Ryan T. Yamauchi
Psy 409
Week 1
9/6/95
Dr. Leon James


USING THE INTERNET FOR THE FIRST TIME

Self-Assessment Ratings:
How difficult was this week's ta sks (lumping all the sub-tasks together)?
Very easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Hard
This week's rating 3
How much negative emotions did it cost you all in all?
Very little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Much
This week's rati ng 2
How valuable for later use is this knowledge or skill going to be for you?
Not Useful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Useful
This week's rating 10
How likely is it that you'll be getting good at this week's tasks?
Not Likely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Quite likely
This week's rating 8
How satisfied are you with the computer and the Internet systems?
Not Satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Satisfied
This week's rating 8
How hard did you try to get through this week's tasks?
Gave up easily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Refused to give
up
This week's rating 8




This week is the first week we were required to do any assignments on the Int ernet. I rated the difficulty a 3, let's face it the first week isn't going to be that tough. The task was basically to fool around with Netscape and try out the buttons. I don't really know what the find and open buttons do but the others were relat ively easy to figure out.


Buttons

The What's New and What's Cool functions were a lot of fun to look at. In What's New, I took a look at e-music which is an online listing of new releases, different artists and even music you can purchase. In What's Cool , I took a look at the MTV Homepage, specifically, the music news and the animation.


Search

I also used the Directory and Net Search, it did take me a couple of minutes to figure out but I did. In the Net Directory I looked in Yahoo, under art, then music and then artists. I looked up a group I really like called the Cocteau Twins. There was a listing and the page had a couple of their album covers, I thought this was pretty neat. In Net Search I looked up punk rock using Infoseek. I came across a homepage called John's Punk Page which was not terribly interesting.


Rating Review

Not too much to report as far as negative emotion goes, I mean, I never knew how much fun it was to e-mail someone and using the computer to look up interesting bits. The only thing is that I couldn't get the newsgroups to work and the Mac Color Classics are very, very slow. The MTV Homepage, for example, took at least a couple of minutes to load. Another thing is the CLIC lab is very humid and hot. Other than these things everything has been very positive.


I do happen to think that this will be very valuable as we will be building progressively on the things we pick up each week. This week was all about learning the basics and being able to look things up. For example being able to use a search engine is what everything is all about, the whole purpose for being online, finding information, and not being limited by only using what's listed.


I think it is very likely I'll be getting good at this stuff, my confidence is pretty high right now. I spent about 10 hours on the computer this week which is more time than I spend watching television. I realize it's the first week but I feel good about what is to come in this class (admittedly, I was a bit anxious about being able to survive).


As far as being satisfied with the Internet and the computer, I think I am more amazed than anything. I find myself like a kid in a candy store, looking at everything in wonderment and basking in the newness of it all. Besides the hot CLIC lab and the slow computer, I really can't complain.


This week's tasks required a little time and effort but as I mentioned before, I was on the computer for 10 hours this week, which I suppose isn't a lot to other people but to me as a beginner, it sure seems like a lot of time.
There weren't a lot of differences in the sub-tasks but then again there weren't any real sub-tasks to speak of. As I mentioned earlier this week was more fun th an anything.


Conclusions

I did not notice any fossilized errors which I suppose would be pretty difficult to have seeing as how we're all novices in this cyber-classroom as it were.


I did feel lacunae in terms of my note taking. I simply didn't know what to write down, and I kept forgetting to write things down, I had to keep on backtracking. I suppose the novelty of the situation made me lose track of what I was doing online in the first place. The only thing I can think to do is to do my weekly tasks first and stay focused, taking complete notes all the while.


Ok, I will say that I have progressed. A week ago I knew nothing, this week I guess I'm surfing the wild net, pretty cool. I really never thought that I would be doing this, I felt like I was missing the cultural boat so to speak. I suppose that is why I took this class in the first place. What can I say in conclusion except for, this is really fun.

here's a quarter

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