"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am often asked what I think the Internet will be like in the future. The best answer that I can give is, "I have no idea, but it sure does sound neat."
I recently attended a conference that the International Space Camp held for the U.S. state teachers of the year. At this conference, one of the presenters -- an executive at BellSouth -- told the story of how a famous person once predicted that the telephone would revolutionize communication, and that every town would have one so that they could keep in touch with the outside world.
I guess the moral of this story is that if you make predictions about the future, you run a really good chance of looking silly when the future actually arrives.
I do know that the Internet is the precursor to an "Information Superhighway" that is going to be based on high-speed, fiber optic cables and a combination TV/Computer/Fax/Telephone that will allow us to access a mountain of information in seconds with just a few simple commands (hopefully, by that time we will be able to forget all of those ftp commands!).
I do know that the Information Superhighway will change the way we look at entertainment, research, shopping, inter-personal communications and education.
I also know that there are some obstacles that must be overcome before the Information Superhighway can achieve its fullest potential. Fortunately, the problems that the Internet is facing today -- universal access, parental control over which information the children should have access to, censorship issues -- are all problems that have been dealt with before by the two most overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated groups in our society: classroom teachers and librarians.
There are a lot of things that we can learn from teachers and librarians. Hopefully, this time around we will actually listen to them :)
I am truly excited about the long-range plans for the Information Superhighway. The problem with long-range plans, however, is that longrange planners often loose sight of present needs.
The future of the Information Superhighway will indeed be incredible, but that future isn't here yet. Until that future IS here, we need to remember that the 80,000 people who join the Internet each month need to be trained to use TODAY'S technology.
That is what this workshop is all about.
Five weeks ago, I told you that
... Over the next few weeks I am going to show you around
the Internet, give you some basic commands that will help
you use the tools of the Internet more effectively, point
you in the direction of people who can help you if you ever
get lost, and even give you a glimpse of what the coming
Information Superhighway will actually look like.
How am I going to do all of this? Well, each one of these daily
lessons will give you a glimpse at one small part of the Internet.
We'll talk about particular tools and sites, showing you some traps
to avoid, and even showing you some basic commands that will help
you use the tools to your own advantage. In the end, I hope that
you will gain a better understanding of the individual parts and
pieces that, when put together, make up the Internet.
... Thank you for enrolling in the Roadmap workshop. I hope
you will have as much fun traveling the Internet as I am having
teaching it to you.
Thank you for joining me on this trip. I hope you have had fun, and I wish you the best of luck as you continue your journeys around the Internet.
... and watch out for them squirrels!!
Patrick Douglas Crispen
The University of Alabama
Post Office Box 857
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35486-0857
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Patrick Douglas Crispen is a 27 year-old senior at the University of Alabama majoring in Economics through the College of Arts and Sciences. (Yes, you heard right ... he's a student!).
Prior to attending the University, Crispen worked at the United States Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, as a Simulations Director and as a founding staff member of the Space Academy Level II program.
Crispen got his Internet account during his first semester at the University of Alabama in the Spring of 1992 so that he could send e-mail to his father, an engineer at Boeing, asking him for money :)
Crispen has been paying his way through school with student loans and work-study jobs, and in the Spring of 1994 he accepted a position working the overnight shift at the front desk of a University residence hall. Using the computer at the front desk, Crispen taught himself how to use the Internet in an attempt to keep himself awake.
In May of 1994, Crispen competed in his first Internet Hunt ... and won. It was also at this point in time that Crispen started working on an introductory Internet training presentation for the National Association of College and University Residence Hall's 1994 National Conference at Northern Arizona University. This presentation would eventually lead to the creation of the Roadmap workshop.
Crispen's presentation at Northern Arizona University was the only program out of 300 to receive a perfect score from the participants (although the conference's programming staff misplaced his scores until after the close of the conference). In the months that have followed, Crispen has repeated this this presentation for the University of Alabama's Computer Center staff, the University's faculty, and the University's Graduate Student Association.
During the summer of 1994, Crispen decided to expand his presentation into a month-long Internet training workshop to be conducted over the Internet. This workshop -- Roadmap for the Information Superhighway -- started accepting participants in July of 1994. By February of 1995, word of mouth advertising for the workshop had been so successful that over 80,000 people from 77 countries had enrolled in one of the four Roadmap workshop distribution lists.
... not a bad accomplishment considering that Crispen does not even own a computer (Crispen wrote the entire Roadmap workshop using the University of Alabama's public access computer labs).
According to Crispen, he wrote the workshop, "to give new users free training on how to use the Internet, to give the University of Alabama some positive publicity, and to ensure that I can get a JOB when (and if) I graduate in 1995. The Career Center told me that the most important part of a job search is 'networking.' So, I networked." :)
(Copies of Crispen's resume can be obtained by sending an e-mail letter to LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU with the command GET CRISPEN TXT F=MAIL in the body of your e-mail letter) :)
Crispen is currently taking a one semester break to work full time for the University of Alabama's Seebeck IBM mainframe computer center so that he can pay off all of the parking tickets (8+) that the University Alabama's Parking Services Division has given him for parking so close to the computer center while he was writing this workshop :)
To unsubscribe from any Roadmap workshop, please send an e-mail letter to LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU which says UNSUB * in the body of your letter.
The address that sent this e-mail letter (CRISPEN@UA1VM.UA.EDU) is actually the address of an automated error processor. Please DO NOT reply to this e-mail letter as the error processor will consider your reply to be an error message and will delete your letter unread. To contact Patrick Crispen, please use my PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU address.
(\__/) .~ ~. ))
/O O `./ .' PATRICK DOUGLAS CRISPEN
{O__, \ { PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU
/ . . ) \ THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
|-| '-' \ } ))
.( _( )_.'
'---.~_ _ _& Warning: squirrels.