Michelle Alonzo 409a Developmental patterns for learning the Internet

Report 2

Developmental patterns for learning the Internet


Frustration & Anger

"I sought her help because she was a fellow student and she would probably understand more of the anxieties and frustrations I felt at that moment since she had been through it before."
Noreen Dorion Report 2 "Adapting to the Internet" Psychology 459, Generation 3

"I went home many times and yelled at everyone because I was irritated, frustrated, and tired."

Carol Ohta Report 2 "Adapting to the Internet" Psychology 459, Generation 3

"The frustration of not knowing what I was doing at first, coupled with the frustration of knowing that asking for help would be not only be frustrating in itself but also humiliating, produced an awful compounded emotion."

Lori Morita Week 1 Lab Report Psychology 409, Generation 2

Defeat

"Finally, I gave up..."
Christina Kealoha Week 3 Psychology 409, Generation 2

"The longer I sat in class the more irritated I got which made me want to literally cry."

Nicole Gustie Week 1 Psychology 409, Generation 1

You See a Glimmer of Light

"Week Five was a time of enlightenment, because I started to see the light."

Darin Kawamoto Report 2 "Adapting to the Internet" Psy 409, Generation 3

Motivation

"I have the courage to go on to conquer more skills before the semester is through."
Allison Asahina Lab Report Psychology 409, Generation 1

" BINGO! I got in! My first taste of triumph!! I was relieved and happy."

Jae Isa Lab Report Psychology 459, Generation 1

"I am definitely happy with what I've accomplished this semester!"

Caroline Balatico Week 15 Lab Report Psychology 459, Generation 1

Feeling of Success

"This was truly a great feeling which followed the completion of each of my web pages."
Conrad Moreno Report 4 "My Involvement with the Internet" Psy 409, Generation 3

My Overall View of the Internet

I think that learning the internet at the very beginning was the most difficult thing I ever had to do. I had no idea what I was doing. Neither did most of the class. I guess because most of us were novices and never really had any real formal instruction on how to do the most basic things on the internet.

The best feeling I had last semester when I first took Dr. James' Psychology 459 Traffic Psychology class was when I finally got the hold of the whole internet process! I just couldn't believe it! I could finally start working effectively without having to rely on everyone else to teach me.

The worst thing was the procrastination. I think we really need that extra push to get things going because some of us, if we don't have the motivation to learn something that we never knew how to do before, we are probably going to just push it onto the side until it really gets too late, then suffer the consequences.

But, needless to say, almost everyone passed the class, so I guess Dr. James did a pretty good job of getting all of us familiar with the internet, along with a lot of help from the other classmates. The struggling, frustration, and of course, perseverence, really paid off because most of us ended up excelling in that class.

Now that I'm taking this 409 class, I thought that it would be a breeze. But one thing I realized was that, if you don't practice for a long period of time, everything you learned will slowly get away from you. Man, do I know the feeling. I forgot a lot of things. Although it didn't take me as long to learn it as it did the very first time I started out, it took a lot of getting used to again.

The course of three months (summer) is quite a long time. As they say, with practice, you can excel. But during the summer, a lot of things can transpire and you forget a lot of the things you learned only a few months ago. That's what happened to me. Luckily, I have good friends (Carol) who remember these things and help me to refresh my mind. It really helps when you have someone helping you out. If you're doing it all on your own without someone there who's going through the same process as you are, you may be in deep trouble, unless you can read a book of instructions really quick and pick up quickly without someone helping you along the way, even for just a little support.

Steps to Learning the Internet

Step 1


Frustration & Anger

I think, with everything that's new, we all feel that emotion of "frustration & anger!" When learning something new, we may not get the hang of it the very first time, with the exception of a very few, and we become angry at ourselves, the computer terminals, the teacher, and just the world! I'm speaking from experience! There were times when I felt like throwing the computer terminal on the ground because it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, so I thought.


Step 2


Defeat

When you've been working as hard as you think you can and things are still going wrong and nothing seems to be working, you feel as if you've been defeated, defeated by an inanimate object that you're supposed to be smarter than.

You feel like quitting, dropping the class, or just plain indulging in chocolate ice cream! Well, maybe not for some, but for me, that was the case. But, you feel as if nothing you do will make it work and you feel as if you have to resort to some other alternative like just giving up and concentrating on other classes and forgetting about this one.

The best thing you think you can do is copy from someone else. Guess what! You're right. Check out other students' pages and you may even copy their pages and write your own information.

Step 3


You See a Glimmer of Light

If you are one that is really trying to learn but felt as if you have been defeated by a computer earlier on, checking out and even copying other people's pages and putting your own information on them will help you learn the whole process.

Hopefully, you will look at how the page looks, and at the same time, look at all of the commands that make the page look the way it does. If you sample a lot of people's pages and find that a lot of them have the same commands, you can figure out what these commands do.

When you find that your page is starting to come out the way you want them to, you feel a little spark of confidence that can probably help you to go further because just the feeling that something finally work may help you want to do more and make your page look exactly the way you want it to. Keep looking for other pages that you think would look nice for your page, and try them out.

Step 4


Motivation

Once things begin to come together for you, you feel a sense of motivation. You see that you can finally make everything work and you feel the urge to make your pages look a lot nicer than they already do. This motivates you to look around the entire internet to find things that you would like to add to your page, in the hopes that someone will land on your page and say "Wow! This page is nice!" or something along those lines.

Once you see your potential, you feel like you want to do more and even try new things on the internet. Once you surf around and feel more confident, you can learn more about the internet and learn newer and better techniques.

Step 5


Feeling of Success

When you look at your pages and find that they are what you wanted them to look like, you feel as if you had succeeded and you feel a great sense of accomplishment. The fact that you overcame the whole process is a great feeling. It gives you the feeling that you can do almost anything if you persevere. You can finallly look at the pages and say, "that is my work!" And, when you receive an "A" for the class, you'll know that all that hard work really did pay off, and you're glad that you stuck it out without copping out!

I've gone through this process once before, and because the internet keeps on changing, allowing us to a little bit more, I feel as if I'm learning all over again. I feel that because technology will keep on changing and advancing, we will all be going through the process of learning the internet at different levels. But nevertheless, even the most professional people will have to learn the "new stuff." So, you are not alone.

One advice I would like to give the future generations is......do not procrastinate! Even if you're still learning or none of your work is up on the web yet, just keep practicing and don't wait until the last minute to do the reports. You can just work on them on your word processor if you have trouble logging on-line.

The worst thing you can do is wait until the last minute to even start learning. If you still don't know how to make a page and the basics, you should ask someone for help or read one of the internet books that are published many times a year, since they keep upgrading the system. But, keep up with the work.

If you wait until the reports are due, you won't make it unless you go 24 hours without sleeping, because that's how long it will probably take to put in commands and write your report. It takes time to get through it. It's easier in a sense, once you've learned the internet, but it also takes a lot of time to sit in front of a computer and put it all together. Sometimes you may have to change things around. And if you wait to do all reports at one time, you won't make it! Believe me!

Advice to Dr. James? Well........Dr. James, just be patient with the new people. I know that the process is very hard. The only thing that will help will be to push them and keep on telling them every week that they need to learn it. Also, the worksheets that you gave us this semester really helps. It gives us a guideline of what you want from us. Other than that, just be patient and then I'm sure they'll understand it and will want to do more.
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