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Research Report: Learning To Become Internet Literate Introduction
This report is an analysis and interpretation of the work of earlier generations of students, in regards to thier trials and errors in becoming Internet Literate. While earlier generations often had different requirements for their reports, similarities across generations are quite apparent. There is a process of becoming internet literate that most students tend to undergo. This process is composed of three phases: 1. Becoming informational literate through generational identification 2. Becoming self-directed autonomous learners through generational modeling 3. Becoming leaders and inventors through generational loyalty I am analyzing three reports of previous generations to determine what are the characteristcs of becoming internet literate and if possible, draw a correlation between the students internet literacy efforts and Dr. James' three developmental phases.
There are many different stages during the process of learning through the Internet. Among them include frustration, stress, anxiety, anger, depression, excitement, and others. Christine states in her report, which can be found at, that one travels through many different stages in learning to become Internet literate. Frustration I experienced frustration when my links weren't working properly, and then when my icons weren't loading up correctly. Christine defines frustration as difficulties in making links to pages and reports, comprehending the instructions given for reports. Personally the greatest frustrations I have faced is creating a web page with links that point to the correct page, it takes several tries and quite some time if you do not have sufficient experience in this sort of work. Stress 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. Stress according to Christine is primarily worrying over the due dates of reports and what the heck is exactly supposed to be in the report. For me stress is often a direct result of frustration. When I become frustrated over web page design difficulties, I often become stressed out that my report will not be available online for quite some time. If this was the only course I was taking, I am sure that I would have a significantly less stressful time, yet being a full-time college student usually means that you also having various exams, papers, projects, and presentations from other courses to stress over at the exact same time you are stressing over this course. Anxiety Many students, including myself, found it irritating when a homepage took forever to load up. Anxiety is another interrelated problem associated with stress and frustration, Christine gives the example of it being . Anxiety can refer to becoming distraught over events of which you have no control over, such as when your Internet connection suddenly decides to develop a sense of humor and for no apparent reason cease to work when you are in the middle of attempting to perform important tasks that require a connection; yes this happened to me on more than one occasion/ Depression There are those times in our lives when we all get a little depressed. Some of us know what triggers our depressed state, yet there are a few of us who don't know. In Christine’s report depression is mentioned as being inevitable in everyone’s lives at some point in time. I would definitely agree with this proposal and even go so far as to add that perhaps college students tend to be depressed more often than many other individuals. We are often subject to a much more demanding regiment including work, school, relationships, and financial worries, all at a time when we are just becoming independent. I can longingly remember times such as during High School when it seemed that my life was virtually worry-free compared to my present situation. When we feel down the last thing we want to do is sit in front of the stupid computer screen and attempt to accomplish the even the most miniscule task. Analysis from a Generational Curriculum Perspective Many of the stages that Christine exhibits are typical of the first phase in the Generation Curriculum, especially in regards to the affective and cognitive perspectives. Overcoming fear, technophobia (affective), and frustrations with creating working hyperlinks (cognitive) is essential to advance to the second stage. The stress stage can be associated with the affective perspective of the second phase; one must learn to effectively manage time in completing their project. Kai believes that there are four different obstacles that one may encounter in learning to become Internet literate; fear, frustration, information overload, and getting motivated/possible addiction. Fear Most students that have never used the Internet before report fear and anxiety before starting. There are different kinds of fears reported that persist through the initial contact with the Internet. most fears are overcome during the learning process. I partially agree with this statement, in that fear is often an initial reaction to becoming Internet literate, but fear often does not go away with time, even if it does dissipate. I still have fears that include receiving a computer virus that damage my system and accidentally deleting work after a large quantity of time has been invested. These fears will likely stay with me even though I have become quite experienced with using the Internet. Frustration Frustration is probably one of the most experienced emotions when dealing with computers. The machine just doesn't seem to understand. Frustration within the reports was mostly centered around searching for topics on the Internet. I actually experienced little or no frustration in researching material, the only frustrations that I encountered was in no having enough time to complete my report -as I unwisely scheduled an international vacation the weeks prior to the due date of the report- and devising my web page with the proper links. I would describe my concerns more as stress or anxiety rather than frustration. I am a fairly patient person so perhaps this is why others experience higher degrees of frustration, as frustration often results from impatience. Researching topics on the Internet is fairly time-consuming, but I have never failed to find what I am looking for even if I must search through pages of responses. Information Overload The most positive aspect of the net is the amount of data available can easily turn into a nightmare. To many choices, not enough time and too much to learn in order to efficient are basic conceptions that can lead to the emotion of being overwhelmed by information overload. Information overload is often a difficulty for beginners in learning to become Internet literate, but as one’s skills in searching the web progress, this becomes decreasingly problematic. When I first began to surf the web, I had no knowledge of advanced search functions, such as linking words or searching for specific phrases. Eventually I discovered these parameters which made my searching significantly easier and filtered out many of the nonessential results, so I am now fairly unconcerned about information overload. Getting Motivated/Possible Addiction Once the initial fears are overcome we are getting ready to explore. Most likely like it happened to me we will go beyond what is asked for class and dive deep into the matter but be aware addiction to computers is a reality. Without a doubt, getting motivated is the single biggest obstacle I face in completing Internet research projects. The plethora of distractions that my residence contains –Playstation 2, refrigerator, Cable TV, dartboard, basketball hoop, telephone Robert Jordan’s latest novel- always seems to offer a much more exciting way to spend my free time. I am already addicted to other tasks I can do online –download movies/music, chat, post in forums, look at cable TV listings, share pictures, email- besides searching for information on a class project. Analysis from a Generational Curriculum Perspective Fear and frustration tend to be a common obstacle in evolving through phases of Internet literacy. One needs to overcome technophobia if one wishes to become Internet literate, but this is just one part of many aspects of becoming literate. Kai’s obstacle of Information Overload can be related to the cognitive perspective in the second phase of the Generational Curriculum. Problem solving and analysis procedures would decrease Information Overload by helping to determine what information is relevant and what is not. Learning the Internet is a hands on process. It can take weeks maybe even months and actually you can never know everything about it, so there is always something to be learned. Ryan, similar to Kai, states that learning the Internet is a gradual process. One goes through different stages in becoming Internet literate, these stages according to Ryan are confusion, resistance, and The Spiderman Phase. Confusion This phase is for the novice or the beginner when we don't really know what we are doing. It’s like every new skill you try to learn, or take on. Remember learning to ride a bike? It’s like that, in this phase its all trial and error. I would definitely place this stage at the beginning of Internet literacy; confusion without a doubt accompanies the majority of people learning the Internet for the first time. Trial and error is often the best way to learn, hands-on experience facilitates learning tremendously, especially for learning such fields as Internet literacy. Confusion was definitely noticeable the first time I attempted to use an FTP program to load a web page with all the correct links. Resistance The resistance phase follows the confusion stage, it’s when we want to give up and call it quits. It’s when we resist learning something new because we are unfamiliar with it. This phase is usually a little harder to detect than the rest because we think of it as just part of being frustrated or confused, actually it is the result, but we need to keep pushing on! This phase is perhaps the least noticeable phase, if it even occurs at all. It would be perhaps more correct to label this phase the “frustration” phase, as the two students’ reports that I reviewed earlier did. The Spider Man Phase In this phase students become more familiar with using the internet and are confident and no longer have to bumble around wasting time and getting frustrated. They are like a worm that has blossomed into a butterfly. Or like a baby bird that just learned to fly. This is a peculiar label to give to a phase of Internet learning, Spider Man does not evolve into a more proficient person. Unless he is talking about the evolution of Peter Parker into Spider Man, where he discovers talents and abilities previously unknown through an extensive learning process. In that regards, I am a little over halfway between Parker and Spider Man. I have grasped the basic concepts and some advanced processes associated with Internet literacy, but there is still quite a bit I have to learn to become an expert in the field. Analysis from a Generational Curriculum Perspective The confusion stage that Ryan details is associated with the cognitive perspective in the second stage of the Generational Curriculum. It is important to gain critical thinking and assessment skills which will likely decrease confusion in becoming Internet literate. Progression through the affective area of the second stage will help alleviate resistance; this stage requires becoming project oriented and constantly exercising effort, even in the face of resistance. Ryan’s Spider Man phase can be viewed as a manifestation of advancement to either phase two or three, with an individual acquiring skills such as project orientation (affective), critical thinking (cognitive), and successfully utilizing the Internet (sensorimotor). This Spider Man phase combines elements of all three perspectives, and is the only phases I have acquired from the three papers analyzed that does successfully. Self-observation Data My form data that I have collected during each of my sessions can be found here. I gathered the data through numerous web searched on various topics given by Dr. James, information on the forum instructions can be found here and the Bibliography Report instructions can be found here. All the data that I have collected was the result of many web searches, primarily using Google.com and occasionally Msn.com. At the end of each session, I filled out the form to relate my experiences in searching. Most of the searching I did was fairly similar; there was not a lot of variation between the amount of time and effort I spent in each search. The notable differences were in my moods at the time, whether I was tired, in a hurry, excited for something else going on in my life, or just plain bored, were the usual differences in my moods. None of my searches were particularly different from each other; they all took around the same amount of time and effort and yielded results similarly. The result of my web searching was that I now know that it is possible to find information on any given subject if you have the knowledge and patience. Using the correct search parameters to obtain the best results is a critical element in web searching, one that now I am even more proficient at. Data Analysis
Trends The data from the table above indicates several trends in my searching sessions: 1) On average I was neither particularly sad nor happy when searching; it is not a task that gives me significant pain or pleasure.
Uniform Responses Across All Sessions In analyzing and creating a table to display tendencies for my search data, I chose to omit several questions and responses due to the fact that the answers were the same in all searches. These are the questions in which responses from all ten sessions were virtually identical. These uniform resposes include how confident I am in my internet search capabilities, how important the task at hand is, and how useful the internet is at researching topics. Analysis from the Threefold Self From the affective perspective, I did quite well in that I had very little doubts about my self-confidence and very minor technophobia. Once I became oriented and figured out what the project was entirely about I diligently pursued my objectives with confidence that I would soon complete the project and become even more Internet literate. My cognitive behavior is quite well at the lower stages; I have easily been able to read backwards into previous generations work and am exceptionally well at problem solving. I will need much more work to achieve creativity in my project; I still need to develop a website that is creative and far from dreary, as it currently is. In the sensorimotor area, I recognize that I am the current and most advanced generation of students; I have a desire to surpass standards set by previous generations and raise the bar for future generations to aspire to. I have followed the instructions quite well, being highly successful in utilizing the Internet to retrieve data. Again I intend to work on developing my website, to seamlessly integrate information I have gathered and material I have published. Analysis from a Generational Curriculum Perspective Before I engaged in Internet literacy activities through this course, I could say that I only have skills relevant to affective and cognitive perspectives of the first phase of the Generational Curriculum. After a considerable amount of time spent developing and enhancing my skills, I now feel comfortable enough to say that I have learned all three perspectives of phase two. I have acquired project orientation (affective), I have developed my critical thinking skills –especially in regards to web searching parameters- (cognitive), and have carefully followed instructions to produce a significant article of work (sensorimotor). Next I will attempt to progress completely through the Generational Curriculum, acquiring all the elements of phase three in all three perspectives. Four weeks left, I’m sure I can do it! Comparisons with G17 I chose to compare my data with that of the G17 student Megan Datrice (her report can be found here http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409af2002/datrice/research.html ). There are a few similarities and many differences between our perspectives on Internet literacy and our collected data. Megan tended to be a much more emotional person in regards to searching on the Internet, apparently she encountered many difficulties in finding desirable results. This is one problem that I virtually never encountered. These difficulties led her to become more emotionally upset, having feelings of rage that I never had. She states in the beginning part of her report that computers intimidate her; she never took the time to learn them. I have spent many years learning computers so it is reasonable to conclude she would experience more frustration and rage than I. She also did not become comfortable with a single search engine; a practice that could potentially lead to problems. I used Google almost exclusively and am quite deft at utilizing it. We both found the search forms to be fairly burdensome and procrastinated in completing them, which led to later difficulties in our reports. Our motivation levels were both quite high, even if hers fluctuated a bit closer to the deadlines of the reports. We both chose to analyze the previous reports of students Kai Hansjurgens and Christine Marchadie. The Psychology of Information Literacy Summary of Dr. James’ article on Generational Curriculum Dr. James created the Generational-based class concept for several reasons, including to promote Internet literacy and force students to learn on their own while being creative at the same time. In the beginning of the Generational project, students analyzed earlier students reports not from the Internet but from typed reports collected by Dr. James. Not until 1993 did students utilize the World Wide Web in publishing and disseminating information that they had gathered from previous generations reports. By 1997 (Generation 4) Dr. James’ created his taxonomy utilizing the threefold self, in an attempt to classify a students learning behaviors and progress. Dr. James’ also distributed a student’s progress over three phases; gaining information literacy, acting as self directed autonomous learners, and acquiring democratic leadership skills. Within each of these phases one progresses through each of the aspects of the threefold self; the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor approach. Dr. James has utilized the Internet and his early generational experiences to create five principles of his Generational Curriculum. The first involves the idea of a virtual ‘super-document’ that is created through a multitude of hyper links to students across generations. The second aims to build a classroom community that promotes cooperation. The third is to promote three types of skills; Information Literacy, Scientific and Scholarly, and Leadership and Citizenship. The fourth is to create a kind of cyber-community where students are aware of their efforts in publishing their work on the World Wide Web. The final principle is to create an ethnographic institution, utilizing many micro-steps in each progress to assist in learning. Analysis of my Research Project in regards to Dr. James Generational Curriculum In the first phase of Online Generation Curriculum, one gains information literacy. I progressed through this stage fairly quickly, as I was already fairly information literate in many regards. For example, initially I was quite anxious upon performing my first search task, but by the second task I was comfortable with obtaining desired results and was not anxious for the rest of my sessions. In the second phase one becomes a self-directed learner, which I initially had difficulty with until I acquired a project orientation fairly late in the semester. This is evident by the majority of my search sessions dating fairly recently, with only a few in the beginning of the semester. I quickly increased my problem solving and analysis procedures, as I was confident and successful on every single one of my searches. Unfortunately I have yet to progress through the third stage of acquiring democratic leadership skill. My page is not particularly creative or innovative; I still have much to learn to integrate my work into an aesthetically pleasing and functional project. Information Literacy Information Literacy is a fairly new concept that I define as comprehension of information and having skills dealing with the research of information. The National Forum on Information Literacy defines Information Literacy as this. http://www.infolit.org/definitions/index.html One of the goals of this course appears to be becoming an informational literate person, able to find, interpret, and utilize information when need be. With a little (or a lot) more perseverance and hard work, I may be this person by the end of this semester.
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