Table of Contents
Report 1:
Children's Self-Witnessing as Road Users by
Kendra Morgan, 459 G7
Why I Chose Kendra's Report
What Led Me To This Report
A Brief Overview
Reactions
Comparisons With Other Reports
Report 2: Gender
Differences in Driving Norms by Cara Lucey, 459 G6
Why I Chose Cara's Report
What Led Me To This Report
A Brief Overview
Reactions
Comparisons With Other Reports
Report 3: Cyberspace
and Mind: Identifying Some Characteristics of Virtual Reality
by Marini, 409a G5
Why I Chose Marini's Report
What Led Me To This Report
A Brief Overview
Reactions
Comparisons With Other Reports
Report 4: Identifying
Attitudes Through Newsgroups Messages by Dana Rho,
409a G7
Why I Chose Dana's Report
What Led Me To This Report
A Brief Overview
Reactions
Comparisons With Other Reports
Suggestions for Future Generations
Why I Chose Kendra's Report
Kendra's report was assigned as my first presentation. However, after looking through other reports in her generation, I found her report on children and self witnessing impressive. She gave an easily understood description of Dr. James' three steps of self witnessing. Her account of a child's perspective towards traffic, driving and safety was well conveyed.
What Led Me To This Report
This report was originally assigned as my first report to present to the class. In order to review other reports, I utilized the reports index provided. This index offered a categorized view of previous generations topics, authors and reports. From this index, we are able to choose reports by generations and classes. The topic of self witnessing is interesting so I decided that one of my selections would be on this subject. I went through several reports and found that Kendra's was well structured, descriptive and easy to understand.
A Brief Overview
Kendra's report focused on her experiences as well as her experiment with training a child to self witness. She followed up with her thoughts and recommendations. Initially, the report described the concept behind self witnessing and the components of it. She attempted twice to perform self witnessing by placing a tape recorder in the car as she drove. The second attempt was more successful because she made more of an effort to articulate her feelings as she drove. She admits that though she did not think that she was a bad driver, this exercise was helpful in pointing out some driving errors. Then, she constructed an exercise in which she would be able to witness a child's perspective towards driving and safety. She chose to observe a 5 year old girl, Kim as a passenger in a car driven by her mother. Though she found that Kim had a little difficulty articulating her feelings, certain things were evident. Kim had a definite understanding that seat belts were always to be worn. When asked how she came learn this important rule, she responded by crediting her mother and teacher. Though she did not understand the possible consequences of not wearing one, she knew that they were worn for safety reasons. Kendra discovered that television influenced Kim's understanding of traffic lights. Courtesy of Barney the dinosaur, Kim recognized that "green means go, yellow means slow, and red mean STOP!" Her perception of speed was distorted, feeling that cars passing them were going unusually faster than actually were and that the car they were in was traveling slower than actually was.
Kendra felt that if having had the opportunity to perform this exercise again, she may have gotten more articulate answers from an older child. Ultimately, she feels that through parents and teachers, children should be educated in the importance of awareness of their surroundings. Through this skill, children will be able to differentiate the importance of certain events around them and how they as individuals can have a negative or positive impact on those events.
Reactions
Kendra's presentation of the topic was well structured. Her report was easy to read and understand because it began with defining points and flowed into short, easy to read paragraphs that were to the point without excessive descriptions. The whole report remained strong and to the point of the subject presented. Her report showed that children are influenced by their surroundings (television, parents and teachers). This is important in that we can utilize these influential aspects to initiate safe thinking.
Comparisons With Other Reports
After reading other reports from the same generation, I found Kendra's to be presented well. Basically, the format she utilized was easy to read, not containing long drawn out paragraphs. Though others in her generation reported on the same topic, the content was well written, not adding unnecessary length or information. The length of her report, though not extremely long, gave sufficient information so that when I completed reading it, did not feel like it lacked any information. Of course the topic can be expanded upon but the information she gave was sufficient for the type of report she was writing.
REPORT 2: Gender Differences in Driving
Norms
Written By: Cara
Lucey, 459 G6
Why I Chose Caraâs Report
I was impressed by the layout of Caraâs report. She utilized an easy to read format that categorized each idea she wanted to express. The topic of gender differences in driving norms is not easy to relay since there is few facts to support any theories. She did a good job by utilizing class discussions, reports by Dr. James and her own mini research. Since this topic is not extensively researched in the psychological community, she added her own feelings and reasonings for particular types of driving behaviors.
What Led Me To This Report
I had read other reports in her generation and chose this one particularly for its format. Its format was eye catching to me and seemed well structured. Going through the reports index, I read through other 459 G6 reports and found this one to be impressive. She made a good attempt in trying to explain gender specific behaviors in driving, supporting it with others comments and opinions. The other reports I viewed were on other topics, such as being a driving buddy and self witnessing. They were interesting but I chose Caraâs report because I was interested in reading her views on the subject since I have also chosen to do one of my reports on gender differences in driving.
A Brief Overview
Cara began by explaining the definitions of ãnorms, stereotypes and expectations.ä She offered this in order to specify their function in relation to gender differences. Cara feels that driving behavior is relative to societal gender norms. Students from her class offered their opinions in a discussion regarding what they felt to be gender differences in driving. For example, the unlikeliness of men to ãask for directionsä and that ãwomen prefer their male counterparts to drive.ä The evident opinion of her report was that gender norms and expectations is the basis for certain driving behaviors. Her personal experiences with aggresive drivers, has powered her theory that ãbadä driving behavior has become a gendered norm.
Cara issued 16 questionaires to 8 men and 8 women, asking 20 twenty questions regarding ãanger within the individual, the philosophy of the individual and feelings of compulsive rushing and competition.ä She found that women ãscored slightly higher in all areas except areas of feelings of compulsion and competition.ä She explained that her results could not give adequate clinical findings because of the lack of reliability and validity. She found however, a foundation that needed to be expanded upon. Cara believes that negative behaviors fuel aggresive driving.
Reactions
I was interested in Caraâs opinions on this topic. Though her clinical angle was of a very small sample, it offered a foundation to continue researching and generating more data. Since her report offered a lot of opinions, I was most interested in her approach to explaining gender differences and its relation to driving. Since Cara experienced the destructiveness of a male driving aggresively, I think this was the basis for thought that driving behavior amongst males tends to be more overtly aggresive. After reading Caraâs report, it initiated more of an interest in pursuing more reliable results.
Comparing With Other Reports
Of the reports within Caraâs generation, I read many interesting ones on different topics. However, I chose hers simply because I was interested in reading her opinions on such an abstract and opinionated subject. In comparison with other reports, Caraâs was not graphically fancy, but well aligned and structured.
REPORT 3: Cyberspace and Mind:
Identifying Some Characteristics of Virtual
Reality: The Computer Mind-Connection
Written By: Marini, 409a G5
Why I Chose Marini's Report
Marini's report offered a well described view of cyberspace, its characteristics and importance. Having read other reports from the same generation, this report's content and appearance caught my attention. The easy to read format of short, to the point informative paragraphs were appealing.
What Led Me To This Report
I found Marini's report by reading through other reports in the reports index supplied in the g8reportsindex.html. After going through other reports I found that this one offered informative views and ideas that gave me thought provoking information. Since the subject of cyberspace and virtual reality is fairly new to me, the topic was interesting. This report offered an adequate understanding of cyberspace technology and its potential usefulness to all of us.
A Brief Overview
Marini's report described cyberspace as a useful, entertaining and educating way of communicating, giving and obtaining information. Though her experience with cyberspace was very limited, this course offered a relief to the anxiety felt from a field that is progressing with time. Marini initially offered an understanding of the concept of cyberspace in which she references Dr. James' article "Cyberpsychology." Cyberspace is a created virtual reality which is expanded by hypertext technology. An interaction with others is accomplished via computers through chat rooms, e-mail and newsgroups. Understanding cyberspace includes realizing that its contents are not physically existent. Rather, we are communicating in a virtual reality, without boundaries or physical limitations. Hypertext technology recognizes links which expands our access to more information by instantly connecting to other locations. With patience and willingness, any novice can learn the characteristics of cyberspace. Since cyberspace is constantly expanding, there will always be something to explore. Marini was a student of generation five and has now begun her exploration into cyberspace and what it has to offer.
Reactions
I know little about cyberspace so it was comforting that Marini was in the same position before she started this course. She now feels confident that with what she has learned she can independently explore and communicate through cyberspace. Her descriptions of terminology and examples were well written and understandable. The format of her report was well done in that each subject or term covered, utilized short descriptive paragraphs. She referenced helpful information from Dr. James and I was able to follow her step by step explanations and analysis of her new understanding of cyberspace.
Comparing With Other Reports
After reading through other reports on the same topics, I found that Marini's was the most interesting and easy to follow. She incorporated her own feelings of apprehension while learning, understanding and explaining concepts of cyberspace. I was impressed because though this is a new subject to her, she still was able to portray each term and concept in an understandable fashion. She broke down each idea in her table of contents into short articulate paragraphs. Each idea flowed to the next, leaving no question that she has a clear idea of what each concept represents and how it is related to the whole idea of cyberspace.
REPORT 4: Identifying Attitudes Through
Newsgroups Messages
Written By: Dana
Rho, 409a G7
Why I Chose Danaâs Report
Since my next assignment was to do newsgroups, I was interested in reading another student's perspective on it. Hopefully this would give me a clearer understanding of what to expect when it is time for me to complete the newsgroups task. I read other reports from Dana's generation and found that Danaâs report visually stood out. Her report was well formatted. Since newsgroups were a new subject to me, it was important that I chose a report that was easy to understand. The topics in the table of contents were boldy defined, clearly representing the information following.
What Led Me To This Report
I knew that I wanted to one of my generations reports on newsgroups so it was just a matter of finding one that appealed to me. I went through generation seven reports reading through the majority of them until I came across Dana Rhoâs newsgroups report. Since Danaâs report was one of the last that I read, I had previous reports to compare it with. I found her report through the reports index.html and then clicking on index to all reports. This listed each generation for 409 and 459 classes. I then chose to view the 409a G7 reports. This is where the students names are listed alphabetically in their class home page. When you click on a studentâs name, their home page appears, listing the reports available. This is how I came across Danaâs report on newsgroups.
A Brief Overview
Danaâs report was a descriptive and adequately in depth view of newsgroups. She identified their significance in the ability to socialize, communicate and educate via computers and newsgroups. Though this does not enable physical interaction, it is a way in which individuals can freely express through their attitudes and personalities, their opinions, thoughts and frustrations. Dana feels that newsgroups create a non-judgmental environment. She accessed several messages regarding ãaggressive driversä utilzing the DejaNewssearch engine. Each group had varying opinions and perspectives regarding aggressive driving.
During the course, the students in her class became active participants in newsgroups. Though some were hesitant to post their first message, once they received responses, they became more positive and interactive. Danaâs phobia decreased as her knowlege of newsgroups terminology increased. She became an active participant and was able to see many different opionions and reactions. She continued to search the topic of driving, listing several examples of peoples reaction towards road rage. She found there to be four categories of attitudes. The most positive attitude she came across was from those who wanted to ãsolve the problem.ä After reading many opinions, she has theorized that we are ãfast becoming a ãme firstä societyä and that ãall of us will suffer because of it.ä
Reactions
Danaâs thorough report has given me more confidence in completing my newsgroups assignment. She incorporated her personal feelings with examples from newsgroups. She showed a genuine interest in all opinions, negative or not. Of the other three reports Iâve read, Danaâs report format impressed me the most. Not so much because of the use of graphics, but because the layout was well categorized and the content was easily understood. Like the other reports I chose, Danaâs use of short informative paragraphs offered structure and ease of reading in that I did not feel as though I was reading one continuous paragraph. Each idea of her report was well established with examples and personal views. She was able to relay all of the information she learned so that someone like myself who was also new to newsgroups, could understand the terminology and process of utilizing search engines.
Comparing With Other Reports
After reading other reports, I found that Danaâs report offered descriptive examples and good theories regarding the attitudes she discovered in newsgroups. She gave equal importance to the negative opinions as well as the positive ones. In comparison to other reports I feel that she offered a balanced and well structured report. Although she came across negative views, she gave equal importance to their opinions, explaining that newsgroups is an equal opportunity environment for people to express themselves.
Suggestions For Future Generations
I found that going through past generations reports gave me a better sense and idea of how to create my generational curriculum. Reading other reports also gave me better background knowlege of specific topics such as newsgroups. The reports I read were informative and well structured. Now I have a good idea of how I would like my reports to look.