Reports From The Online Generational Curriculum:

Surfing The Knowledge Of The Past

My First Selection

The first report that I looked at was Jennifer Lee's report on Driver Communication.  She is from the 409a class in Generation 10.

What Impressed Me About Jennifer Lee's Report

First off it was very well written and her use of links was effective and helpfull.   Her way of presenting the data that she had collected was very creative.  It was not a difficult report to understand and had humorous situations. 

Steps That Led Me To Her Report

I decieded to start with a previous genenration to see what was expected of me.  I thought that Generation 10 would be a good start since their homepages would be most similar to our because of the advancements in technology.  So I selected G10a and that took me to a list of the class and then I arbitraily selected Jennifer Lee's name out of the list.  I was pleasantly surprized to see that her homepage was very much like a home.  It had delightful decorations and I supposed refelcted a part of her personality.  It was creative and fun and nice to look at.

Summary Of Her Report

She presents various situations that illustrate was in which drivers and pedestrians communicate with eachother to let them know what eachother is feeling.  She then goes into a breif evaluation of the situation that she describes.  The gestures that she encountered were sticking the middle finger and honking of the horn along with waving.   She expresses that waving to someone is a sign that is given as a thank you while the middle finger is a sign shown in disgust or anger toward another driver.  Honking on the other hand is not so clear.  She shows in this report that it could either be agressive or passive.  To illustrate this she showed that a driver used a light horn tap to signal to a pedestrian that it was okay for him to pass in front of the driver's car.  While in another situation a long sustained horn blow was atrributed to disgust and frustration and was accompianied by the showing of the middle finger.  In this case it was done out of anger.

Review Of Her Report

I thought that her report showed a great understanding of the many situations that she shared.  She was very good at presenting both the good and the bad side of traffic communication.  But I don't think that just one example of each is sufficient.   I realize that this report was meant to just skim the surface of the problem of traffic communication but there should have been some implications for future research.

Comparison To Other Reports

I found this report to be of very high standards.  By no means was it the best or the worst.  What stood out was the effective use of the navigation table.  The page was very easy to read and the format she use to present her data was very effective.   It first showed the situation and then stated the mode of communication used by the parties involved.  After this was clear to the reader then she commented upon the situation and the use of the particular communication style used.  This flowed very nicely and I found it very informative.  The way she presented her information made her report stand out for me

My Second Selection

The second report that caught my attention was Carolyn Agamata's report on Driving Makeovers.  This title itself was enough to catch my eye

What Impressed Me About Her Report

I found her report to be very well laid out.  It shows that she researched her topic very well and produced a page that was good at showcasing her research sources.   The was the report was laid out was what impressed me the most.  She had a well planned out layout.  She gave a brief intro using some of the past students of the class, and then took quotes from Dr. Driving on how to modify driving behavior.

Steps That Led Me To Her Report

Carolyn is in my class this semester.  She is taking this class again.  So I thought that I should check out her homepage to see what she did the first time.  I went to the Generation 9a page and looked up her name on the list.  I found that her page was rather plain and it lacked the sophistocation of many of the other pages.   But she explained that this was her fisrt time doing this sort of thing.  It is very understandable.  I give her credit for having completed her page and doing an excellent job on her report.

Summary Of Her Report

Carolyn gave herself a Makeover.  IT was a makeover of an emotional type.   She forced herself to be courteous to others on the road.  She did this by driving to school with a tape recorder in her car and had her boyfriend watch out for her.   She went though a bunch of traffic situations that sparked my interest.   Especially the one about the tailgater.  She then goes on to the reactions of her little experiement on the road.  She follows the steps laid out by Dr. Driving and carefully examines her own behavior.  Then she goes through her conclusion and says that her personality makeover was somewhat of a success.  She managed to modify her behavior and become a better driver at the same time.

Review of Her Report

I found her report to be well laid out but the little commentaries within the data, reactions, and conclusions distracted me.  I was expecting was a report, what I got was a dialouge that the author was having with me without me getting a chance to talk back.  I thought that her experiment was rather corrupt.  She knew that she needed to modify her behavior for the purpose of the experiment but she did not take into account any other variables.  I would have liked to known whether her improved driving behavior was due to the experimental effects or was it due to other things.   I would have also liked to know how a long term experiment like this would turn out.  Would the driver revert back to his or her old habits? Or would they truely experience a change of behavior?  These are just some of the questions that her report left me with.  But then I realized that answering questions like these was not the purpose of her report.  The purpose of her report was to do an experiment upon her own driving behavior. 

Comparison To Other Reports

I found her report ot be well planned out.  It showed good structure and was easy to follow.  I found that her report, though I thought it was very casual in its style, was one of the best that I have read from her generation.  If she took some time in sprucing up her page, maybe she would get a little more attention to her wonderful report on personality modifycation.  I find myself leaning in that direction for my future reports for this class because of her inspiring work on her own report.

My Third Selection

I chose Gavin Nakamura's report on Safety Activism on the Information Highway.  The reason why I chose his report is that he is a friend of mine.  I have known him for about four years now.  We met in the Chemistry 161 lab our freshman year.

What Impressed Me About His Report

From the look of his navigation table it was readily evident that his research had been done very meticulously.  He had actually taken the time to go through all of the pertinent information and pick out certain topics that intrested him.  He did this in a very orderly fashion.  It made the Navigation table flow but not the report itself.  The transitions between topics needed to be smoother.

Steps That Led Me To His Report

While surfing through the Generational Curriculum I cam across his name and thought that I would explore his site.  I first went to the Generation 9 page and then I came across his name on the 409a class list.

Summary Of His Report

He goes through an extensive list of articles that were written by various coalitions and individuals who are using the internet as a venue to preach about traffic safety.  He showed how the internet could be used to educate people on the various dangers of driving unsafely.  He covers such topics as seat belts, road rage, airbags, drunken driving, and speeding.  Splitting up the information in to various categories he objectively covers each article with great care and thougroughness.  With his aquired knowledge from following and researching this topic he acuratly analizes each subject.  His report on his thought about speeding especially intrigued me.  I am a speeder at heart but the fear of dying in a crash has made me modify my behavior so that I keep my driving within the speed limit most of the time.  His analysis of the many articles made me think about how I have been so close to death so many times.  It opened my eyes and made me think about my driving habits.

Review of His Report

I found that his report was very thougrough.  He included a variety of sources for each of his topics included in his report.  It was very interesting how he linked his page with his source.  But it got confusing when reading the page by scrolling.   There was no continutity that way.  One would have had to use the navigation table only in order to get the full effet of his report.  The sources were of extremely high quality and the time spent working on this report is evident.  I found his report stimulating and informative.  I think that his sources were well researched and his work paid off in an excellent report.

Comparison To Other Reports

Gavin's report was rather intimidating at first.   The Navigation table was difficult to use and the terms were rather advanced.   The driving jargon added to the air of sophistocation to the report but confused me a little.  This is still one of the most complete and well done reports that I have seen thus far. 

My Fourth Selection

I choose Greg Sugitan's report on The Psychology of Computer Viruses.  Hisreport sparked my intrest because of the fact that he was once my roommate.  I was his roommate when he was taking this course and it came highly recommended by him. 

What Impressed Me About His Report

I found that Greg had put in an extraordinary amount of time in his projects.  They were as complete and concise as the time would allow.  I also know from being his roommate that he took advantage of the latest technology availiable to the public.  I admired him for his willingness to share this information with me and his desire to see me become more on his level in terms of understanding computers.  I am glad that he pursuaded me to take this class.   His great knowledge of the subject matter often caused me to sit upon his floor and listen to him lecture me about new innovations and things that I could be doing with my computer.  But at that time I was too into playing games.  I was a novice surfing the net with no real direction.  This class is putting into practice what Greg preached to me almost a year and a half ago from thi writing.  It was his great knowledge that inspired me to look him up and review his page.

Steps That Led Me To His Report

I first went to the list of all the Generations and thought back as to how many years ago Greg had taken this course.  After trying the 8th Generation I stumbled upon his name and eventually his page in the 409b section.   I choose his report so that I could see for myself what he was talking about. 

Summary Of His Report

Greg starts off his report with a quick introduction of how computer viruses work and how they are passed on from computer to computer.  He then goes on into greater detail on how viruses can do damage to your computer.  This is a very technical article that is very informative and well written.  Next is a rather long list that highlights some viruses of interest.   These viruses have been given rather descriptive names by their creators.  For instance the Oprah Winfrey Virus shrinks your 200mb harddrive to just 80mb and then it mysteriously balloons back up to 200mb.  There are too many to list.  What I liked a lot about Greg's report was that he included a section in which he talked about computer virus myths.  He talked about how people get all scared about computer viruses.  They do not understand the nature of the beast so they are afraid of it without knowing why.  It is a lot like the AIDS virus.  When the AIDS virus was discovered there was widespread paranoia as to how one could contract AIDS.  The same holds true for the computer viruses today.  People are misinformed and suseptible to practical jokes.  He states that most of the email warnings about computer viruses lurking in email is false. 

Review Of His Report

I thought that this reprot was well written and the navigation table was easy to work with.  The report lacked distinction in the navigation table.  It was not easy to distinguish between the different sections of Greg's report.  That is the only problem that I had with Greg's report.  As for improving upon what he has done, there is a lot that I could do with it.  As technology grew over the past two years so did the number of viruses and other bug related problems.  I would also include other computer organisms such as bacteria which multiply and take up compute cycles so that it slows down your computer considerably.   Yet there is not much one could add to a report such as this.  It is so thorough in its job that one could only nit pick at the small details.

Comparison To Other Reports

Comparing Greg's report to others in his class is hard to do.  No one else did a topic like his and his depth of coverage was not matched all along the generations.  It would be safe to say that this report stands out as a gem amoung the myriad reports of the 409 and 459 classes.  It was a pleasant surprize to see such a report done in such a professional manner.  It flowed nicely with and without the use of the navigation table.  It was a long report but the structure and construction of the site made it very easy to view, either a little or all of it at a time.  I recommend this site to anyone who is not fully aware of computer viruses or anyone needing quality information about that topic.

Suggestions to Future Genenrations

I have several suggestions.  Read your HTML book.  It really helps.  Be sure to check and double check your work.  It can get frustrating at times but once you get the hang of it it will become easier.   All you have to do is stick with it.  IF you are still having a lot of trouble then you should look into getting an authoring software package.  Microsoft makes a user friendly HTML platform called FrontPage 98.  IT is rather easy to use but it takes some practice.  THose of you that used Pagemaker before should have an easy time learning how to use FrontPage.  Another suggestion is to talk to your classmates.  Ask them for help if you get stuck.  Talk to Dr. James.  They are both very helpful.  Another thing that you can do is take the time to look at the other reports done in other generations.  Search well.  Explore and get a broad understanding of the project.  Look at the generational curriculum reports and model your own after their format.  Work hard, take breaks, and be proud of your acomplishments, cause it ain't easy.

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