Written By: Susan Ganahl, Psychology 409a, 1998, Generation 10
Table Of Contents
My Selection # 1
"Learning The Internet", a report by Ryan Mitsui, G4 cyberpsychology
student.
My Selection # 2
"Social Psychology of USENET Newsgroups", a report by Kendra Morgan,
G7 Traffic Psychology student.
My Selection # 3
"How Do Virtual Communities Work?", a report by Aaron Libed, G8b Cyberpsychology
student.
My Selection # 4
"Traffic Psychology On The Internet", a report by Sharla Supnet, G2
Traffic Psychology student.
Conclusion
My Selection # 1. "Learning
The Internet". Report by Ryan Mitsui, G4 cyberpsychology student.
I chose this report because I became interested in Mitsui's work while I was preparing for my class presentation. I also felt that his report was simple and helpful, that is, he writes in a way that I can understand and relate to. I browsed through many reports before choosing Mitsui's. It took me several days to choose this report.
Mitsui breaks up the process of learning the internet into three parts, confusion, resistance and the spider man phase. In phase 1, confusion, Mitsui describes the feelings of confusion, frustration and helplessness that are commonly felt by people who are new to the internet. It relates ecspecially to Dr. James class. This text is actually encouraging because one realizes that his experience is common and that it is possible to move to another phase. The second phase is the resistance phase, it follows the confusion phase. This is when we want to give up and call it quits. Boy that is really true for my experience! Mitsui advises those in this phase to "keep pushing on". This gives the reader hope that it is going to get better. And yes! It does get easier when one enters the "Spider man phase" or "transformation into a web slinger". Here one becomes like "a baby bird that has just learned to fly" and leaves behind the frustration and confusion of the former stages. Now the web becomes a new hobby, and an interesting part of daily life.
Mitsui also offers helpful tips to future generations.
One of these is to do yourwork at home on your word processor, then save
it on a disk. Then when you get to class open up what you typed at
home, go to edit and use the select all and copy commands and then you
can open your html file and paste it. This helps to save time. The
first time I tried it I erased my file, but now I am getting the hang of
it!
My Selection # 2. Social Psychology of USENET Newsgroups. Report by Kendra Morgan, G7 Traffic Psychology student.
I chose this report because it relates specifically to newsgroups. I thought it would be good for me to get more familiar with newsgroups because that is going to be the subject of my next report. I also thought that the report was interesting and informative. The first section of the report describes newsgroups and gives information about how to access them. Ms. Morgan was able to access the newsgroups for her report by using either PINE or Netscape programs to search for newsgroups. She explains the meaning of key terms which are used in newsgroups such as posting, thread, flagging messages, spamming and flaming. She then includes several newsgroup messages with an analysis of the message and newsgroup behavior. This is followed by a section on "What It's Like to Participate: Taking the Plunge!" Her experience related to many of the other reports that I have read. Her first feelings were that of being nervous and apprehensive upon her first posting, but after she received replies she found the process was fun and exhilirating. I thought that this report was helpful in learning how to utilize newsgroups. I think it is good for future generations to be able to learn from the experience of those who went before. This report helped me a lot in learning how newsgroups work and made it easier for me to begin working on my own newsgroups report.
My Selection # 3, How Do Virtual Communities Work? Report by Aaron Libed, G8b Cyberpsychology student.
This is a report about virtual online communities. Mr. Libed explains that online communities are sites (like homepages) or groups of sites with regular participants. Members or visitors communicate with each other through chatrooms, email or newsgroup bulletin boards. There are many different types of online communities with various purposes. Some examples that Libed gives are self-help and social psychology groups where members can communicate and get support from each other. VOC's make it possible for people to communicate and interact on a subject of common interest. Mr. Libed describes his experience as being a member of a VOC for soccer players. I thought that this report was interesting and informative. I think that I would also like to become a member of a VOC. The VOC allows for interaction with a broad spectrum of people which opens the door to greater literacy, solutions, creation of meaning and a richer culture.
Mr. Libed is in my 409a, G10 class. He is a "repeater", taking an additional course in cyberpsychology this semester. His reports are sophisticated and interesting to read so take a look!
My Selection # 4, Traffic Psychology On The Internet. Report by Sharla Supnet, G2 Traffic Psychology student.
I chose this report because I felt that Ms. Supnet had some interesting information regarding her internet searches and how she related them to traffic psychology. I thought the report was well written and informative. It took me several hours to choose this report, because the concept of traffic psychology is relatively new to me and I wanted to choose something that I could apply to my own experience. Ms. Supnet had to finish her report on the day she had a fire in her house, which just goes to show that we can continue to make progress in the face of difficulty.
The first section of the report is about speeding. She linked with "Successful Speeding" from Car and Driver magazine (July,94) after conducting a search on Webcrawler. She found many tips on avoiding getting caught speeding. Some of these include, being aware of "clumps" (large groups of vehicles covering all lanes), drive a mouse grey colored car, avoid bright red performance cars, watch out for underpasses and slow down when approaching, and checking for police on on ramps.
The second section of the report is about pedestrian traffic. This was a topic of special interest to Ms. Supnet. She was disapointed that she did not find more information on the subject. She used the search engine "exite" at http://www.excite.com to locate a link entitled "What Every Driver Must Know-Sharing the Road Safely-Be Courteous". Suggestions on how drivers should treat pedestrians included: "Always look for any pedestrians and always yield the right-of-way to them, and watch for them as you enter a street from a driveway or alley, at stop signs, traffic signals, crosswalks, and intersections. It also advises the pedestrian to walk on th eside of the road facing oncoming traffic."
I thought that this information was important to consider when driving. Another point that I might add is to always be observant when driving near buses that are stopping to drop off passengers and yield to pedestrians. And of course you have to stop when approaching or behind a stopped school bus. A little girl was killed near my hometown recently because she got off the back of the bus and then a car waved her into the street to cross. Meanwhile another car came and hit the little girl. So never pass a bus. This was a terrible tragedy and unfortunately I know of another such incident.
Ms. Supnet provides a humorous entry on tailgating in which she links to a page that she found on Webcrawler entitled "Stupid Pathetic Morons with a Drivers License". This page was created for people who need to vent their frustrations about poor drivers whom they encounter on the road. Supnets last entry for this report is on aggressive driving. She describes an accident avoidance course and states her feeling regarding the importance of learning to control aggression.
This is the end of my report. I learned a lot from mining the
generational curriculum. Thanks to all those who went before for
sharing with us here at G10 and those to come. Basically what I looked
for when comparing my reports with others in their generations was an interesting
writing style that I could relate too. I like simplicity because
I feel lost in this course! I chose those reports which I felt would
be most helpful to me and not too boring to read. When I compared
my report with others in my generation I realized that I have a lot of
work to do if I am going to try to keep up with the rest of the class.
The reports were very well done and technologically sophisticated.
I liked the qoute from Barbra Hershey on Ms. Finta's homepage. Very
inspiring!
I enjoyed reading Ms.
Lee's report on Mining The Generational Curriculum. Ms. Lee divided
her report into sections. For each selection she comments on:
her impressions of the report, the selection process, a synopsis of the
report and her reactions to the report.
As an afterthought I would just like to add these words of encouragement
to future generations. If anyone is ever reading these pages who
is having as much trouble with grasping the material as I had in the beginning
of the course, Don't despair! Help is on the way if you ask for it.
Don't be afraid to ask questions over and over. That is what I had
to do. It is not really as hard as it seems in the beginning.
Just persevere and you are bound to discover something wonderful!
Don't give up! Now that the semester is almost over I find that I enjoy
working on my reports and learning and using the internet. I can
see why many students would choose to become "repeaters" and take additional
computer courses by Dr. James.
My
Home Page/My
Newsgroups Report/ Report
1/ Report
2/Oral
Presentation/Class
Home Page/
Dr.
James Home Page