, but nothing a taco salad and a Killian's can't cure." She used a lot of humor and honesty to speak about her experience, but all in all I feel she didn't really have alot of imformative things to say. She tended to run off on tangents, and aside from some humouroes snip-its, I really didn't get much out of her site.
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My experience compared to these prior cybercitizens

As I read Diane's report one thing that I could relate to immediatly is the feeling of frustration that she expressed having. As can be seen in my first data collection from 8/30, I had an intense feeling of stress whane I couldn't complete the assignment. This feeling is what Cobb descibes in his report as emotions from the Affective domain. These feelings then lead to how we think, in my case, feelings of frustration led me to think,"I'm going to quit!". Cobb makes another important statement, which is these thoughts from the cognitive domain in turn control our actions, from sensory motor. If one feels negative, then thinks negative, then his actions are going to be negative. This is exactly the chain of events that occurred to me during the first few weeks of this class.

Yet as Cobb states when one has positive feelings, for example due to successfully completing the downloading and uploading assignment, they will have positive thoughts. Now if you were to look at my data collection from 9/16 Lab session, you will see how completing an assignment results in such positive emotions. After that session, I though "Hey this isn't that hard, I can do this!" These thoughts led to me to immediatly try the next assignment, where as before I would have put it off.

From Ross' report I found a piece of advice that I now take to heart, "Feel positive even if you don't get anywhere!" I wish I had read that before I started this class!

Thoughts From My Classmates

As I read through my classmates' reports I realized one thing, we all felt the same things. I could relate to their stress and their moments of elation when they finally figured out how to upload their files! Ginama states that her experience was ...stressful. Don't I agree with that! She felt disappointed in herself when she kept putting things off, and I am sure this must of added to her stress. One thing I learned from this class is to keep up with the assignments. Ginama also states that she felt satisfied with her work although she knew it wasn't perfect. I also experienced this sense of satisfaction. Although I knew I could always improve my sites, I felt that I had come long way and this made me feel proud! One piece of advice she gives is "Don't' be lazy!"

Another one of my classmates : Rapoza, states that becoming a cybercitizen was a great learning experience. It seems that not only did Rapoza become educated about the Internet but she also obtained a better understanding for the way she learns. This lesson will undoubtfully be a tool she can apply to not only her future classes, but to obstacles she encounters in life. Rapoza's words of advice, "Don't give up!"

Conclusion

(a)In doing this report, I was able to reminisce about those melancholy days of frustration and chaos. Reflect back to those moments that I sat at my computer, on the edge of insanity, wanting so desperately to finish the assignment but seeing no end in sight. Yes, those were the days. No, I didn't think so then, but when I stop and look at where I am now, I realize how important those days were. If you've ever had to work hard toward a goal I am sure you can relate to this. When you struggle through something, wanting to give up at every stage of the way, but not allowing yourself to, what you gain is not only success but experience. This experience is often times more valuable than the end result you've worked toward. By doing this report I have gained an appreciation for my travels though cyberspace. Although rocky at times, it was well worth the trip.

To Future Generations...

(b)I have one very valuable piece of advice, "Stick with it!" This class can be very overwhelming, and at times you will want to throw in the towel. Moments when you feel your technophobia has won the fight, you just have to take a deep breath and jump back in the ring. Take full advantage of the help you have around you. Realize that your classmates are in the same boat as you and are more than willing to work through the assignments with you. Never be afraid to ask questions and never give up. The knowledge that you gain about the Internet and creating web pages is priceless. I highly recommend this class, but make sure you are willing to put in the effort. After all, the harder you work the more you'll benefit!

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My Exploration of the Generational Curriculum Labyrinth | My Home Page | My Report 1 on: Identifying Attitudes Through Newsgroups Messages |My Report 2 on: Acquiring Cyberspace Citizenship | My Newsgroups Report | Our G7 Class Home Page | Dr. Leon James Home Page
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