Report 1
Generational Curriculum and Cyberspace
Generation 1
The reason I chose Kevin Bogan's Home Page is because he has the most comprehensive overview of how we, as novices on the computer, can find our ways around and to help to reduce the frustrations we first feel when we're learning all of the techniques of how to put up our own pages and how to navigate the cyberworld.
One thing that I've been trying to figure out about his home page ever since I first saw his page was "who's this?" Well, today is September 24, 1996 and the first time I took this class was in January 1996. Today I discovered that the picture on his home page is of Emanuel Swedenborg. I always thought, until today, that it was George Washington. Shows how much I know. I was never really good at history anyway!
But the main thing I really like about his page is that it really helped me. Even though there weren't that many pictures and backgrounds and all of those colors, I still appreciate it because Kevin Bogan is "The Man!" Besides, he's the only one that I've ever met from that generation.
The reason why I chose Jill Kaneshiro's page was, not because I liked the background. Actually, it's pretty plain, and it's not normally the kind of page that I really like. Actually, it's pretty simple. I feel like I've gone back in technology time and visited one of the most simple pages there ever was.
Well, that's what I think. But I remember going through other pages that seem even more primitive than this. But, I clicked on her Creative Home Page and there a little pictures of a beach with waves breaking and the other with a man in mid-fall. Pretty simple and pretty nice to see something with only a few stuff on it.
Her page seems different though. On this Creative Home Page, it's sort of different. It's not like the others I've seen. And, honestly, I like "different." It gives something away about the person. I may not be a great "Psychological Analyst" yet, but I think that she is a simple person, yet likes to be different. I could be wrong.....probably am. But I'm just a hunch!
Grant Harada's Home Page is another simple one. I shouldn't put it under my "favorites" column but it's different. In his Alternative Home Page he spells his name out "GGGGGRRRRAAAAANNNNNTTTTT" or something along those lines. It's just different. I guess this would make a good signature file.
The thing that really caught my eye was.....well, not in the sense that a lot of people think about. But, while going through his home pages, I noticed that all his pages look about the same. I guess that's how it was earlier when the thought of pictures weren't important. It's okay.
These are the kind of pages you look back to and think "primitive." I do not mean that in a bad way though. It's just somewhere to look back at and think "this is where our pages today are spinning off from." And I'm sure future generations will think of our pages in the same way.
Generation 2
Christina's is a very nice page. I really like the color and the pictures. I have yet to figure out how to make those tables.
The only thing is that I thought the icons would be related to what I would be linking to. I guess everyone has their own preference. I think that she just likes Disney and cute stuff.
I notice that she has a lot of Disney stuff like "The Little Mermaid," the Genie on "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and Belle from "Beauty and the Beast." If I had known we could use these kinds of icons, I would have stolen them from her.
Funny thing is, we did a report on home pages for Psychology 459 also, but I never noticed her page. I guess it's because, at the time, we were just starting out on the internet and were trying to finish all the reports. I suppose I may have been just clicking through the first few pages that I saw. But I really do like this one. That's a very nice color!
Another thing I like is that her pages are all colored. She seems very consistent in her work and it looks like she took a lot of time in doing her pages. I especially like the one with Aladdin and Jasmine in her Topical Index page. It seems like they're walking on clouds. Very nice!
Curtis Nakao's Home Page is also very nice. Well, mainly the Home Page is nice. I like the background. Then, like a lot of other males would do, he put a picture of a girl in a bikini smack dab in the middle of his page. It's like something my cousin would do.....he's so obsessed with girls, you wouldn't believe it!
I clicked on some of his links. Some of them no longer work but it's a pretty organized page. Again, like the Generation 1 pages, it's pretty primitive. His Home Page is cool, as it should be, since that's the first page that everyone lands on. And although it's not too flashy on the other pages, it's pretty good. Not to say that mine is any better!
Why did I pick Ryan Yamauchi's Home Page? What can I say? I like the background. It's pretty plain on the other pages, but as I said earlier, the Home Page is the eye catcher!
I was just scrolling through his home page and noticed two things that are also "typical" of some guys. I see a link to an NBA page. Okay.....guys, some of them, are really into sports. Hence...the typical guy. I was kinda surprised that there wasn't a football home page added. And, another characteristic of some "typical" guys is the links to Beer pages. It's so funny!
But then again, I shouldn't talk cause the girls' pages have cute stuff and cartoons and all the other stuff. So, maybe I shouldn't categorize people because I have some "cute stuff" and "girly-girl" stuff on some of my pages too!
Generation 3
The page I connected to for Noreen was the one that I really liked. Actually, it's her wib page with her topic for that class, and I suppose it's like that for every home page that I connected to for G3, but I liked that very first page. It's so eye-catching.
For you people who really like precious moments things, this is the page for you. Well, her page has one of the figurines that I like on it. And it looks like it's just sitting on the water, and the two figures are in a boat with a boy and a girl looking intently into each other's eyes.
Her Home Page for Cyberpsychology is also nice and very neat and organized. All the icons match with the prospective topics. I like that. Maybe I should change my home page to look like hers. I'm very tempted to do that, but we'll see.
I also enjoyed reading the Contributions Page where people talk about their relationships and experiences with relationships. I like this idea of picking a topic and then having people from the outside of class, you know, people who actually happen to find our pages, come in and take interest, and then leave a contribution. It makes one feel very good. That's how I felt with my Traffic Psychology page when people outside of our class were contributing to my database. It's like there's a feeling of accomplishment!
I like Denise's wib page because of the background. It's pretty cool, and it's one of the backgrounds, among a thousands out there, that I have never seen before. I like the color purple. It's an "attention-getter."
I also wanted to look through her page to see if I can get any tips on how to make a great looking page so that other's will want to land on the page. I also think that your home page is an extension of who you really are. If your page is messy, then the tendency is to think that the author is a messy person. But of course, this isn't always necessarily true. Maybe someone had to do everything at the last minute and just messed everything up. But, I thought this page would help me to get some tips.
Her Cyberpsychology Home Page was pretty plain, but because it was pitch black, the things on top of it looked pretty good. They all stood out. I like it. It would have been a different story had she put another loud color and everything was just there, looking out of place. It's a good strategy, to go from a colorful page, to one that is plain but appealing. It's very easy on the eyes!
The reason I clicked on Calvin's wib page is because the topic was very alluring. "Things that Make Me Feel Good." Well, everyone wants to feel good. Am I wrong?!!!
I just wanted to see the kinds of things that were memorable to some people as making them "feel good." I clicked on his Contributions Page where people left their memories. You gotta read this. Some of this stuff is good, and some of them kinda corny! But that's okay. Some of the things we do that make us feel good are corny!
Generation 3a
Ronel's is another page that is cute. I just love the little devil on the top. The Generation 3a got away with a lot of things though! This guy's home page has a blinking title Dr. James!!!!! The little devil in me is coming out! I've resorted to tattle-telling! But that's okay cause they already got their grades during the summer!
Another reason that I picked his page is because.....well, he has a link to my Traffic Psychology report in which I talk about my self-modification project. See, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about! I like it when other people use my work or land on my page and do something with it. It's like there's a feeling of accomplishment! Makes one feel very important!
Now, this page is really cool! There's that little devil again! I should really consider putting that one my page! I think I will!
Anyways, this page has got everything.........skulls and all! It's like the background makes you feel like you're in outer space or in any kind of space, like the mind, with all of these icons representing ideas in one's mind! Pretty cool! And I made that up just now! Wow! I feel intelligent! This is my "Make me Feel Intelligent" page. Maybe I'll click on it more often!
Another reason I picked his page? Well, in his Report 1 he used my makeover report! I feel so special! But then again, on the down side, I realize that they probably used everyone's pages in our generation! Oh well.......so much for the theory that they liked my report! But that won't stop me from feeling "special!"
I like the background on this page. I like those pastel colors. They just make one feel soft inside. And that picture........sure took a long time to load Dr. James! Just kidding. Actually, I'm using a very slow computer so that doesn't really count! Rahnelle, if you're reading this, I didn't mean to be cut your page down!
Anyway, one thing that I couldn't really figure out was how the picture got to go over Rahnelle's name. These are the things that you begin to notic when you've been looking at home pages for hours!
One thing I noticed, though, is that on the Report 1 the background is pretty dark, and the red is hard to read. See, I'm learning! I learned from that home page I checked out earlier, but I forget which one. But other than that, the pages are pretty nice.
I think that it's really neat to be part of a generational cybercommunity in cyberspace. When you think about it, it's like a family, with others before you. It's like you, the newest generation, are the baby in the family, and you have to learn things from those that were there before you. For example, technique. Each person in the family is unique and has their own way of doing things, and you learn from each one, then develop a technique of your own, while taking what they have and integrating them into your own technique. This is how I see the generational curriculum. Because part of our assignments is to go back to our "ancestors" and see what they have done, we can learn from their techniques, and also from their mistakes, and create a style all our own.
I've already had a taste of being part of the "older generation" in Traffic Psychology. Like I've been saying earlier in my views on others' pages, I like the feeling of being recognized for the work that I have done, as I am sure a lot of other people feel. To have accomplished something is one thing. But for someone to recognize it is another thing that can make one feel that "hey, I've done something for someone else!"
When others look back at our reports 20 generations down the line, they will see, hopefully, that we were the pioneers of this generational curriculum and appreciate all of the things we have done because, in a sense, they would not be able to create a style of their own if it hadn't been for the earlier generations working on their own style, which was followed by other generations.
One way that you can learn about Cyberspace and other related topics is reading Dr. James' report on Cyber-Psychology. It's a report with different topics involved with cyberspace. One part that I remember in particular, that he was talking about in class, was the section where he talks about "Clicking as a Spiritual Act". Now, who would have thought that just "clicking" would be a spiritual act?!!! Some would say that is nuts, and Dr. James proved it by telling us about his page being on the "worst pages" list because of that one quote.
When you look at his logic, it really is like a spiritual act. Clicking can very well affect every aspect of your life. It seems to have some control over people. For me, it's like a religion. You have certain rituals that you do. Well, when clicking, you search for the item you want and you click on it to get the information that you need. You wouldn't not just click on anything without knowing what you have to do. Just like in a church, you can't sit and stand and kneel without knowing when to do it. But it also affects your soul and how you choose to do things.
In the section about Cyberspace and the Mind, Dr. James states "One reaction to the growing presence of cyberspace is to see it as a threat to the traditional human value of social, face to face exchange." I think that this could be true because, the world of technology is becoming so advanced that people don't even need to go into the office to communicate with their co-workers. They don't need to hear their voices either. All they need would be a computer terminal, a telephone line, and a modem. Then, they can contact anyone around the world who has access to the internet.
It seems as though all of this technology is causing the human race to become more lazy, which is very threatening to our society. We hear about anti-social behavior in people, and how that is a psychological disorder. What, then, can we say about people who base their whole lives on the computer and the internet, without any physical contact with the outside world?
Through this article, we can see many great things about cyberspace and cybercommunities. But along with these great things, are always negative aspects. Therefore, each of us has to be careful about how far we go when using the cyberspace. It helps us a lot in many many ways, but we can't let it take control of our whole lives.
Another interesting essay was written by Storm A. King on The Psychology of Cyberspace. He states, " Cybernauts have only each others ideas to pay attention to, words on a screen, devoid of tone and inflection." This leads back to the point of virtual reality that Dr. James was talking about. There are ideas, but are they really there? They are in some other remote place, in someone else's minds. People throw out their ideas and, through cyberspace, they have a virtual conversation, with virtual people, about a virtual topic. Is this insanity, or is this a replacement of the face-to-face and physical contact kinds of conversations that we are used to having?
Aside from all of these controversial issues, there are a lot of other topics out there on cyberspace. If you do not know all of the vocabulary that cybernauts use, check out this Cyberspace Glossary to help you get up-to-date on your knowledge of cyberspace!
There are also Cyberspace Wellness Services on the internet, and other topics as Selling Homes in Cyberspace which is like a real estate business. They also have guides like Surfing Through Cyberspace to help you find your way around in the vast virtual world called Cyberspace.
So, as you can see, as I mentioned earlier, there are negatve aspects to Cyberspace, but there are many positives. Businesses can advertise their services and products, hospitals can provide on-line health information, and also, classes can be conducted so that people around the world can learn about a certain topic without having to travel half-way around the world to sit in a class......have they invented that yet?!!!!
So, don't be discouraged by the complexity of Cyberspace. Just focus on all of the things that you can do that will help you to simplify your tasks of every day life. But like I said earlier, you shouldn't replace social physcial contact with the communications occuring on the internet. You can include the two in your life, but using one or the other could be detrimental!!!!
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