THE GENERATIONAL CURRICULUM

Click here for a diagram of the overall framework for the Generational Curriculum.

This site was designed for the different generations for Psychology 409 a&b and also for Psychology 459. Each level represents the different links available to you, as the user. It starts with general information about the Generational Curriculum and its purpose. Then is followed by the two different Psychol ogy courses that participated in it; each section containing names of students and links to their homepages. The knowledge or skills obtained by these students can be viewed through their individual homepages. Each homepage consists of reports that were assigned for that semester.

One example of a "front end" to present this expanding site is to submit it to a Search Engine, also known as an Index resource, like Alta Vista. Key words will allow access to the page or other pages that relate to it. However, through a Search Engine, one would not know what exactly is in the content of the page unless he or she is willing to click on the reference.

Another alternative would be to present it in a Tour Guide format with the use of frames, which has already been done. The Tour Guide is set up to take the viewer through an already planned path of the site. All the user would have to do is follow along by clicking their way through. This would not overwhelm the user since each site would be explained as one frame stays constant. It is like having someone take you through the site and all you need to do is keep up and you will not get lost. Consideri ng that this site contains a lot of links, it would be a good idea to present this page using the Tour Guide format. However, whenever anything is added on, the Tour Guide would have to be altered.

Using a CGI map would be another possibility. By use of graphics, or a well organized table as seen on the Social Sciences homepage. The user would be able to see what is available on the site and click where they would want to go. In order for the user to stay on track and not get lost, links to the CGI Map should be made available to most of the sites or at least advise the user to bookmark the homepage so that it would be easier to get back if they got side tr acked by the many links available here.

There are many differences between the Generational Curriculum site and other sites that are available on the Web. A brief outline of what is available on this site can be found this article, that is the main difference between a naturally expanding site and an artificial one. The whole class works as a community to contribute to this site. It's no t just ONE person who is responsible for the growth of this neverending site. Some of the links to the Generational Curriculum allow users to interact by providing feedback on certain topics. Students also include personal thoughts and feelings they go through as they exp lore the Internet. This site displays the results in the combination of Internet and classroom knowledge.

Being part of Generation 4b is going to be a learning experience that I'm sure I'll never forget. My Personal Homepage will be a constant reminder of what I accomplished while in this class. Through the different reports, I am learning more and more about the capabilities of the Internet and also gaining knowledge about generating my homepage. One example of this is that through my first report, I came across the various interactive capabilites of the web that I never new existed... like the interactive mall. Before this class I was only capable of generating a very minimal homepage, as seen here. As you can see, by comparing that homepage to my homepage for this class, I was able to utilize more advanced HTML tags such as background tags, and different color tags.

All of the information I get through my experiences in this class may be useful to me in the future. I will know how to search the Internet for information I may need and also have basic HTML knowledge. In fact, it has already been helpful for the office that I am currently working at. The Manoa Writing Program has their own homepage and after finding out that I was taking this class, they decided to put my newly found Web knowledge to the test. I was able to take printed publications of certain documents and put them on their homepage. Such documents include Writing Matters 3: Writing and Research, Tips for Teachers, and organizing their Writing Intensive Main Page.

Before taking this course, if they had asked me to do these things, I would have had no clue as how to do it. But, as you can see, I think I did pretty well. Although it took a lot of work, I am glad that I have this knowledge.