1st and 2nd Week

History of the Internet and Its Applications

In this first two weeks, I have been reflecting on the readings involving the internet including its applications and history. Looking at the history of the internet has reminded me how far we have come in such a short period of time. Although it was not funny at the time, the sending of the word “login” by the UCLA students in 1969 to a Stanford computer depicts the use of some of the computer labs here at my school now. You get close to finishing a project and “boowhip” the system crashes.

It was also interesting looking at the views and statistics concerning the internet’s survival of a nuclear war. The references made to catastrophic outages that have already occurred I think are pretty accurate, and with the advances made in our military, I wonder if these events can even be compared to what actually would happen. But, it is neat to see these points of view and speculation.

The knowledge gained from the basic internet info was also beneficial because it gave you a look at what is happening, and it let you see why things are important. In a lot of schools, bandwidth is a main issue. Even our use of Gradebook at my current school has overloaded the servers.

The other area I’m working on is my website proposal. It will probably involve my current math classes. Students are far more comfortable with the technology that is available, and I’m sure whatever concept or idea I decide to teach through the use of the internet will not be a problem. I’m anxious to see the results of this type of instruction.

Don Bates