Travis Abe, G7, 459 |
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Looking through all the reports of all the generations was quite time consuming. In choosing the different reports, I was looking for something catchy, but not too flashy. Something that was going to be clear and concise, and easy to read. Travis's page is an immediate eye catcher with the black and red "skull" background. There is also a little sound bit that plays when you open the page and it warns you about the violent content of the page. I chose his first report because it was an interesting subject and it was very easy to read.
I began my search at the top of the list, at generation one. This report was in generation seven, so it was just a matter of time before getting to this one. This report wasn't the first one that caught my eye but I thought I'd put it first because Travis's homepage was the page that caught my interest the most.
The topic of this page is how driving is portrayed through movies, television, and in commercials. Basically, this report looks at movies, television and commercials, and reviews each one on the basis of realism, action, and influence on the public. Travis goes over the movies "The Rock," "The Toxic Avenger," "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," the t.v. show PeeWee's Playhouse, Speed Racer, the commercials for Pennzoil, Isuzu Trooper, and Shell Service Stations. Travis concludes by saying that bad driving in the media has gotten out of hand and although it can and may influence other peoples' driving, he is smart enough to know the difference between right and wrong.
This was an interesting topic to look at. The media does tend to exaggerate everything and driving is no different. This report was very simple and clear cut which made it excellent in my book because I spent long hours looking at tons of other reports. One criticism that I have is that he could have spent a little longer on his conclusion or the evaluation of the topic. But all in all, it was a good report.
Travis's homepage was arguably the best in his generation. It really grabs you with the graphics and the initial sound bit. All the pages in this generation were attractively presented. My other pick from this generation would be Mary Elizabeth Pacheco's homepage. It is very professional and tasteful and grabs your attention with color and great graphics.
Kathy Teruya, G6, 459 |
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Tailgating bugs me when I'm driving, so the topic of this report got my attention. Again, I was also looking for something pleasing to the eye, and although all the other pages in this generation were comparable, Kathy's page had that something extra (a cool little waving guy graphic).
Initially, I was looking at just the 409 sections of the index of all generations. After I got about halfway down that list, I started down the list for 459 and I came across this report. It took awhile to get to G6 for 459. So if any of you later generations are by chance looking at this page ahead of time, planning to do your generations page, you would be wise to start reading reports now! But since there is fat chance of that happening...Good luck!
This report covered tailgating behavior. Kathy attempts to break tailgating behavior down using the three domains of behavior: affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor. Using these three domains, she attempts to interpret tailgating through self-reports of the behavior. Her self-reports are from fellow students Denise Tanaka, Aaron Takahashi, Nancee Aki, Jae Isa, and Aaron Reisner. Kathy tries to present the topic in an unbiased way, but the report is clearly anti-tailgating. Kathy interprets tailgating behavior as positively reinforced: Because there are no real "negative" punishments for tailgaters (other than the occasional accident), they keep on doing it more and more. Kathy concludes that tailgating is "an attempt to force your will over another driver." She also concludes that tailgating, as road rage is a big problem and that the solution is a personal one: We all need to exercise more emotional control when we drive.
This report was very well thought out and thorough. Against the odds, it tried to maintain objectivity. It made excellent reference to psychological terms and explained the subject clearly and to-the-point. The layout was very modest, yet maintained professionality.
Kathy's layout for her pages was slightly above the quality of the pages for the rest of G6. What is noticible is that almost every page in G6 has the same formatting. Of all of G6, I think that Naoyuki Maruya has the most outstanding layout. His layout seems to be generations before his time.
David Altenburg, G10, 409b |
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Again, I was looking for something that was clear cut and easy to read. I thought the subject area was interesting for starters. Also, David's layout of this report was very clear and professional. It included a great graphic of a helix of DNA that separated the sections.
Getting to the last generation before ours' wasn't easy. It actually took me about 2 and a half days. But I did get there and that is the main thing. David's homepage was hardly the eye catcher, however, his report page was much different.
David's report deals with computer viruses. He gives a brief background on computer viruses and provides a personal example on the subject to give it more levity. He then goes on to write a semi-confusing summary on an article about hackers. David's next section of the report is a review of online resources for computer viruses. It gives the names and links to fifteen different sites and provides a brief synopsis of each site. Where Do Hoaxes Come From? is the title of his next section in which he summarizes Rob Rosenberger's ideas about the subject. His last section talks about computer viruses and humans; how viruses are like human viruses and the role that people have in the field of computer viruses.
Overall, this was a very informative report. The appearance of the report was pleasing and made it easier to read and therefore understand. The only section that was somewhat confusing was his attempted explanation of MUDing in the summary of the article. I found the section on hoaxes very interesting, partly because I also recieve emails about these so called "deadly" computer viruses that always turn out to be nothing, and yet everyone still forwards the messages as if it were the doomsday message.
Most of the reports in generation 10 were excellent in their presentation and material. However, I did find David's topic interesting and it was the first report that I looked at from the generation so it got the first bid. The quality of David's layout for this report was also a step above most of the rest.
Ryan Shintani, G5, 409a |
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Though I've listed this report last, it is actually the first report that I chose. Although Ryan's homepage wasn't the best looking, his report was well structured, thought out and thorough. The two things that intially caught my eye were his beginning statement of " This is the home of a crazy Psychology major!!!!!! So don't expect too much," and the dancing gif of Calvin.
I began my search at the top of the index of generations. I found this report on the first day looking through reports so I wasn't overly critical on the visual layout of his page. Towards the the end of the first day and through the second day, the search took on more of a visual nature. I began searching out more visually stimulating pages, giving those with better appearances more "points."
This report is on cyber-therapy, driving therapy, and cyberspace counter-culture. The first section, Can My Computer Be My Therapist? deals with the question of cyber-therapy. Using a discussion group, Ryan reviews two sites on the web that propose to administer cyber-therapy. Ryan feels that cyber-therapy is "mildly-appealing," though he believes that therapy for serious mental illness should be dealt with in the traditional face-to-face method. As a second conclusion on the subject, he feels that cyber-therapy is better suited for those seeking self-help and self-improvement. The second section of this report deals with the subject of driving therapy. In this section, using a discussion group, Ryan again reviews two sites related to the subject, Dr. Cohn's homepage, and the homepage of our very own Dr. Driving! What follows is a very negative review of Dr. Cohn's homepage and a positive review to the Dr. Driving Homepage. Ryan states that the "feel" of Dr. Cohn's homepage is uncomfortable in that it sounds like he is trying to sell something. Dr. Driving's homepage, however, is somewhat more objective and professional. The final section of this report is on cyberspace counter-culture. Ryan defines cyberspace counter-culture as
"the different minority groups that are appearing in the on-line community. These groups of people are trying to stretch the limits or boundaries that contain the on-line community. They do things that most people would consider weird, strange, and/or disruptive to the flow of the web, but I think that these groups of people have their place in the on-line community. They help to motivate the thinking of the general populous of the web, by the things that they do and in the manner that they accomplish their goals."
In this section, Ryan reviews an article by Steve Mizrach that is about how technology plays a vital role in human society.
Ryan's report is very thorough on the subjects that are being dealt with. He carefully incorporates psychological theory into his reviews, and uses tools like discussion groups to generate more objectivity in his opinions. Although this report is rather lengthy, it is interesting to read, and is very clear and to the point. It is well structured and professional with bullet listings and catchy subtitles.
G5 had excellent web pages. I personally think the overall quality of most of the web pages in G5 outshines those of their G6 counterparts. My picks for best of class are Travis Abe, Takeshi Hiraoka, and Dan Hamamoto.
Conclusions and Suggestions |
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One of the things I found interesting while doing this project was that every generation had its own particular "theme". By theme I mean that most of the pages in each particular generation resemble each other, especially in the early generations up to generation 8 or so. It will be interesting to see whether or not our generation develops its own "theme." I think that the later generations will have advantages and disadvantages when doing this project. The advantages are that they will have better programs, and therefore easier times putting out their pages. They also have previous generations' pages for inspiration. I got my inspiration for this layout from the previous generations. They will also get to see what previous generations have said about the same topic. But they will have their disadvantages too. One obvious disadvantage is that they will have more and more generations to sort through when they go through the index of generations. It took me two days to sort through the previous generations and we are only generation 11. I shudder to think how long it will take generation 22!! The other disadvantage they will have is that they will have to better the quality of their work in every generation. Every future generation will be pushed by their predecessors to a whole new level of output.
My belief after doing this project is that no student in their right mind will attempt to do this ahead of time. Sadly, that is my only advice to the future generations. START EARLY!! The ironic thing is that the future generations probably won't read this message until they have procrastinated and are scrambling around to get ideas and finish up. If that is you, then good luck to you! That seems to be the one constant piece of advice throughout the generations.