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| INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS REPORT |
| SELECTION #1: g3
psy409, Heather
Roylo's report on BEING INVOLVED WITH THE INTERNET
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| SELECTION #2: g5
psy459, Anthony
Chung's report 2 on QUALITY DRIVING CIRCLES
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| SELECTION #3: g6
psy459, Jenica
Guerra's report on DRIVING AND CARTOONS
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| SELECTION #4: g7
psy409, MaryElizabeth
Pacheco's report on WEB SEARCH ENGINES
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| REACTIONS TO REPORTS OF CLASSMATES |
| SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS |
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| I chose Heather Roylo's report on BEING INVOLVED WITH THE INTERNET from psychology 409, generation 3, because of its appearance. I liked the originality of the background of a notebook because it was a fun idea and at the same time easy to see, except for a few words that overlapped a dark area. Another thing that impressed me was the consistency of the butterfly icons from Heather' home page to all of her reports; she created a nice theme throughout the pages. At first, I wanted to pick Canaan Machida's home page because of the way his reports came up, splitting the page up as I clicked on the links. However, although this idea was consistent with the "shocking" theme he was working on, it was hard to read and confusing because I could not figure out how to get back to "normal." |
| I began my search by going to the index of all generations and looking through generations 1 and 2 to find out about the beginnings of this class. I glanced at about 4 or 5 reports for about 20 minutes, clicking at random, but nothing really caught my eye. They were simple, clear to read, and very informative, but I wanted more so I moved on to the next generation. At first I clicked on Canaan Machida's home page because I know who he is. I spent a good 15 minutes browsing and clicking away at his links. It was amusing so I wrote the address down, planning to use it for my report but I thought, I did not really look at any others. I checked out 3 more students in that class, then came to Heather' home page and looked at some of her reports. I wrote the address down planning to use it as an a reference. Later I changed my mind because I read through it again and I felt more confident to talk about hers. |
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| Heather Roylo's report discusses her experiences as a user of the Internet. She realizes how strong of a place computers have in the world and that they will continue to become more amazing. After being sometimes disappointed with appearances of web pages, she decides to create a home page like a "spider's web" to attract and catch people's attention. Next, she mentions how worthwhile the cyberspace psychology class is because it forces people to learn in order not to fail instead of the typical college course of memorize and forget. Heather says she's experienced in uhunix and the Internet but is a novice at html. She originally thought the class would be easy, but found that it was challenging. She concludes the Internet's ability to make life easier, for example, less need to go to the library to find information, news on-line, e-mail instead of "snail mail," and shopping. |
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| What was most appealing about Heather's report was her success in making an attractive page. The notebook and butterflies were eye-catching and fast-loading. Her paragraphs were short enough to be able to read without getting bored. I wanted to use the same kind of format of not using the whole width of the page for the text because it makes it easier to skim. I liked her honesty throughout and her positive attitude about the class because it is encouraging for those of us in the future generations. I think she progressed from topic to topic well. However much I enjoyed this page, there were no links to anything on the Internet to make the experience interactive for the reader. Also, she did not provide a way back to her home page. Heather could have been more detailed about specific searches she did and maybe talk more about any problems that she encountered in order to give the reader some helpful tips. |
| Like the other reports in generation 3, Heather's report seemed like a trial and error experience. The students seemed to be discovering what was interesting about their experiences and applying it to their own work. Since there were only 2 prior generations, they did not have as much to refer to as we do. Depending on the topics they were assigned to, the results of their 'adventures' varied. For example, Canaan's journey into the "shocking" probably led him to a visually different creation, where as other students found a more informational viewpoint. |
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| From psychology 459, generation 5, I first opened Leigh Yokoyama's report and took an interest in the topic of the students' experiences in driving circles. As I checked out some of the other students I decided on Jill Umetsu's report on MANAGING A QUALITY DRIVING CIRCLE because of the clarity and presentation. Because of the length of this assignment, I liked that it was short, but I realized that I was being lazy. Still browsing, I changed my mind to Anthony Chung's report 2 because it had the same format as Jill's but was more descriptive and detailed. For example, instead of just listing the quotes, he wrote why he chose them. |
| I continued my search through the generations in chronological fashion, I found a few reports in generation 4 but continued to generation 5 where I saw some familiar names. Maybe it's a bias, but I can relate better to people that I know. In 1 hour, I skimmed through 7 reports, skipping any that were hard to read, for example if the contrast between the text and backgrounds were not strong enough, it was not worth my time to squint at past the beginning. I also skipped anything that was unfinished because I would not be able to use it in my report. As a result of a process of elimination, and reading through the reports I bookmarked, I narrowed it down to Anthony Chung's report 2. |
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| Anthony Chung's report 2 starts by introducing the topic of the report and what kind of expectations he has for managing his own Quality Driving Circle. He selects quotes from the previous generations and explains why he chose them and how it relates to his reports. For example, he chose one about mopeds and then he later relates it to a personal experience where he would drive "normal" and others with mopeds that were adjusted to go faster would speed pass him, yet they arrive at the destination at the same time. He takes a look at topics like tailgating, driving as a group experience, and resistance to change. Next he looks at the zones of Dr. Driving's charts and chooses #3 - Alertness, #5 - Judgment, and #7 - Altruism (egotism vs morality) to create his own test. He shows how these items relate the psychological terms of feelings, thoughts, and actions to AWM (Acknowledge, Witness, Modify) in order to change driving behaviors. Another important point is Dr. Driving's philosophy of driving: be 'positive,' 'facilitative,' and not 'defensive." His main problem, like others in his class was finding time for his QDC to meet. He has three sessions with his QDC which consists of family members. Anthony mentions also that results are hard to compare because the amount of time that different people drive affects the results. He was successful in helping one brother relieve tension, but his other brother was frustrated by driving in "slow motion." In his conclusion, he notes that wanting to change is the main key to success. At the end he lists some resources on the Internet that provide additional information on the topic. |
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| My first reation to Anthony's report was that it was informative but not that interesting to look at. The white background and black text with blue links seemed standard, but it was easy to read. I checked out some of his links which made it easier to understand what he was talking about. However, it was possible to read through his paper without clicking on the links because he covered definitions throughout. The hard thing about the topic he had to write about would be to have willing and available participants. It would be interesting to see a friend's reactions. Another thing that is not mentioned is the bias of self-report that occurs in other areas of psychology also. As I am trying to finish my own report, I can relate to having so much to say, but not wanting to draw the report out too long. |
| I noticed that in the reports I saw, the students tried to keep the pages simple, maybe it was a rule. What I liked more about Jill's page was the use of arrows to go either to the top or bottom of the report. This made it convenient for me to find the navigation table at the end. |
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| In generation 6, psy459, Jenica Guerra's report on DRIVING AND CARTOONS interested me because it is something that we all can relate to but do not usually think about. It was also attractive because she used bright colors that contrast with each other. Another attention grabber was the animated cat at the top of the report. What made me choose this over the others I looked at in this generation was the unifying theme of the colors and icon with the topic. |
| Still working in chronological order, I looked at the home pages of generation 6 and found topics that sounded fun. Again, I avoided pages where the text was hard to read for example, blue words on a green background. By this time, my eyes were getting tired so I spent less time on browsing on the reports, a few minutes on a page, and longer if it interested me. I wanted something different than my two previous choices. When I looked through Kristy Kato's report 1, it was well written with a lot of good examples of cartoons and commercials that portray bad driving behavior and how that can affect viewers, especially children. The thing that kept me from choosing it was that she did not provide links. So then I opened Jenica Guerra's report because it was a similar topic and it had links that I could explore. She also used cartoon examples which she discussed. I also looked at Kathy Teruya's report on a the same topic. It was very similar in format, so I decided to stick with Jenica's report because I read it through more thoroughly and I found it first. |
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| Jenica Guerra's report begins with an introduction of her topic to use cartoons to influence driving because cartoons are fun to look at so therefore catch people's attention. She states that cartoons that portray human faults as funny can have an affect on readers. Some examples of ideas that she portrayed with drawings were merging the wrong way, not knowing how to turn left at intersections, getting upset at people who actually follow driving laws, and rubbernecking. She gives credit to other students for inspiring the cartoons and provides links to their reports to give readers a better idea of where she is coming from. She makes the observation that visual stimuli is an excellent complement for text and could possibly be used in drivers manuals. She provides tips for future generations like reducing the size of the cartoon when scanning it so that it fits the page. Another idea is to test the effectiveness of your cartoons on friends - if they enjoy it and if their driving habits change. Jenica ponders the thought of the future technology of an interactive Web Database for Driving Cartoons where people can contribute to and play with already made images to influence drivers. One of her last subjects is to create driving cartoons especially for children because they will someday be on the road with the rest of us and we want to create positive attitudes toward driving.. |
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| One thing that Jenica did well was speak to the reader through interactive participation. There were however so many areas that she was covering that it did not seem that she went into depth. One thing that I have learned from my classes at the University is that you cannot take everything you read as fact, but it helps when there are resources to back up information. It is also necessary to challenge ideas. For example, could driving cartoons have a negative effect on people in that they are not taken seriously? I did enjoy reading Jenica's report because of her optimism. |
| I noticed that the reports by students in this generation mostly kept to the same format as the previous generations. Maybe it was because of time factors. Maybe they were as inexperienced as I am. One thing that I noticed more of was trying to use different colors in the background. The content of the reports are similar also because of what is expected in the class. I wished that the students had more time to apply their ideas and could do follow-ups to their reports. |
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| I chose MaryElizabeth Pacheco's report on WEB SEARCH ENGINES from psychology 409b, generation 7, because I was impressed by the way her home page was set up. The reason I selected it over the others was her use of a table to show her data for her report. The lines made it easy to follow. |
| Before I even started this assignment, MaryElizabeth Pacheco's home page was recommended as outstanding by the professor so I had seen it and knew that I liked it in advance. However, to do the assignment correctly, I read some of the other reports like Travis Abe's report 2. I looked at his because Dr. James mentioned his name in class also. The thing about starting with Mary's page was that she took three of Dr. James' classes so I explored a little from each class. Some that I clicked on were Moya Kaohi's generations report, Ayada Azeez's report 2, and Reid Nakamitsu's home page. I tried to stay away from pages that were cluttered. |
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| MaryElizabeth Pacheco's report begins by defining a search engine as something that can "assist travelers (of the Internet) by narrowing down a topic search by means of direct links or references to the entered topic or topic words." She then gives a detailed account of her personal experiences in using Web Search Engines such as Excite, Yahoo, Infoseek, and Lycos. In her chart, she states 1) date and location 2) mood/affect 3) which search engine she used 4) topic/words searched 5) expected # of hits 6) actual # of hits 7) reactions to hits 8) evaluation of search 9) feelings about search 10) rating scale. All in all, Mary seems to enjoy her experience, finding the most success with Yahoo and Infoseek. When looking at the experiences of others using search engines, she agrees that there were not very many problems besides making good word choices and having patience. She came to the conclusion that having patience is worth the time you can save. |
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| The strongest part of Mary's report is the diary format of the text which is easy to read because she uses tables. Her positive attitude is inspiring. I can relate to some of her reactions, but when having to practice using the search engines, I got frustrated because I would sometimes end up going in circles or looking at things that were totally unrelated to what I was searching for. Maybe it could have been useful in her report to find a report of someone who had a different viewpoint so that she could check if there was something she missed in her experience. I should learn to use the 'help click' that Mary finds useful. |
| As more ideas and knowledge are available for later generations, I can see that students are making attempts at incorporating visual enhancement to their work. Sometimes it is nice to look at, for example a theme of rainbows in the home page carried over into the reports, but this makes it hard to read. In others, good titles are also attention grabbers. What makes MaryElizabeth Pacheco more successful is that she is detailed in her account but not excessive. Also in comparison to another report on the same topic, I thought it was nice that she did a search on the topic she was writing about. I think what accounts for such differences could be related to enthusiam for the assignment and the reasons for why a student is taking a course like this. |
1) Know what you are in for...START EARLY!! Find out from the teacher, friends, classmates how to do things (tricks of the trade).
2) Find time at school if possible, connecting from home is a pain!
3) Have a game plan, be organized!
4) Writing things down from the start works better than memory or having to flip back and forth.
5) Learn how to enjoy the exercise. Be patient with yourself!
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