Mining the Generational Curriculum: Mining with Bare Hands and Sore Eyes

Mining the Generational Curriculum:
Mining with Bare Hands and Sore Eyes

My Table of Contents

Instructions for Report

From Psy.409G5b Scott Chang's Report Social Psychology of Web Architecture: The Awesome Experiences of Web Architecture
Why I chose Scott's report...
How I found Scott's report...
A brief synopsis of Scott's report
My reaction and involvement with Scott's report
and FINALLY...How Scott's report compares to those of his fellow classmates

From Psy.459G7 Ryan Shintani's Report on Being a Driving Buddy--What it's like: How to really test a friendship
Why I chose Ryan's report...
How I found Ryan's report...
A brief synopsis of Ryan's report
My reaction and involvement with Ryan's report
and FINALLY...How Ryan's report compares to those of his fellow classmates

From Psy.459G6 Kristy Kato's report Being a driving buddy-What it's like
Why I chose Kristy's report...
How I found Kristy's report...
A brief synopsis of Kristy's report
My reaction and involvement with Kristy's report
and FINALLY...How Kristy's report compares to those of his fellow classmates

From Psy.409G3 Karla Dias' report Confusions on the Wild World of the Internet
Why I chose Karla's report...
How I found Karla's report...
My reaction and involvement with Karla's report
A brief synopsis of Karla's report
and FINALLY...How Karla's report compares to those of his fellow classmates
My Report Compared to Those of My Classmates
Suggestions to Future Generations

Scott Chang's Report Social Psychology of Web Architecture: The Awesome Experiences of Web Architecture

Why I Chose Scott's Report...

The first report that I chose was Scott Chang's report in generation 5. I suppose that the first thing that struck me was that it had a good title "Social Psychology of Web Architecture: The Awesome Experiences of Web Architecture". I think that a good title is often something people forget to include in there report, and I liked the evocative language of "web architecture". I sounded grandiose, much more than just the word design. I also found his homepage to be well organized and free of any unneeded decorative elements.

How I Found Scott's Report...

How I found Scott's report was reasonably simple. From the instructions for this exercise I clicked on the special awards page. I clicked on the awards for generation 5 and found a very well laid out list of students with the title of there reports next to it. Scott's as I mentioned earlier had a good title so I clicked on his. I started to read his page and found it intelligible and informative. Since I knew from the instructions that I could only pick one from each generation, I knew that I would want to pick one from g5 so I bookmarked this page and changed it's name in my bookmarks file to g5 409b. I then went back to the awards page for g5 and spent another 30 minutes looking at pages not trying to spend more than a few minutes on a page. In the end I picked Scott's page, I think because I enjoyed his links, like the Suckey to Savvy, the most.

A brief Synopsis of Scott's Report

The report was summarized in the section "Personal Experiences with Web Architecture" which states that in the report he review a page that has to do with web design, looks at a few of Dr. James web page on the subjects of web design and the net, followed personal experiences, then a section on resources. Web Designer Principles As I See It: Info on Glover.com is the second section that is a basic review of a Jeffrey Glover's views on web design. Sort of a basic do's and don'ts. This section includes the favorite, Top Ten Ways to Tell If You Have a Sucky HomePage. The next section is Psychological Aspects to Web Design: Dr. James Speaks This section proves that Scott was a sycophant (joke). In all seriousness this section is a basic overview and review of several of Dr. James pages on the subject of the internet. The next section was "What It's Like to Become a Web Designer: My Life on the Web" which is information on Scott's personal experiences on the web page. The final section "Annotated Index to Web Design: Helping the Beginner" was just what the title would suggest including handy links for the internet neophyte.

My Reaction and Involvement with Scott's Report

My reaction to Scott's report is that I felt that it struck the right balance between information supplied by others and information about himself. I would like to think that if I had the same topic that I could have laid out the information in such an intuitive fashion. There was nothing particularly fancy about his web page, not even a single icon. But each part seemed fully developed and well written. There were plenty of links to show each document he was referring to. All in all a good report.

FINALLY...How Scott's Report Compares to Those of His Fellow Classmates

In comparing Scott's report to those of his generation, It's not that his was infinitely better, It's just that I liked his title and his layout IMHO was better than the others. His writing was not at all awkward as some of the other pages seems to be.

Ryan Shintani's Report on Being a Driving Buddy--What it's like: How to really test a friendship

Why I Chose Ryan's Report...

The second report that I chose was Ryan Shintani's report "Being a Driving Buddy--What it's like: How to really test a friendship". At first I wasn't overly impressed by this report, but on a second reading I really enjoyed the "Mini-driving makeover" section where he critiques his friend's driving as she yells at other drivers things like "You like die or what!" I found this section to be quite humorous. His writing takes on a very detached clinical view compared to the wild driving of his friend. I looked at many others in generation 7 but I found this one the most engaging do to it's (unintentional?) use of humor.

How I found Ryan's Report...

I found this report through the awards for all generations page. After clicking on generation 7 I was pleased to find a relatively simple interface. Several of the other generations awards pages seem to be quite messed up, so dual columns with the students name on one side and the report on the next was quite a relief. Knowing that I can only chose one report for a generation, I decided arbitrarily that I was going to pick from a 459 class in this generation. This cut down considerably the number of pages that I would have to go through. Some of the report them self were quite messed up, in particular Akira Sasabe's from the same generation had a page that seemed to have been done wrong, without relative links, the sections being on totally separate pages. In fact, part of Akira Sasabe's report under the cartoon section seems to be missing. Anyhow, it took me about an hour to go through the generation 7 459 reports and come to the conclusion to use Ryan's.

A Brief Synopsis of Ryan's Report

The first section was called What others think of driving buddies. This section included several links to other documents to show what others thought about driving buddies. Thankfully all the links in this section work fine, and the most useful was "What is a Driving Personality Make-over" by Shelly Secretario which Ryan should have summarized for the reader because at no time does he define his terms, which can be frustrating. Anyhow, from the links in this section you find a driving make-over is basically a positive change in driving behavior, and a driving buddy is a person who helps bring these changes about. The second section was titled "What was it like searching Instant gratification" which basically sings the praises of the search engine on Prof. James homepage. His main point in this section is that by using the search engine he saved himself about half an hour of searching. The third section was in my opinion the best, it was titled "Mini driving make over: Seeing yourself as others see you". This section includes a brief bio on the subject of the makeover, a 26 year old female with the alias Syn. The Two day description of Syn's driving habits are quite colorful and read like a story. The fourth section was "Debriefing: Scratching beneath the surface" Which involved Ryan's attempts to talk to Syn about her driving and his attempt at a mini makeover, which does not go well and includes such classic lines as "When Syn was verbally threatening me I tried to stay focused and calm..." Also included in this section are some more links that don't really get the summery that they deserve, only just a mention. The final section Epilogue generally states that Ryan feels that this experience has changed his attitude towards driving in a positive way.

My reaction and involvement with Ryan's Report

In reacting to Ryan's report, I find that I can relate to his experience with driving with a hostile driver and think that this account of his, as well as the debriefing are very strong and engaging. There is a certain universality to this account. Other sections where he includes links without a summery seem incomplete. At least a few more line here would go a long way to making this a better report. On a final note, for some strange reason on the title bar he listed himself as generation 5, although he is a member of generation 7. This is most likely an error, but it is odd.

FINALLY...How Ryan's Report Compares to Those of His Fellow Classmates

Compared to other reports for G7 459 Ryan's isn't overly special. I would say that its just about midline, but it was that great section about the actual driving experiences. Perhaps "WiLfReD's Traffic Psychology Report 2: Being a Driving Buddy" http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459f97/wilfredl/report2.html was a better report. However his language wasn't as evocative as Ryan, and I don't like the font Nadianne for any reason at all. Although compared to a few others, Ryan's page is a master work (see reference to Akira Sasabe's page in section 2). Appearance wise most of the pages for 459 generation 7 have the same low to no icon look.

Kristy Kato's report Being a driving buddy-What it's like

Why I Chose Kristy's Report...

The third report that I chose was Kristy Kato's Being a driving buddy-What it's like. I picked this report because it compared in many ways favorably to the last report by Ryan Shintani's report. Things that I thought that Ryan were lacking like the definition of terms were readily found on Kristy's page. Her content was well laid out, and with the exception of one poorly placed gif, is quite easy on the eyes.

How I Chose Kristy's Report...

Unfortunately, the awards page for generation 6 are a mess compared to generations 5 and 7. So in order to find this page i found myself clicking on the home pages of the generation 6 members, and then clicking on their reports. Going through the pages this way was significantly more time consuming than my first two reviewed pages. One thing I did notice though was the annoying gif with the kitty and the butterfly that's on her report is also on her homepage, and placed in the same haphazard fashion. Other than that one annoyance her page is quite well organized and seems to have involved a lot of thought.

A Brief Synopsis of Kristy's report

The report was as straight forward as the title, Being a Driving Buddy. The first two sections of this report does what Ryan's report previously fails to do, define terms. In the section named Discussions of a Personality Make over and the section Discussions of a driving Buddy she explicitly tells the reader what a makeover is, what a driving buddy is, and relates it to her own driving with observations on where she personally needs to improve (like parallel parking.) The next two sections are My Driving Buddy Experience (Day 1) and My driving Buddy Experience (Day 2) Which describe her critique of her friend Shari's driving from various places, in each one either her destination or starting point was Manoa. The final section was Recommendations for future Generations. This was a paragraph suggesting that it would be interesting to be a driving buddy to a person of the opposite sex. She seemed to think that it would be harder to be a driving buddy to a male suggesting there is a "macho" driving attitude.

My Reaction and Involovement with Kristy's Report

What I found to be interesting about this report is the way that it contrasted so nicely with Ryan's report from the next generation. Where Ryan's report was weak in defining terms and general intro and strong in observations and conclusions, Kristy's has a great intro to the concepts but no real resolution that compares with the Debriefing section of Ryan's report. Plus I think Ryan's friend Syn blows away Kristy's "macho" driving concept in her recommendations sections. If only these two had worked together. Another thing on the weak side is the gif 89a. Either place it centered, and make the background white, or remove it.

FINALLY...How Kristy's Report Compares to Those of His Fellow Classmates

Not all members of this small generation picked the same topic, although they all have nearly the same stark web pages. I can only assume that this is due to the short amount of time that they had to finish this assignment.

Karla Dias' report Confusions on the wild world of the Internet

Why I Chose Karla's Report...

My fourth and final choice Karla Dias' report Confusions on the wild world of the Internet. What impressed me the most about this report is that I found the topic to be one close to home. I could relate to the feeling of confusion that Karla expresses through her writing. I find the icons a little silly, but that's almost par for the course in generation 3.

How I Chose Karla's Report...

This was the most time consuming page to find. Being that I had already picked reports from generations 7-5 I was forced to go back further. The further you go back, the worse the index becomes in the special awards page. Worse than that, you realize how dreadfully similar all of the reports seem to become to each other. I guess after about a few hours of going through individuals pages and cursing at the screen because many students didn't have the foresight to bother to mention what there reports are about, quite a few just list them by number, I was all too willing to stay on a web page about confusion and frustration.

A Brief Synopsis of Karla's Report

The topic of the report is a overview of Karla's experience in the class. The first section is titled My confusion and explains that she actually registered for the wrong class, and instead of Traffic Psychology, she found herself thrust into the internet. Section is Frustration. Frustration has her totally lost my all terms being thrown out to the class, even to the extent of not knowing what e-mail is. Section three is Upset at the Teacher. In this section, the negative feelings about being totally lost during week two leads to Karla being upset with the teacher. Section four, Angry at Self Karla gets worried about slacking and admonishes herself for her inability. Section five, Too Lazy, has Karla on the verge of a breakdown in week four realizing the impending deadlines of her reports. She requests help from friend Rowney. Section six, Mad, describes Karla in week five making very little progress. Section seven, Okay, has Karla in denial. Section eight Help, has Karla getting help from Rowney and looking at others pages for ideas. Section nine, Finding out on Your Own, has Karla doing a %180 and actually finishing her work. She come to the conclusion that she can do it, which makes all the difference. This is followed by some links to the pages of people who helped her, but ironically are all absolute links and thus inoperative.

My Reaction and Involvement with Karla's Report

My reaction is one of amusement. The section headings like mad. too lazy and upset at teacher make the whole report worthwhile. It's really just a glorified gripe session, and I know that I could do it, but mine would have more content. I don't think she would have survived the G8 assignment deadlines.

FINALLY...How Karla's Report Compares to Those of His Fellow Classmates

Other students it the generation seem to have taken a more straight forward topic on these reports, I swear another report on search engines and I'll scream. Karla's seems more revealing. Appearance on all pages is nothing to write home about. Very bland, occasional gif.

My Report Compared to Those of My Classmates

I think that compared to my fellow classmates I have done well. There are just a couple that I lke more than ming layout wise. Content seems to be pretty constant throughout.

Suggestions to Future Generations

Well, there you have it furture generations. By the time you read this I hope someone has done something about the awful indexing of the earlier generations. Oh, and do me a favor, as you finish your reports, change the links on your homepages to give a brief description of the content. Report 1, report 2, these things tell me nothing.

Mining the Generational Curriculum || My Home Page Quiet version || My Report 1 on: xxx. || My Report 2 on: xxx || My Report on the Psychology of Newsgroups || My Bookmarks File || My Icons File || Our G8 Class Home Page || Our G8 Index of All Reports || Dr. Leon James Home Page

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