Viewing the Internet

Wed, 24 Mar 1993

Hi Folks,

Here's an article to use in helping introduce the net to the uninitiated. I'll be trying it out at the NJ Educational Computing Conference on Friday. Any responses/greetings you may wish to share will be appreciated too!

Thanks!

An Approach

Ages ago, blind men and an elephant provided a double edged insight: when approaching the unknown, particularly a large unknown, one's point of view may not encompass the reality; also, if the elephant is moving, you'd better get out of the way...

Today, describing the Internet (to teachers, parents, School Boards, taxpayers, elected officials and even the people at the top who are responsible for it) makes one yearn for simpler times when one could argue if the "snake" or "rope" or "tree" belonged to one or another anatomical pachydermal part. I propose another metaphor, rooted in our current cultural experience as a means of introducing the net to the uninitiated.

Start with TV

An adult who was having trouble explaining the personal computer to a 4 year old paused for a moment, and the youth looked up from the keyboard saying "I get it - it's a TV typewriter!". For most users today, so it is. Wordsmiths now use electrons instead of graphite, and set off a torrent of paper. Each one working independently, unless their office or business is networked, and even then it is mostly a one way communication.

"What's On?"

To ask "what's on the Internet" is similar to asking "what's on TV?" When, where and how come into play, as we consider our options. "Ah, but there's the TV Guide," you say. True, newspapers and other commercial ventures sell the information that allows you to know your choices and either alter your behavior to sit still before the tube for the required hours, or for the technically adventurous, program a VCR to free you from the tyranny of time. (There are no accurate printed listings of Internet resources, because they are growing too fast to be printed! There are other ways of finding what's on, but that's another topic.)

I can tell you the types of programming you *might* find on TV, but its usefulness depends upon your interests and needs. Example, many people find the weather channel boring, until they need to take a trip. Some people find the home shopping club interesting. The usefulness becomes situational rather than completely content driven. Many people cite PBS and network documentaries as the paradigm of TV programming, even though most people don't watch these. A few people would just plain rather read a book (endangered species, these folks!).

Still, there are programs that support our educational goals, either in their content or in the ensuing discussions that can occur after the "experience". We can watch natural disasters, political crises, military operations, historical dramas and documentaries, or even just laugh at ourselves. The news at 11.

On the Internet, it's never more than 59 minutes until 11 somewhere. News is happening every minute, and most of it makes its way onto the net, usually before finding its way to your morning paper or TV screen. Increasingly, it has been on the Internet in order to get there.

"What's on *my* TV"

But, we're moving away from the metaphor. "What's on TV" has also come to mean, "What can I cause to be displayed on my TV", and the meteoric success of Cable TV and video rentals proves that providing increased choices creates cash flow. The time is not far off when satellite and packet radio technology will race with fiber optic cable to give you the movie of your choice just by pushing a few buttons and having it sent to your TV on demand. Or live concert. Or poetry reading. Or tour of the Louvre. Or sports event. And people will gladly pay.

What's this got to do with the Internet?

You watch TV, without thinking of if it came from Network broadcast, cable feed, video rental - you know what you want and if you can get it, you use it. We are so conditioned to having a one way transaction (producers to us, the consumers) that it's hard to imagine any other model.

Think of the Internet like TV, in the broadest possible sense. Right now, Desi and Lucy are carrying on somewhere on the planet. So is CNN. So is much of what ever else you've ever seen. Beyond this, vast repositories of previously produced video is available for viewing at your convenience. And hundreds of local cable access stations are displaying the listings of town sporting events, graduations, of a homespun and newsy nature.

THE INTERNET IS JUST LIKE THIS!

Imagine that suddenly, your TV can reach out, backwards thru all the wires, back to the transmitters and the studios which are the source of all broadcasts happening now. Those things that you want sent to you *will be* (and you will have to sift thru them!). This is the LISTSERV part of the Internet, a method of sending automated electronic mail. You subscribe to a list whose topic is of interest to you, and from then on, day in, day out, it gets sent to you. Send a message to the list, and thousands of people may get a copy! I get about 150-200 messages a day from the lists I'm on. Most of them I delete, some I share and even fewer I respond to or save for later action. I also call it "Volunteer Junk Mail".

But you really want to know what's going on, without having to sort thru 200 messages. Imagine if your TV could be set to a channel (one of not 12 or 83, but 2,000+) that could remember what you'd read already, what was new, and either seek out or screen out offerings you wanted to see or avoid. This is the USENET part of the Internet. With a good Netnews reader, you can keep up on any topic imaginable, and even some that are unimaginable. Read it now, or skim it and save it for later. A whole lot of scientific research and collaboration is happening this way now, all over the planet.

Don't have the patience to read thru boards and boards of messages? Cut to the chase! Tell me just where Lucy and Desi are this minute, or better yet, send me the "Chocolates on a conveyor belt" episode. Someone probably has archived it somewhere, and FTP/GOPHER resources of the Internet will have it to you in a flash! If you want to see anything that was ever written about TV, WAIS databases allow you to search every word of the text they contain (no guarantee that Lucy & Desi are there yet, but just wait!). Remember that TV Guide? You now have access to every issue ever printed for every city that can get a channel, plus the listings of movies on video!

Not active enough for you? You want to be a producer and not just an idle consumer? You can make your own offerings, and share them with a global audience (Email) or take part in "activities" devised for other groups on physically distant computers (telnet). Become a part of another community on the Freenet system, or join the world of the 24th century in an orbiting satellite city on MicroMuse. If your stuff is really *that* good, you can arrange to put it up on a FTP/GOPHER server, and the world will beat a path to your door (or at least read your files)!

Beyond BIG BROTHER

In Orwell's nightmare, TV watched us. A centralized network of cameras provided "somebody" with a view inside every room, every space public and private. It showed people only what was calculated to control people. Archives that Madame DeFarge would have died to have kept a tight rein on everyone.

The Internet is (presently) the exact inverse of this situation. A decentralized network of networks provides anyone with the means to communicate with anyone else (with permission arranged in advance, of course!). The content is a case study for chaos theorists. Archives that used to be accessible only to a select few are open to all, (or for sensitive information, by prior arrangement to appropriate persons).

Where we are now

The metaphor of Internet as TV is lacking in one significant area. We are more nearly in the Radio Days, since we can't yet send and receive animated pictures and sound. We are primarily text based; although compressed image files can be sent, it is awkward and relatively infrequent use of the net (at least within education). However, in less time than it took computers to become "personal" and grow from 8K to 8megs in memory, your computer will mate with your TV and spawn the reality my metaphor addresses. Two reasons, really. Look around you, and see how much impact education has had upon TV. Thomas Edison predicted that in 5 years, the moving image would replace schools as we know it. That was in 1904. Last month, the FEC decided that "the Flinstones" was *not* in fact educational programming for TV. If we are not more proactive as educators in having a hand in the direction this development takes, all we will get is halographic nintendo historical simulations (with VR helmets available at low cost).

Secondly, we need to learn to think and function and *flow* in this environment. That takes as much time and practice as learning to play piano, or basketball or any other multisensory skill. And from my position as "blind man" I can tell you: It's going to be big, and it's not an elephant!

Permission to duplicate or distribute this document is granted with the provision that the document remains intact.

Ferdi Serim........................internet: wwp@tigger.jvnc.net
West Windsor/Plainsboro Schools....phone: (609) 799-0087
Upper Elementary School.........In this new pulsating world,
75 Grovers Mill Rd..............I sometimes fear that I'm
Plainsboro, NJ 08536 USA....... being reduced to a point of view"