Here is a diagram of the Generational Curriculum for Leon James's classes:

The map above diagrams the frame work of the Generational Curriculum. The boxes are separate screens to get to the students and their home pages. This diagram is a simple way of showing how the Generational Curriculum's site is structured.

---

Here are two articles on the Generational Curriculum site

This first article gives a little background information about the Generational Curriculum and what it is all about. It explains the purpose of Traffic Psychology and what the students try to accomplish in their classes. The students do reports on their personal driving habits and styles they have aquired. Their reports are also analyzed by other generations of Traffic Psychology. The second topic discussed was on the Cyber-Psychology classes. I am in the generation 4b class. The purpose of these generations are to write reports and discuss their experiences on the Internet. The instructer also discusses the WIB done by generation 3's Cyber-Psychology 409 class. Lastly, he gives a brief description of the Daily Round Archives. This is basically a collection of past students and their reports. He also gives a note that there are many links to go to in the student reports. He integrates a "Back to Leon James Home Page" link on relevant pages, so the reader will not get lost in the navigation process.

This introduction page is important for readers who come to Leon James and his large site. Since his site is so big, people who visit his site must have some background to see the purpose of the work done by his students. I believe this is a good approach because the reader will get a better understanding of the site they are browsing through. If I did not know what the site was about, I would also want an explanation or introduction of the site.

The second article talks about link structure and hypertext technology. There is a section on the structure of the Generational Curriculum. This part explains the structure of the class in detail. He also lists skills that are learned in his classes. Some examples would be creating a home page, using the pico editor, learning e-mail, uploading assignments, HTML language,and knowledge of Netscape and Lynx. He also discusses in this article what the students do in his classes. Many reports are required of his students. He also talks about what the difference is between a natural superdocument, and an artificial superdocument. I will explain these concepts in the next paragraph.

---

A natural expanding site

The organizational growth of Leon James's Curriculum is still expanding through his students who create their own home pages and reports. He calls his classes generations. This type of expansion is called a natural expanding phenomenon. Since the site is still growing, more information will be added to his page in the near future. Leon James has generations 1 to 4 in his Traffic Psychology and Cyber-Psychology courses. This site is not an artificial site in which there is more organization. A natural site such as this can always be changed and improved.

As future generations start to expand his site, a new level must be added to accommodate the crowding of the current generational curriculum page to the different classes in the future. This new portion should lead back to important intermediate navigational pages. Other ideas such as tour guides may help make the natural site less confusing. There is a tour guide already to be viewed on Leon James's home page. Maybe more tours might help viewers sift out information and see the purpose of what the students are trying to accomplish in the classes. Maybe putting indexes or a search engine can help viewers find information through certain key words. Using a search engine style can bring the information to the viewer so the user doesn't have to be confused when looking through an enormous amount of information. Confusion may not be pleasant to users.

The viewer can search through keywords, authors, or dates within the generational curriculum. Maybe putting a page for selecting areas of interest might be appealing to the user. This page can list the topics, and the user can have a choice of which topics they would like to see. The generational page could be made into a CGI map. Making the page into a map site could be more appealing to the user to view the student pages. People like to look at visual designs because it makes a complex situation easier to understand.

---

How is this site different from other sites?

Leon James's site differs from other sites because it will never stop expanding. It will continue to grow as long as he wants it to go. Other web sites present information and leave it without further growth. The generational site will continue to expand, because we do reports for the class we are in. As future students do more reports, the site will expand even more. This would be Generation 5!

I see many benefits of being a member of Generation 4b. My input can be viewed by different classes within the generational curriculum, as well as the public. I am still contributing to the site with my reports. A lot of it is not finished yet. I hope I can help others understand the web better. I still don't know a lot about the web, but I know a lot more now, than when I first started doing my reports.

I learned many new computer skills. I learned how to use the pico editor, html language, e-mail, FTP, etc. I can use these basic computer skills in the future for work. Now days, it is important to keep up with technology. It is important because computer technology is changing so rapidly. I am continuously learning new things as I write my reports and navigate through the web. Every time I do my reports, I am always rearranging things. The more I work on the computer, I find many new types of information. In the near future, I will be able to show my family my very own home page on the web!