WITCH at Wolverhampton in the 1960s

Next week we will start to dig into the topics you have all spent the first three weeks researching, summarizing, and creating connections amongst. Those researching the history of the internet found a lot early internet and web history. One of the elements missing from the research was later web history, what is often referred to as Web 2.0, so we will be asking the entire class to read Tim O’Reilly’s “What is Web 2.0?” (2004) and the follow-up “Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On” (2009) to fill in more recent web history. Have these read and be ready to discuss for class by Thursday, February 6th.

As far as how class will be run this week, everyone should read the summaries under the category for the week, namely history. You can find them all here: http://theinternetcourse.net/category/history

NB: If you did summaries for this topic and they don’t show up in the category above you tagged your posts wrong. Fix this by retagging your posts properly with the tag “history” (no quotes).

We want to have the whole class engaged in the discussion. If you have questions about what you’re reading in the summaries, bring them. If you have something to add, bring that too.

Panel members will be considered the resident experts for the week. They should be prepared to discuss their readings and maps. Each panel member is required to come up with at least one good discussion question for the class. You should post your question or questions to your blog before class time and tag the post with the tag for the week (History, for example).

A good discussion question gives the class something to think and talk about. It should not be a short answer type of question. It does not necessarily have a definitive “right” answer.

What we hope to get out of each panel discussion is some sort of consensus understanding of the topic for the week. An outcome of that understanding will be a unified concept map of the week’s topic. Panel members are to collaborate on the unified map, and link the map back to panel members’ individual maps. The unified map will be due by Thursday the week after the panel discussion.

As a quick reminder, here are the brainstorming questions we came up with….

Topic 1: History of the Internet

• Who “invented” the internet?
• Who had the idea? (doubt it is any one person)
• When?
• Why?
• Where?
• Etc.

Also, here are the students that are on the panel for the History of the Internet week:

• Sierra
• Lauren
• Elizabth
• Lex
• Demi
• John