Senior Project - Part One

Part One The Promise: An Educator's History of the Internet
An investigation into the history of the Internet and the promise for its use in the K-12 classroom.

The focus of this history of the Internet is on educational and K-12 classroom usage. For those interested in a general history of the Internet, there has already been much written and posted. A compilation of Internet histories is provided by the Internet Society. A very nice interactive timeline is posted by PBS Online. An excellent source explaining the internet and its various components is the Living Internet.

The research for this part of the Senior Project is guided by milestones in Internet history taken from the Net Timeline by PBS Online and Hobbes Internet timeline.

Executive Summary
The Internet has become crucial to integrating educational technologies into the classroom. It's potential for classroom and general educational use was very quickly recognized, even when still in rudimentary form before the attractive graphical interface of the World Wide Web. There was significant discussion as far back as the late 1980s and early 1990s regarding the revolutionary impact that connectivity, the Internet and computer technologies would have on K-12 schools.

Progress integrating technology into the classroom and implementing new models of teaching and learning has taken longer than some would have desired. However, the task has turned out to be extremely complex and immense in scale. The available technologies changed rapidly throughout the two decades and continue to develop, though we have begun to adapt to both the new technologies and the pace of change. Further, the infrastructure and training required to implement universal connectivity and universal access to educational technologies dictates such massive investments of financial and human resources that it could be compared to mounting a war campaign.

Currently there is an almost frantic effort to finally pull together the technological developments of several decades into a significant advance in the conveyance of knowledge from one generation to the next. We have finally wired most schools, and the raw processing power and data storage capacity of microcomputers, though still growing, has reached a plateau that is more than adequate for most uses, and at bargain prices. Software is maturing, and if mostly via attrition, our population is becoming highly computer aware, if not literate. And now we want results. The focus has turned to accountability, measurable standards for teachers and students, and professional development for teachers.

The biggest hurdle facing educators is the Instructional Model, changing from the "factory" to a "facilitator" model of teaching, seamlessly integrating technology into the curriculum and transforming young students into motivated, proactive, lifelong learners. Educators are still struggling to clarify and confirm this model of teaching. Its complete and successful implementation depends on systemic reform: a stable technological infrastructure (with technical support) must be put in place, teachers must be taught to teach according to this model, and students must enter this process at an early age. Making this radical change may mean that teachers and students of the "old school" will be flushed out of the system as the new rushes in, and there will be turbulence as the two systems meet.

One huge obstacle that remains for integrating the Internet into the classroom is the dirth of websites with quality educational content. Quality content designed for interactive classroom use is especially hard to find. Worse, our national educational technology initiative does not yet reflect a focus on promiting the development of educational content.

In The Beginning
A computer is a device that functions to record, selectively retrieve, and manipulate information on command. This capacity was quickly recognized as having tremendous potential for scholars and students once the store of humankind's literature and knowledge was transported into the data banks of computers, and access to these computers via a network of communication lines was made widely available. (Joseph Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis, 1960) This network of computers has now been realized and embodied as the Internet.

As computer technologies developed over the last five decades, educators, politicians, technology and education industry leaders prophesied revolutionary changes from integrating computers into the classroom and from connecting schools and classrooms to electronic stores of literature and knowledge. The content and connectivity potential of the Internet now represents the apex of such educational technology and has become the focus of integrating technology into the classroom.

The Internet was born of universities for research purposes, and the history of the Internet as it unfolded has woven a path through educational institutions from the network's genesis in the early 1970's. The Internet as we know it today (primarily as the World Wide Web) entered the public's eye as the Nineties began. By 1996 it had become a full-blown phenomenon (see this project's milestones in Internet history) and our efforts to integrate computer technologies into the classroom were inseparable from the Internet.

A vision for integrating technology into the classroom that has surfaced at various times in the recent past has begun to be formalized in an Instructional Model (often called the "facilitator" model) that leads to a transformation of the entire education system. This model has as a prerequisite the systemic reform of our nation's school systems. Calling for the reinvention or reform of schools is not new. Recent history and educational literature abound with the attempts to implement, and the study of, school reform. (Cohen and Ball)

The following is a brief chronological sampling of what one finds when researching the integration of the Internet and technologies into the classroom, and thus school reform. In an attempt to keep the list pertinent, it begins with Liza Loop's still fresh article from 1986, after microcomputers have already gained a foothold in our economy, then jumps to the 1990's when the Internet has begun its momentum. (For a perspective of Internet history prior to this, see this project's milestones.)

1986 1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Summary

Liza Loop's Open Portal Schools article, first written in 1986 (rewritten in 1998,) conveys a very broad stroke vision of schools reinvented as community-based lifelong learning centers. She describes a former elementary school that has been transformed into a campus with "Administrative Records; Open Portal Local Node; Face-to-face Curriculum; and Traditional Classrooms." (Her Open Portal node obviously sounds much like the Internet.)

"The administrative office handles the educational data processing for all citizens in this district - that's right - all citizens. Everyone is enrolled on the day they are born and they may continue throughout their lives. Children, of course, have certain minimum requirements to meet but adults may drop in and drop out as often as they please. The Department of Public Education now offers instruction at all levels: prenatal training, infant care and stimulation for parents, basic citizen curricula for children ages 2 through 17; employment preparation; and recreational learning. Improvements in electronic record keeping make this relaxed attitude toward attendance, grades, transcript preparation, and scheduling possible. It now costs about the same to provide these services for everyone that it did for just children in 1980. Your academic record, like your medical history, stays with you and is available to you and those you send it to via electronic mail at any time. Job changes, retraining, sabbaticals for employees, and shared jobs are common. Thus 'going to school' is now a national pastime, not just a chore for the young."

"Most traditional school subjects are offered on the Open Portal. This is a large computer network which can be accessed from homes, libraries, day care centers, and public facilities around town. The last thirty years have seen an explosion in the availability of powerful, low-cost computer equipment and a corresponding software development effort. Learning games, tutorials, drill & practice, competency testing, and data banks for research of every description can be called up from the Open Portal."

"The 'face-to-face' curriculum is another area where the values of the 1980's have been preserved but in a reorganized format...Since such experience is considered just as important, although more expensive to offer, as informational subjects, all children are required to take face-to-face classes in the laboratories, workshops, studios, playing fields, and theaters of each neighborhood campus. Their progress is tracked with just as much care as math, history, or literature."

"But not every child works well with the computer medium. Furthermore, many subjects covered "in school" in 1980 just cannot be reduced to a display on a screen. These facts are common knowledge in 2010. Therefore, any child may choose to enroll in a traditional classroom."

1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Summary