Christina Kealoha
11/14/95
Psy 409
Dr. James
Assignment:
1. Compare your own team reports from the first half of the semester with the reports from the second half of the semester. What skils do you show later that you didn't show earlier? If there were no new skills exhibited, why not?
2. Look at your classmate's reports and answer the same questions.
3. What principles of writing team reports should be followed?
When I look back now at my first team reports, I think about how far I have come. Back then, there was such a simplicity to my reports. The only search engine I knew about was Infoseek, the first search engine that comes up when you hit "Netsearch" on the Netscape clickable menu. Those were the (not) good old days when life was so simple and I was, oh, so lost. Looking through all my reports, I notice several developmental trends. In the beginning, my reports were relatively short, and the main reason for this is because I did not report on as much as I do now. I would do a search and then choose one hit from that search to report on, and I would report on that one hit fairly in depth, talking about the other links that that hit led me to. By contrast, the reports from week 7 on were more extensive in that I reported on many different links returned to me by the search engine(s) that I happened to be using that week. Before week 7, I would only do one search and choose one link to report on from that search. From week 7 on, I sometimes did more than oone search on the same search engine or would choose two search engines to conduct a search on. Another method that I would use, rather than using search engines, is to start with a link that someone had told me about or one that I had found previously in my netsurfing, and then surf from link to link from there and report on what I found. Thus my methods of acquiring information for my team reports have gotten more complex over the semester.
Another way in which my team reports have evolved is in my presentation of the reports. In the beginning half of the semester, I did not know how to insert pictures and icons into my reports, so they were a little boring in that respect. After week 7, I started incorporating icons and pictures into my reports so that they were much more interesting to look at and you got more of a sense of the link that I was talking about. Aside from the use of icons, I started to report in a more organized fashion. In my early reports, as I mentioned earlier, I would only talk about one hit that was returned to me by a search engine, whereas in more recent reports, I would talk about many different links that I had explored.
Because of this difference, my report format changed also. My latter reports are divided by section according to the link that I happened to be talking about, whereas my former reports are divided into section according to a particular area of the initial link. For example, in report 1, I talked about how I found the link, then the homepage of the link, then a subtopic from the link, then the societal implications of what I found. By contrast, in report 8 I discussed, in brief, how I discovered the links, then went on to the actual links themselves, making a new paragraph for each different link and giving a brief synopsis of what I found in the link. The latter reports are more like what you would find from a search engine if you were searching on a particular topic, but with a more in depth description than a search engine would provide you with.
What I like most about my more recent reports is that they're more organized around a central theme. Each report is constructed with one aspect of health in mind. For example, team report 7 is about safety and risk behaviors, team report 8 is about health related interest groups, team report 9 is about fitness and exercise, and team report 10 is about alternative health care. Each report directs the net traveller to many other links to the topic of the week. Thus, the later reports are to help those interested in these topic find the resources available on the net, whereas the earlier reports, were done with the mere intent of getting the homework assignment done.
My latest team report is a culmination of all the techniques I have utilized in writing team reports over the semester. As in my latter reports, I use two different search engines to find my links, but, like my former reports, I concentrate on only one link in particular and elaborate on that link. As I did in week 10, some of my links in this latest report were found from netsurfing off of other links. I use icons, which I didn't do in my early reports, and my report is divided into sections by major topics. Whereas, in my more recent reports, I had been slacking on discussing social psychological implications of what I found, I returned to talking about this in my week 12 team report. Lastly, while my more recent reports have been very long because I included many different links, I didn't talk about the links in as much detail as I did in the first half of the semester. For my week 12 team report, I try to maintain the depth of presentation, while at the same time, discussing many different links.
As I read through my classmate's team reports, I realize how difficult it is to talk about somebody else's develpmental progressions. To talk about my own develpment is easy because I know what's going on in my mind so I know how I have made improvements in my reports. However, I don't know what's going on the minds of my classmates, so what they may see as improvements may not be all that apparent to me because I don't know their thought processes as they are writing their reports. I felt bad if I didn't see an improvement in somebody's reports because I am sure that they must have improved over the course of the semester, so for those who I did not notice improvements, I just wanted to say that I acknowledge that I might be at fault for not noticing.
From each team, I chose one person to analyze (except for Team 1, who did their group reports together rather than individually).
These three have come a very long way since their first team report. Their first report about "learning the internet", which was actually their week 2 report. Curtis's report was the only one with links and none of them discussed how they found their information. What was great about this first report is that they did discuss the content of what they found and gave helpful information about HTML and how to use Netscape and the internet.
As the weeks progressed, they began putting links into their reports, talking more about how they found their links, and the reports got a little longer. The last report posted, week 10, is the most comprehensive one to date in that it includes all the different elements that Dr. James asks for in our team reports -- how they found the page, how it appeared and what were its contents, links, and social psychological implications.
I didn't notice any major changes in the way Ragna was reporting. Her use of search engines became more complex in that she used more search engines and varied search engines, but the way she organized her report and the things she chose to report on did not change over the course of the semester. Her reports are similar to my initial reports in that she chooses a topic to search on, and then discusses one of the links she found from the search. Her second or third paragraph usually talks about her impressions of the link and its implications for social psychology.
What I did notice was very different was the way in which she reported about how she found the link. In the earlier reports, she would briefly talk about what search engine she was using and what search words she used. Toward the middle of the semester, she stopped reporting on how she found the link and just concentrated on the link itself. Now, her most recent reports are more in depth about how she acquired her information, so this was a definite improvement.
Noel's reports did improve over the course of the semester, but there was a lot to improve upon, so it's very beneficial for Noel that he did improve. His first few reports were absolutely bare minimum. He barely describes how he arrives at his links, and then only (barely) discusses the one link that he does find. The topics that he searched on for his first few reports were very relevant to his team topic of internet communities, and so, I really wanted to find out what kinds of internet communities are out there and what he thinks about them. Unfortunately, he only mentions them in brief and provides a link to them so that you can look them up yourself. At least he provides the links, right?
Starting with his week 5 team report Noel's reports become much more in depth. We get a sense of what the link contains and we get the sense that Noel has actually spent some time looking through the link. He gets excited about what he has found so it makes the net traveller excited to visit the link, too. Unfortunately, the links from week 5 on have nothing to do with his team topic. While I like what Ned is doing with his reports, and find them very interesting, I can't help but feel like I've missed out on learning about internet cybercommunities. I think his team reports would be excellent if he would pour the same kind of enthusiasm into the topic that he's supposed to be reporting on.
Rey's work showed a definite progression in the way the reports were organized as well as their focus and complexity. The initial reports were lacking in links. While she discussed the different search engines, she did not provide links to those search engines so I felt disappointed that I could not hook up to them if I wanted to. While her first four team reports stuck to her team topic, search engines, her week 5 report started to lose its focus where she did not even report about a search engine. At this point, she was only providing one link per report.
By week 6, she began providing more links and talking about more of a variety of what she found, but she had still lost her focus. Although the week 7 report did not talk about search engines either, I felt that this one had more organization than her previous reports. She separates each link into its own paragraph so that it's easier to read and follow. In week 8 she regains her focus again and talks about the search engine that she used and by week 9 she has fully developed her style of reporting by taking one search engine and reporting what she found there, with another search engine's results on the same search. This report also shows nice organization in that she first reports on one search engine and its findings, and then the next search engine and its findings.
All in all, I felt that Rey did improve in that she incorporated more links into her reports and showed more organization to her reports.
Yoon showed an incredible amount of improvement over the course of the semester. Not only in his team reports, but also, I'd like to add, in the complexity of his home page. He has incorporated many techniques such as the flashing "Aloha" and his personalized "CHO" on his homepage. His initial reports were okay. They did what the assignment asked us to do in that he discussed how he found the link and how the link related to social psychology as well as his impressions of the link. Basically, he did an adequate job. Over the course of the semester, Yoon has incorporated various techniques that he learned such as copying pictures to his directory for use on his homepage, as well as the creation of links. I noticed that as the semester progressed, Yoon began adding more links onto his team reports. In the earlier reports, I often wanted to visit a link that he was talking about only to discover that he hadn't provided the link for me to visit. In his latter reports, this was not a problem.
What I really like about his latter reports is that they were more organized. For example, in his week 11 team report he first talked about one search engine that he used, Galaxy, and what he found there. Then he talked about the second search engine he used and what he found there. I also felt that he improved in the content of his reports in that he said much more about the links that he found. While there weren't a lot of links in this report, the links that he did find were discussed in depth.
Overall, Yoon's reports show much more sophistication compared to the reports from the beginning of the semester. Not only does he incorporate us of icons, he also shows better organization and an increased understanding of the intricacies of page construction on the internet.
The main principle that I advocate is organization. Team reports are much easier to follow when they are organized. This was my number one complaint in criticizing my classmate's pages. The other important factor to consider is report content. Dr. James asks us to discuss specific topics and address specific issues in our reports. Many of the teams did not do all that he asked, and so, the reports were very lacking. The questions that he asks us to address may be handled in different ways. For example, Nitsa McCarthy's week 2 team report was nicely divided into sections where she could address each question that Dr. James asked us to address in our team reports. By contrast, as you can see in my week 12 team report, I chose to weave all the questions together. I chose to organize the report first, by discussing how I found the link, then by discussing the links one at a time for content, appearance, and social psychological significance. My own style was different from Nitsa's, but I still feel like I got the relevant points in.
Lastly, one must consider the appearance of the report. I think organization also contribute to how the report appears to the reader. If the report is organized into neat little sections, the reader will have an easier time reading it and finding the information that (s)he is looking for. Lori Morita's week 7 team report is a great example of a nice layout for a team report. She incorporates icons into the page in such a manner that each section is separated from the next and whole layout looks very pleasing to the eye, which makes the report fun and easy to read.
Thus, team reports should be organized, cover all the topics that Dr. James asks for, and must also be aestetically pleasing.