BROWING AND IMPROVING THE GENERATION
Thoughts about Dr. James' Homepage
The homepage of the class Psychology 409 and
459 is an ongoing website. One of the main purposes of this website
is to serve as a record and store information of all the students since
Generation 1. Generations from each semester are stored in this site
as information for the next generation. The purpose is to input new
ideas from old methods as time changes. Since the technology has
changed rapidly during these few years, new ideas have come up and affect
our living life. As the homepage have told, "This site incorporates
my (Dr. James's) personal Home Page site with the student generational
databases that I (Dr. James) direct and maintain as instructor of course-integrated
Web activites for psychology majors at the University of Hawaii's Manoa
campus."
There are several implications for this website.
One of the purposes is to review the ideas from the former generations
and insert new ideas as time changes. There is a link to different
generations, and from this various generations there are links to different
homepages of students from that generation which you can get information
from. Students of future generations are going to review these theories
and ideas in order to make up their own. Another aspect for this
website is to provide information for students. Dr. James has a list
of his publications. Although not all the publications are available
on the web, some of the late publications can be found from the link in
this site. Some interesting articles are also found here. This
publication database will be expanded each time Dr. James put in new articles
in the site. Students can easily find information about cyber-psychology,
traffic psychology, and spiritual psychology in this homepage.
I think that this web is not only for students in University of Hawaii,
but also for students throughout the world who are doing research about
relevant topics. Universities or colleges may make link to this homepage
and make it expands. Students in other countries can also participate
in our online discussion about different kinds of topics. I think
this would benefit us by investing new ideas to our discussion.
As an information providing homepage,
it should attract more people to come to this site. I think what
the site is lacking is the insufficiency of people visiting this homepage.
If more people are going to visit this page, I think more topics will be
available and discussed. There are only 3 different topics that are
discussed in the homepage. I think that if other instructors share
their own theories and topic on this page, it would be great. Since
Psychology 409 and 459 is relevantly a small class, the improvement of
the theories from former generations is relatively small. So more
students should be participating in this site, and it should be available
for the students worldwide.
Two Articles and what they say about the Generational Curriculum
The first website linked is the information
of 3 main topics of the website, traffic psychology, cyber-psychology,
and spiritual psychology. You will find student generational homepages
offering traffic and cyber psychology here. You can also find a collection
of homepages offering spiritual and rational psychology here. This
site is just an index of what you are expecting to see in this homepage.
The contents are divided into different categories and make links to different
homepages. It also links to different categories of Dr. Driving's
site.
The second website tells you about the history
and students' usage of world wide web to turn in their assignment.
It tells you the benefits and the success of the hypertext web documents.
It is just a overview of what we are going to do during the course.
The site also has a description of this site as an expanding superdocument
since new hypertext information is being added periodically.
These two sites are hypertext on the world
wide web. Both the sites are pure text site, and the time for downloading
these 2 sites is relatively faster than other websites that have graphics
with it. One other difference between these websites and the others
is that these are expanding websites. Information is continually
added into it. Databases serves as a history and information to the
future generation.
The benefits for these kinds of websites help
the students to have a preview of what they have to and expected to do
during the course. It also provides a general discussion about the
history about hypertext information. The expansion of the information
helps in kind of increasing the knowledge of this homepage.
WIB (World Ideas Bank) is a Social psychology database of human concerns.
People of all ages throughout the world can submit their thoughts and experiences
for the whole world to see. It allows people to leave a description
of themselves behind. The WIB was started by generation 3 which gives
many different types of databases depending on what a person
wants to contribute. There are six groups of databases 1) moments to
remember, 2) confessions, 3) good ideas for..., 4) recommended web sites...,
5) spiritual experiences, and 6) homepage architecture -- do's and don'ts.
Task-Flow Diagram of the World Ideas Bank Database (WIB)
A: Moments to Remember
1. What I'm Proud Of ----- Jasmine
Chatelain
2. Things That Make Me Feel Good ----- Calvin
Cheung
B: Confessions
3. My Current Concerns and Worries -----Cheryl
Choe
4. Daily Hassles that Drive Me Crazy -----
Garrett
Chun
5. What I'm Afraid Of -----
Karla Dias
6. Relationship Things ----- Noreen
Dorion
7. Cyberspace Things ----- Catherine
Heller
C: Good Ideas For...
8. New business or service on Internet -----
Kristie
Hoe
9. Conservation Education on Internet -----
student withdrew
10. Improvements in Procedures For Business
& Government -----Helena
Joseph
D: Recommended Web Sites...
11. For Being Entertained or Doing Things -----
Darin
Kawamoto
12. For Learning Useful Things ----- Janel
Kushimi
13. For Meeting People & Networking -----
Sherman
Lee
14. For Being Shocking ----- Canaan
Machida
15. For Being Uplifted in Mood ----- Rowney
Martinez
16. For Searching for Information ----- Robin
Miller
17. For Getting Things ----- Vance
Mizuba
E: Spiritual Experiences
18. In Meditating or Reflecting ----- Conrad
Moreno
19. In Vision or Aesthetic Perception -----
Amy
Lam
20. In Doing ----- Heather
Roylo
21. In Reading or Studying -----
Jason Tabudlo
22. In Ritual or Worship -----
Trent Takaki
F: Home Page Architecture -- Do's and Don'ts
23. Graphics -----
Denise Tanaka
24. Overall Appearance ----- (student withdrew)
25. Links ----- Claire
Uchida
26. Content ----- Doug
Wong
27. Interactivity -----Marc
Wong
WIB by Generation 3
To certain extent, WIB is a good way of collect and archieve data from people world wide. It allows others to see how other people think. I think it is liked the Web Crossing that we have been doing through out the semester. WIB can will keep refreshing if people give their thoughts continually. The major problem is to maintain a high people circulation flow among this different categories. The information there are not enough. I think we should promote this site to other people in order to keep WIB going.
I think that WIB have been taken over by Web Crossing. People can contribute the topics in that area. There are more people and more topics that we can contribute circulation in that area. The topics are very interesting and people can exchange their ideas from that area. Future Generations can continue the online database activity by contributing to what has been said from the prior generations. They can carry out the ideas and create new topics as their needs change. They can see how they are not alone and that there are other people with similar thoughts, beliefs, and situations of life.
Are the Generational Page Improving?
In order to compare the improvement from earlier generations to future generations, we need to compare different elements. We compare them in eight measures, quality, depth, richness, technique, scholarship, connectivity, site integration, and navigation capabilities.
1. Quality
The quality of each generation have been and should have improved. As we have seen in different generations, the databases of knowledge have been improving through the generations. Students are going to improve their ideas, so I think that the overall quality are improving. Also technology has served a great element of improving a homepage's quality. New programs and computers are invented and homepages made it easier to set up. This made students easier to focus on the content of the homepage then on the appearance of the homepage.
2. Depth
It would make sense because the later generations have more resources than the previous ones but that base is not as noticable between concurrent generations as they are between widely spaced generations. Notice that the format was noticably different in the earlier generations. For example, some earlier generations had more reports to upload, but they were shorter. Even earlier ones had to post reports weekly. In the later generations, the format used now requires more insight and research to complete even though we only have to complete two, excluding Newsgroups and Generations which is more straightforward.
3. Richness
As I have said earlier, the technology have changed a lot during the generations. This make the set up of homepage easier and prettier. The ealier generations have to use hypertext HTML to write their homepages. The later generations can use homepage designing programs to make their homepage. They also have graphics making programs like Photoshop to increase graphics to their homepage.
4. Technique
Most of the people who start out with 409 or 459 start out in the same place: not knowing a thing about HTML and that's where everyone looks the same on. I have mentioned before in this report about the "conquering your fears" when it comes to the computer. Upon entering Dr. James' class, HTML is usually a new concept to them. So, everyone is a beginner and goes through the same frustrations as everyone else.
5. Scholarship
The effort one puts into a report is more of an individual thing rather
than a generational one so there were people who put more effort in an
earlier generation than someone did in a later one. Alhough length can
sometimes be an indicator of effort,
scholarship is measured differently. Of all the reports I have looked
at, most were in first person abut personal feelings toward a particular
driving or internet behavior.
6. Connectivity
Connectivity based on how students are able to build up the idea that the previous generations have work on. It's already in the requirements of each assignment. The purpose is to improve what the previous generations have done. I think that if everybody follow the requirements, the connectivity will be improved.
7. Site Integration
It's always hard for a person to read through a page of minimized text. The best way is to keep the page interesting along the way by putting pictures and frames. Putting natvigation buttons is also a good way, it helps in finding relevant materials. One of my classmate puts a joke section on his page which make it more entertaining to read on.
8. Navigation Capabilities
Navigation capabilities, which should be based on how the links from
one report can lead a person to more information. This is very important
because having the links allows one to search in greater depth and to verify
the information which is on the report.
I feel that the generational pages are improving with the amount of information which it is gathering. As the next generation come in the data from which this new generation comes into contact with is bigger and allows for the ieas to develop into better ideas. Or maybe the thinking of the past generations were leading to the wrong outcome the next generation with a fresh outlook on things may bring light to the wrong lead and correct them. As each generation puts their data onto the internet, people around the world can see the progress which the students are making in collecting data and defining things in their own view.
GC stands for Generational Curriculum. It is a series of reports and messages written by students on various assigned topics. It is compiled in each new generation by searching through previous generation's reports and pages and adding to them in their own reports. It was designed by Dr. James in 1975 in collaboration with Dr. Diane Nahl of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Hawaii. He was searching for an instructional approach that will provide a platform for authentic student writing. His theory was that when a students' work is posted the student recieves the feeling that his or her work is real, it promotes a feeling of self-valadation.
Generational Curriculum Principles for Assignments
Here is a sample of both written and oral assignments which I regularly
use as community classroom
principles that create an instructional platform for learner authenticity
and collaborativeness.
1.term paper topics are chosen by the students from a cumulative
generational list to which they also
contribute suggestions for future students.
2.all assigned reports are written for future students as the
target audience, not the instructor.
3.all reports are voluntarily donated to the generational curriculum
archives which are kept in a
designated area by the instructor.
4.each succeeding generation of students reads, uses, and maintains
the archives through assigned and
supervised activities.
5.two kinds of reports are required: those submitted as a team
with multiple authors, and those written
and produced by the student independently.
6.when reports are submitted as a joint effort, all authors
receive equal credit for it (e.g., grade).
7.when a project was carried out as a team, each member is required
to write it up separately, on their
own.
8.all student reports are shared in the classroom with exercises
specifically designed to elicit peer
comment and evaluation.
9.student reports are never defined as complete, and can be
improved or added to at any time
throughout the semester (and even beyond,
when they are no longer students).
10.students are given three choices at the end of the semester:
to leave their
reports behind, as is (90% choose this)
to leave their
reports but removing their name or editing them in some way
to take their
reports with them.
11.students are coached to write only what they understand and
believe in, so they can take full
responsibility for intellectual content (any
sentence they write that does not conform to this rule is
labeled "plagiarism" unless placed in quotation
marks with a citation).
12.weekly homework assignments insure the systematic processing
of the generational curriculum
archives by each generation; it is thus a
major component of the course content.
13.assignments are made generationally cumulative to the extent
possible, using the metaphor of
"standing on the shoulders of the prior generation."
14.each new class of students is officially designated by its
generational ID (G1, G2, ..., G5, etc.).
Ceremonies, logos, group songs, nominations,
awards, and group photos are some of the methods I
use to create group dynamic forces of solidarity,
identification, emulation, and competitive
achievement orientation.
15.when possible, student reports are published or made available
to larger audiences for use in science,
education, or socializing (PLATO, the World
Wide Web, and e-mail have all been very successful
publication media in my experience)
16.oral communication exercises in class use the generational
curriculum as content. Examples:
students pick
a report in advance and give a brief (5 min.) presentation on its content,
with
their reaction
or evaluation. Other students listen and are required to ask each speaker
at least
three questions.
students are
arranged in teams and sub-group for a few minutes, preparing a team response
on
a topic from
the generational archives. Each team member must speak. Listeners must
ask
questions.
whenever students
present something formally, it is required that they introduce themselves
out loud and
clearly, using both first and last names.
17.members of every generation are expected to volunteer for
maintenance activities that the
generational curriculum requires, such as
scanning in the work of pre-Internet generations, up dating
links in hypertext, and creating orientation
and "tour guides" for cybernaut visitors.
18.students are given the opportunity to do post-semester volunteer
work such as being monitors in the
computer lab, coaching other students, or
maintenance work on the ever expanding generational
virtual superdocument.
19.student work is expected to be scholarly, scientific, or service
oriented in intent, rather then merely
personal. For example, when studying the psychology
of dialog they use scientific methods to
analyze a transcript of their own conversations
on the daily round. To see sample instructions they
follow, click here. For example, they create
and manage Web generational databases which collect
data or "contributions" from visitors. Students
thus learn how to "market" or advertise their Home
Pages using e-mail announcements, registering
with search engines, participating in listserv
newsgroups, and so on.
Students' feeling about being in the online generational curriculum
There are many feelings about the online generational curriculum. David Chang disliked how the organization of previous generations were and that there was no description of the reports thus making it very diffucult. Scott Ginoza states that the generational curriculum takes much time to create and alot of hard work. These are some of the feelings about the online generational curriculum from a person looking at other generations, to a person talking about how he feels and felt about doing it.
Problems students have in learning and adapting to the Internet
Problems which most people have in learning and adapting to the internet which I have seen is that they have trouble creating a web page. This is seen in a sub-section of May Rose Isnec report "What It's Like to Become a Web Designer: Blood, Sweat, and Tears."
Program of managing the project that would insure its survival and success
Generational Curriculum is an area for students to look up in order to do their research reports. I think that there should be a system which can organize the data where a person can look up the topic and have a listing of all the people who have done a report on this topic. This would save a little time for the student and allow for everyones report to be looked at and utilized in continuing the growth of the online generational curriculum. Also to organization I think that there should be some type of guide line as to what to look for when doing a such of previous generations. Such as what to look for when looking at depth, which this you would ask questions to get the student to think about how he or she would improve the report when doing the search.