Learning to Become Computer Literate
By Kelly Goff, G17, Fall 2002
Dr. Leon James, Instructor
For instructions for this report, click here
Introduction
The following is a description of three students' point of view on learning on the internet. I will explain some of the phases and steps these students took to get into the swing of things as well as some of the problems they faced while doing so.
Student #1
Ryan Mitsui went through several stages in his attempts to learn on the internet. In Ryan's report he explained there were three phases, the confusion phase, the resistance phase and the "spider man" phase. He progressed through the three stages and came out of it more knowledgeable.
Confusion Phase
It is the first phase most people go through when learning anything new. This phase involves a lot of trial and error. Confusion, along the lines of psychology, is defined as impaired orientation with respect to time, place or person; a disturbed mental state and a state of intellectual discomfiture. Christina Kealoha said, "When I first got on the internet, I felt confused and disoriented. I didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing and I felt a lot of anxiety because I wasn't sure that I would be able to complete all of the tasks. I also felt inadequate because I didn't know what was going on."
It is in the confustion phase that people feel very unsure of themselves and their abilities to complete a task that is not familiar to them. Ryan says, "At first, putting up a web page is really confusing becuase you can't just type what you want, there are all sorts of rules and mark up tags that you have to learn." There are times where it seems the like the computer has a mind of its own.
Resistance Phase
The resistance phase proceeds the confusion phase. Resistance is when a person avoids learning something becuase it is an unfamiliar stimuli. Resistance could also be when a person feels he or she already knows what needs to be done and is confident he or she will have no prblem with it, therefore they choose not to ask for help. At this point most people want to give up and quit. This phase is the result of confusion and frustration.
YoonWahn Cho said, "As I found out that last time, I don't ask for help easily and just keep working on and assume it would work. I was not ready to ask for help. The situation got worse because I could not find the very first button that I needed to know. I continued to look but my anxiety was extremely high, and I felt bad about the fact that I didn't even start the main project yet."
The Spider Man Phase
The Spider Man Phase is also a transformation into a "web slinger." This is when a person finally gets a hold on things and familiarizes themselves with what they need to learn, in this case, how to make a home page. Robin Miller said, "My home page was a little more fun to make, although, I wasn't quite clear from the beginning what was expected. However, I grdually caught on." Robin was in the final stage, according to Ryan, of learning the internet. At this point, students were more comfortable with using the internet and were not afraid to try different things. Ronel Agarpao said, "My newest hobby is browsing through the World Wide Web. I wasn't into computers before but after taking Dr. James' course, using the computer has become a part of my daily life."
My Reaction and its Relation to My Experiences
Ryan had the three major phases that most people go through when learning anything new, whether it be on the Internet or a new job. People naturally are confused at first, then if things don't go their way they show signs of resistance. Finally, after enough practice things come easier and less stressful. As they say, practice makes perfect.
I went through similar stages when I first started using the Internet. I still have problems finding some things, it still takes a while. I still go through the resistance phase, but my definition of the resistance is a little different than the one provided above. My resistance is putting it off. If I know it is something difficult to search or difficult to find on the Web, I will put it off. This is not good, I know, but if I try to do something when I am not in the mood to be let down, I will only upset my self. In sum, these phases do fit with my experiences of searching on the Internet.
These phases are easy to explain because most people can relate to these feelings when learning something new. Their cause for writing these phases is a good one, by writing them and making it available for all to see, people will learn that they are not the only ones out there that have a difficult time when learning somehting new, especially learning the Internet. I hypothesize that people who are having tough times, particularly in Dr. James' class, will read these phases and realize that they are not stupid, and it will take time to get into the hang of things.
Student #2
Michelle Alonzo discussed five stages in her report with respect to learning on the internet. These stages included frustration and anger, defeat, a glimmer of light, motivation and a feeling of success.
Frustration and Anger
At this stage, there are trials and errors just as there were in the confusion stage of Ryan's report. The frustration and anger come in when a person can't figure out what the problem is, or if things just aren't going their way. Carol Ohta said, "The frustration of not knowing what I was doing at first, coupled with the frustration of knowing that asking for help would not only be frustrating in itself but also humiliating, it produced an awful compounded emotion." With frustration comes anger. When a person is angry, they will not work as well as if they were in a good mood. When things continue to go opposite of the way a person would hope, anger builds up.
Michelle said, "Learning the internet for the first time was the most difficult thing I ever had to do." She had no idea of what she was doing when she first got started. What made her feel better was that most of the class had the same worries she did.
Defeat
Defeat, by definition, means to win victory over, beat; failure to win. This is when the computer "wins." It tested you and you could not stand the test. "Finally I gave up...," said Christina Kealoha. At this stage a person just gives up and quits. After enough frustration and anger some people just need a break. However, it is important that this phase is only temporary. You need to get past it in order to succeed.
You've been working as hard as you can and yet things just are not going as you would like, or as you need them to. Michelle suggests, rather than giving up and quitting, check out other students' pages and learn from what they did. Follow their format, but of course do your own writing. You can get an idea as to what needs to be done for that particular project.
Glimmer of Light
This is a good stage to be at. It means you have passed the anger, frustration and giving up. This stage is similar to Ryan's stage of the Spider Man phase. It is here that you start to get the hang of things and it makes you realize that you actually can do it, and it is not as hard as it first appeared to be. Darin Kawamoto said, "Week five was a time of enlightenment, because I started to see the light." This stage is a point where you pick up on things that make your project easier to complete.
You see that things are turning around for the better, new techniques are working. Here you get that little bit of confidence that can help you go further and complete your task. Continue to explore new things and try different backgrounds, fonts, colors and pictures that will help improve the appearance of your project and will boost your confidence.
Motivation
This is the point in time where you say to your self, "I have the courage to go on to conquer more skills," as Alison Asahina said. Here, you feel better and more confident that you can do more on the Internet than ever before. This motivation also comes when you really catch on and start learning something. You feel motivated to do other things and improve your performance. You feel encouraged to look on the Internet for other pictures you can add to your page that will better the appearance.
Feeling of Success
Of all the stages, this has got to be the best. You feel good about yourself, and proud of the work you do. Conrad Moreno said, "This was truely a great feeling which followed the completion of each of my web pages." Michelle said, "The struggling, frustration and of course, perseverence, really paid off because most of the students ended up excelling in the course." This stage is where a person can feel comfortable and confident in taking on new tasks. When you see your final product and if others compliment you for your nice web page and hard work, you feel that all the anger, frustration and feelings of defeat have paid off. Now you know you have the potential to accomplish anything you want no matter how difficult it seems at the beginning.
My Reaction and its Relation to My Experiences
I have to say I feel these same things when I learn something new. I agree with how Michelle described each of the stages listed above. These phases are essentially the same as the phases Ryan described but just titled differently. I must admit, I felt very frustrated and angry as I was attempting to make my home page for the 459 class. It was the first time I have ever done a home page. I felt the computer won and I just gave up for a couple of days, but becasue I knew the due date was approaching I had to get past the defeat and I did. I was able to get my home page up and I saw that 'glimmer of light.'
Since then I have been motivated, I was excited to start this research report mainly because I wanted to put pictures and colors and make it look a little different. I enjoyed looking through a bunch of pictures, deciding which I was going to include in my final product.
These patterns, again, are easy to explain. These are the phases most people naturally go through when they have to complete an unfamiliar or difficult task. These feelings come about because it is natural, as I mentioned earlier. It's a cycle. You try something new, it doesn't work out, you get upset and frustrated. Some people give up there, others give up and try again later. When things start to go the way it was anticipated, there is a good feeling behind it, and there is also motivation. Motivation pushes you and you are able to successfully complete the task and then you are left with a sense of accomplishment.
I hypothesize that people can learn from this. I think it is especially important to learn the stage of defeat, and that you cannot let the task defeat you, you must defeat the task. However, in order to do that you must work hard at it and never give up. In the end, it will be well worth all the work.
Student #3
Christine discusses six different stages people encounter during the process of learning the Internet. Frustration, stress, anxiousness and depression are some of the stages people go through when learning anything new, in any situation.
Frustration
Frustration is defined as the act of frustrating, disappointment; defeat. Christine said she experienced frustration when her links were not working properly and when her icons were not loading correctly. This is when things just aren't happening the way we expect it to. This stage ties in with defeat. A frustrated person may wonder, why isn't this working, what's wrong with it, who invented these things, aren't humans supposed to be smarter than man made objects?A person feels defeated and gives up trying. Frustration has other emotions that usually occur with it. These would be stress, anxiousness as well as anger.
Stressed Out
Stress is commonly viewed as a frustrated 'fight or flight' response. It is a basic human survival mechanism left over from our primordial 'roots' when we could best respond to perceived dangers by either fighting or fleeing; seen in this way, stress behavior and emotions are sometimes regarded as problematic inappropriate responses to threatening situations in modern civilized society, however, stress is a) a powerful internal communication to raise awareness, and b) a source of energy, although the raw emotional and physical energies may have to be transformed to a more useful form before they are directly useful.
This is the point where you can't figure out either, why things are not working or why you took so long to start the project. This is that feeling you get when you have finals for all five classes shoved into two days. Christine said, "I got stressed from this class. I was up to the point where I said to myself, nah, no need do the reports, got plenty time. So I wrote down who I was going to make the links to, and then from there I felt stressed again, because I had to figure out what I was going to do the report on."
Anxious
Anxiety is defined as uneasy and apprehensive about an uncertain event or matter; worried. At this point students were feeling anxious because they completed their project on time but uploading was a problem. You just want it to be all over with, you're tired of being frustrated and stressed, you just want to get it over with. One student explained how she was doing a search on a topic it gave her a list of options. She clicked on one option but it took so long to appear, so she clicked another, than another and another, in her despair she managed to freeze the entire screen.
Depression
To be depressed is defined as being down in spirits, to bring down or humble, to lessen the activity of. At this stage of learning, which not everyone goes through, a person begins to feel helpless. There is nothing left for him or her to do. This is the feeling you get when you studied very hard all week on a test, and still you don't do as well as you should have. This is another one of those stages that it is important to get through. If you remain in the depressed stage, you probably won't do as well or try as hard as you would if you were in a happier mood.
My Reaction and its Relation to My Experiences
Again, I have to agree with the stages Christine wrote about. However, I have yet to encounter the depressive state of learning the Internet. The other three stages are ones that I can relate to. They fit with the experiences I had. I felt very frustrated, and still do, because I can't figure out how to upload images with my report. I have been trying for a while now. So then I became stressed, "Why isn't this working?" I said to myself. I asked my brother and sent an instant message over to my sister and neither of them knew how either. I felt defeated, I gave up and e-mailed Dr. James. I also feel the anxiousness of getting this project finished and having it be a well done paper.
As I said before, these patterns are easy to explain because they are what most people go through when learning something new. I hypothesize that most students will get something out of all the work that needs to be done in Dr. James' class. Hopefully students will remember how to post things up on the Internet, it may do some good in the future.
Self-observation Data
To see my forms, click here, Kelly's forms.
I gathered my data for my online forums as well as my bibliogrphy report through the Google search engine. Click here for instructions to the Forum and the Bibliography Report. I put in key words to help me get more information relevant to my topic. For example for the differences in men and women and how they handle relationships, I would type in, "men and women relationships."
I did searches on three of the topics. I did some discussions on rage, mainly sports rage and road rage. I also did research on how men and women differ in relationships, I looked at this from many angles, it is very interesting, and true! I also did some researching on things people do while driving, and how hazardous it can be. Once a listing of relevant articles came up, I scanned through ones that had interesting titles.
To be honest, filling out the form everytime I did a search, was very time consuming. It really takes the fun out of finding out interesting information on a topic, just knowing that along with the research you have to fill out a very long form. It made me dread my search sessions. There were many times where I would search about four times and put that on my form. If I missed a week posting, I would do my research all in one sitting just to decrease the amount of time having to spend filling out multiple foms. Rather than filling out four forms, I would just do one or two.
The data represents what I did very well. Since I filled out the forms before, during and after my search session, I was able to let my true feelings out on the form. I even noted on the form that doing the research and posting wasn't the problem, it was completing the forms that bothered me. It also represents quite accurately what happened in each session as far as retrieving information. If I couldn't find somthing, or if I kept getting information that really wasn't useful, I noted that in the form.
My forms show that I do not get frustrated, irritated or raged easily. The only part I got any irritation from was the forms. I mean, come on, my goodness. Nah, it wasn't really THAT bad, but it was a little 'out of the way.' I noticed that searches that were not as popular or talked about, for example, road rage versus air rage, they were a little more difficult to search. Also very specific topics that are usually discussed quite broadly were also more difficult to search for than others. For example, differences between men and women and relationships in general, were easy to find. However, differences in what men and women think as far as what "quality time" is and how it is spent, was a little more difficult to find.
The data is valid. Here is the average irritation, frustration, anxiousness and rage I felt throughout my searches. The average for irritation is 2, for frustration it is 1.5, for anxiousness it is 1.75 and for rage it is, according to the forms 1, which means no rage. I noticed that the times I was irritated were the times when I really didn't feel up to filling out the forms. I was frustrated when I had to keep trying different key words in the search box. I was anxious at times when I wanted to just be done with the searching and posting. These averages fit in with my overall feeling of doing research as well as completing the forms.
Using this data, I conclude that my information behavior is humble. I don't get upset easily, nor do I give up easily. I got the hang of what kinds of phrases to put in the search box that I can really benefit from as far as relevant information. The search engine I used was a great tool in getting all my information as well as my images for this report. It has a lot of images to choose from. The information available through Google is easy to understand and recognize because the key words are highlighted. I think Google is very easy to use and I feel very comfortable using it.
Counseling Session
The computer session I went to was on November 8, 2002. It was an experiment for the graduate students in the Library Sciences program. I was told to search three different topics using a search engine I've never heard of, Vivisimo. The instructor of the experiment noted what words I put in the search box. I had ten minutes to search each topic and to answer questions relevant to the topic. Each topic was more difficult than the one before. I had trouble finding the answers for the last two topics. The instructor told me there were different conditions. Some conditions had two students working together, some had the instructor's help, and the other group had no help from either another student or the instructor. I was in the last group.
I learned that the search engine, Vivisimo, has a window on the side that catergorizes the results. I was told that is it best to look through those categories rather than keep trying to search using other "key words." The window also uses alterate words that can be used to get better results when searching. For example, I had to find out what three states did with money that was awarded to them by cigarette companies. I searched using words like, "states awarded with cigarette money," and "cigarette company gives money to fund programs." I was using really long phrases. I couldn't figure out what words to use. In the end I found "tobacco" would've been a better word and I would have had the best results using "tobacco settlement."
As for advice, I would suggest you think of other words that can be used, like I explained aobut cigarette and tobacco. That was a little change that offered a lot of help. I would also suggest trying different things and looking at that window with the results categorized, it is a big help. I would suggest the instructor of the experiment help the student out a little, but because it was an experiment, they needed data on how students would normally search for something they don't know much about. It was a great learning experience especially now that I have one more search engine that I can use, and I now know how to use it.
The Psychology of Information Literacy
Here is a brief summarization on Dr. James' article discussing the Generational Curriculum. This curriculum discusses the ways a person is able to go from a passive learner to an active learner. There are three steps that are a part of this transformation. For one, students become information literate, they also become self-directed learners and they exercise leadership and inventiveness. His article also explains how student behaviors are revealed in three behavioral areas. These areas include improving affective behaviors, like self-confidence and cognitive behavior, like learning vocab words. The final behavior is sensorimotor, by this Dr. James means being an active participant.
Dr. James explains that this "online generational approach is suitable for any subject field in any instructional setting." You do not have to be a social sciences major to learn this way.
Through the bibliography report and now this research report, I have become more information literate than ever before. I was forced to learn things about computers that I never knew. For one, I never new how to upload into FTP, I didn't even know what FTP was. Now I know, I had the opportunity of making my own home page through my own computer. I also learned a lot through doing weekly online forum discussions and postings. Every week I was required to do at least two researches and two comment messages. The computer session was another big help and made me all the more information literate.
I can see where the "become a self-directed learner" came in. When I was first told I had to upload through FTP I went to the Lab in Keller Hall to pick up a CD-ROM, not knowing my computer already had FTP on its hard drive. I had to figure out how to get my work on the Internet on my own, with the help of Dr. James, when needed. Even with this project, I have been trying all different things on my computer just to figure out how to upload pictures so that they will be a part of my final project. I still am not sure how, so I will have to keep trying, if not I'll get the help of someone in my class who does know how. This is how my research report fits into his ideas.
Information Literacy is defined as a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."
This Research Report, the Generational Curriculum and Information Literacy are all connected. First, using the information literacy definition given above, each student was required to do this in order to complete the research report. Instructions for this report say to pick out quotes, that we feel show a progress in each of the steps given by each student, as to what we feel when learning on the Internet. As students, we had to decide what would be the best quote to get the point across as well as allow the reader to "see" the progression through each stage.
Each quote came from students of previous generations, which leads into the next point. To write our research report we had to use information given by prior students. This ties in with the generational curriculum. The curriculum was "reviewed by the Association of College and Research Libraries Standards Committee (ACRL) and was approved by the Board of Directors of the ACRL. Faculty inspire students to explore the unknown, offer guidance on how best to fulfill information needs, and monitor students’ progress." The latter statement is very true, students had to explore the unknown and when we found the solution to our problems, our self-confidence rose. This boost in confidence is also a type of motivation and we feel motivated to learn new things.