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I was navigating through the traffic psychology generations and I was not really looking for a particular web site.  I told myself that whatever catches my eyes will be my first selection.   I basically based this first selection on how the report was presented.  I was not too critical on the content or the substance of the report.  Canaan Machida's home page from generation four traffic psychology caught my attention.  I clicked and explored through his web site and I thought that his reports were well presented so I decided to make his report on Tailgating And The Warrior Mentality to be my first selection.  I must admit the title also had some influence on my decision.

His report is on how tailgating influence driving behaviors.  He describes tailgating as an immoral weapon that forces the will of the tailgater over the will of the tailgatee.  Tailgating is a very aggressive driving behavior that is often used as a weapon.  Not everyone has the ability to tailgate.  It is a skill that takes practice and time to master.  It is an acquired skill that a person develops over time.  The behavior gets stronger as time pass when the deviant tailgating behavior is not punished.  I have a friend who has a tendency to tailgate people.  He admits that he sometimes tailgates people for no reason at all.  He says it feels rewarding to impose his will on other drivers.  Canaan's report is short and to the point but I think that he could have shared more of his own views.  His report is basically filled with the opinions of past generations.

I was first impress with the appearance of his home page.  I am sure most of us consider and use appearance as one of the deciding factors of some of our decisions.  I was mesmerized with the beautiful background and the well matched colors on his home page.   I read his report but I did not feel any spark.  His report was average and I strongly believe he could have improved it by writing more of his personal views.

His graphics and backgrounds were excellent.  I thought he had one of the best looking home pages in generation 4.   However, as I mentioned earlier, his report was only average compared to most of the reports from his generation.  His report, in my opinion, was not in depth.  He presented many perspectives from the previous generations, but he did not present a lot of his own personal views.  Appearances are always misleading.  Like what the old cliché says, I guess we still can not judge a book by its cover.

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 I was searching for my second selection and I was clicking in and out of the web pages.  I was feeling a little tired and disappointed because of the fact that I was not finish with this exercise.  I was in generation three and I was reading Shane Cobb-Adam report on Developmental Patterns For Learning The Internet. His report and his final comments gave me some motivation to continue and finish this particular exercise.  His report discusses the thought process of how students learn the internet.  Most of the students in the generational curriculum, past and present, experience frustration and confusion at some points in the semester.  In the beginning, I felt intimidated by the idea of learning the Internet.  I felt intimidated because I lacked the understanding of the workings of the Net and I had reservations on how well I would learn.  However, once I learned and understand the Internet, I felt somewhat satisfied but I know there is more to learn out there.        

His report discusses the thought process of Psychology 409 students learning the internet.  He included direct quotes from past students on how they felt as they went through the course.  The students felt the same way as what the current Psychology 409 class is feeling.  The students in his report testified that they were frustrated, confused, disoriented and lost in the first few weeks of class.  Shane broke the process into three parts:  Affective, Cognitive and Sensory-motor.  Naturally when you start something you will feel some anxiety since you do not understand the material.  Then your cognition move on to the mentally thinking of what you can do to accomplish the task.  The last stage of the process, as Shane described it, was the sensory-motor phase when you actually perform the task.  His three process theory on the process was simple and somewhat profound.  It described the learning process in a simple understandable model.  His positive encouragement on the bottom of his report was a plus.  He shared a story that was up lifting and I will leave it up to you to read it for yourself.

Shane has a simple set up.   He has nothing fancy.  No exciting graphics that lured me to click on to his web site.  I was just reading his report and at the same time I was feeling frustrated.  I began to smile when I read about a quarter through his report.   The students he quoted knew what exactly what I was feeling and going through.  It made feel good to know that people out there share what my class and I are going through.  I guess all of the generational students are cohorts in a way that they experienced the same process through the generational curriculum.  Once I got to the bottom of Shane's report, his suggestions and encouragement gave me the last nudge to chose his report as one of my selection.

His report was average.  There was nothing special about his report except that it gave me encouragement at the right time when I needed it.  He has a simple set up like most of generation 4.  His white background and black lettering is as simple as you can get.  His report was short and concise compared to some of the reports in generation 4.  Many of the reports in his generation rambled on and on and on.  Some of the reports I read literally put me to sleep.  I was reading one of the reports from his generation at the Porteus lab one night and I found myself nodding like I was in one of those huge boring lecture classes.  Shane's report was short but it had substance.  I always prefer quality over quantity.  

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I was looking for some information on search engines and I was searching the first generations since I knew that they researched the topic.  I was browsing through generation three and I found that Robin Miller has probably one of the better web sites in his generation.  He did not have too much graphics compared to some of his peers.  In fact, his only graphic was his dog's picture on his home page.  I selected his report on Recommended Web Sites For Searching For Information primarily because of its contents.  I read his report and it had a great deal of information that may prove to be useful for novice net users.

Mr. Miller initially used Lynx to logon to Gopher and he tried to use Veronica and Jughead to search for topics.  He has sequential paragraphs that described exactly what he did.  He found out later that Netscape Yahoo was a little more user friendly so he abandoned Gopher.  He also found other web sites like Hop and Sticky and Babyoil that connected to search engines such as Yahoo, Inter-link, Webcrawler, Infoseek and other places.  His web site lead me to all sorts of places and I spent more than an hour just clicking away from place to place.  It was very entertaining and I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Miller for investing a lot of time researching the topic so that people like myself do not have to.

I first looked at his web page and I was not too impress with his dog's picture and his brown background.  I thought it was pretty dull.  However, I must admit that the brown background and black lettering did not hurt my eyes, in fact it was kind of soothing to my eyes.  I read his report and clicked through his links and I was amazed how a simple looking web site offered a lot of information.   I was impressed and I decided to use it as one of my selection.

His report was simple and it was very organized.   It  wasn't cluttered with unnecessary graphics like most of the students of generations 3.  I believe he has the least amount of graphics.  I like graphics and most of the time I would look at web sites because of their awesome graphics.  But the simplistic clean appearance of his web site enticed me because I probably habituated to all of the graphics that I have been bombarded with as I browsed through the generations.  As mentioned earlier, his report on search engines is probably one of the best in his generation.  I would like to extend my appreciation again to Mr. Miller for his efforts that he had invested in this particular report.  I am sure that future generational students will find it useful.

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I was browsing through generation seven 459 Traffic Psychology class and I stumbled upon some of the most amazing graphics I have ever seen.   Most of the students of G7 have at a minimum a graphical background.   The most outstanding home page as far as graphic is concern is Travis Abe's dark ominous skulls on his home page.  His graphic is definitely an attention getter.  The skulls are colored in blood red that sent chills up my spine when I stumbled on it.  I navigated through Travis Abe's web site and I came across his report on Video Game Road Rage.  It was interesting for me to see this because moments before I saw it, my aunt was screaming at my nephew about playing these same type of games.  I decided to read it and make it my last selection.

Mr. Abe discussed some of the popular road rage games on the market.  He examined Carmageddon, Road Kill, Fatal Racing, Interstat '76, and Need For Speed 2.  Travis Abe played all of the games.  He commented that Carmageddon was by far the most violent game among the five.  He did not like the graphics of Road Kill and Fatal racing but I have the impression he enjoyed Need For Speed 2 because it was not too violent and Need For Speed 2 featured luxury cars like the Ferrari 150 and the Lotus GT1.  I agree with Mr. Abe when he said that these games have a more influence on people than just regular television because they are interactive and they allow people to experience senseless violence which may condition them to deviant driving attitudes.

I was captivated by his graphics.  His web site was simple and it was organized in a systematic way which made it easier for navigation.  His reports were short and concise.  His choice of background on this particular report was bad.  He has a black background white gleaming lettering.  In the beginning I thought it was a pretty good color combination but after a few minutes reading his report my eyes started to hurt.  Overall I think Mr. Abe did a good job in researching the topic.

I'll say it again.  I think his he has the best graphics in G7.  I almost forgot to mention his "Drive with aloha spirit" sign on the bottom of his home page. This is a colorful sign that has a reflection that moves like ripples of water. His reports are short and concise compared to his peers.  His reports have a  faster and livelier rhythm which gave me the impression that it was written with some enthusiasm.  Some of the G7 reports that I read were long and boring.  Some of the students babbled on and on and it compelled me to click out of their sites.  I always thought that being short and concise was always the way to go because you do not want to waste people's precious time.

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Most of the generational reports from my generations have the same structure.  The same instruction would account for the structural similarities of the reports.  However, the contents of the reports differ because of the different selections that each of us made from the generations.  The presentation of the reports was also different.  Some added backgrounds and graphics.  Others left their reports simple with white backgrounds and black lettering.  Some of the comments and reactions are interesting.  I encourage you to go ahead and click through the G8 reports.  

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In the beginning, a lot students get discouraged and frustrated when they come across things they do not understand.  Do not get discouraged, get help.  If you have any question just ask the Dr. James or ask other students for help.  The bottom line is that you are not alone.  Many students have gone through what you are experiencing.  It is also easier if you get acquainted with someone in the class. That way you can help each other.  Another suggestion that I would like to give to the future generations is not to procrastinate.  Try to finish your exercises on time so that you do not fall behind the class.  Also try to do as much of your work in school because it is very frustrating to try to logon from home.  Good luck and keep clicking.

The generational reports are filled with overwhelming amount of information.  The new generations will continue to add to knowledge and it continue to grow.  The generational reports is a good place to start for novice Internet users.  It offers a good based of information which would allow students to build a good foundation on the basic fundamentals of the Internet.  Kudos to Dr. James who created the generational curriculum.

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