Victiorian Internet: A Dot-com Cult Classic

Write a journal entry and post it to your blog by 5 pm on Sunday about The Victorian Internet and the second design principle created in class.  Remember the three questions that guide professional reflection.

•   What did I learn?  What does it mean and what supports that position?  What are the ways in which it might impact my practice?

This week, our assignments for class featured the book, The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. This book was extremely different from Sabertooth, the book from the previous week. This book went into great detail talking about the history and design of the first telegraph. I personally thought it was a riveting read, because I had never known that so much went into making the first telegraph. Until reading this book, I had never once heard of an optical telegraph, nor did I give much thought to the specifics of this particular technological feat. The fact that the inventors somehow had to come up with a way to get a telegraph line under water all the way from England to America still baffles me. I am getting ahead of myself here, but it truly was astounding- talk about design!

As far as answering the first question of what I learned, I can proudly state that I learned a lot from this particular book. I really enjoyed the fact that it broke down the process of designing the telegraph and the many ways in which it was a failed design, and then ultimately the designs that were put into use around the world. I feel that in history, we are often taught the glossed over version of events. Like for instance, I never thought about the fact that there would be people so short sighted when it came to technology. On page 20, it says: “since the war with France had ended, the telegraph system was in no need of improvement. Telegraphs of any kind are now wholly unnecessary … no other than the one in use will be adopted.” This is the kind of thing that we are not often taught in school. Things like people arguing about the best method, the best model, the fastest cheapest way of doing whatever it is they are trying to accomplish. We almost never learn about the backlash the idea gets when it is first received. If you were lucky and had a good teacher in school, you may have learned about Morse code and how that innovation in design changed telegraph forever. But mostly, you stick to the fact that he invented it and that was that. As we learned though from The Victorian Internet this is a gigantic understatement in terms of the events leading up to Morse developing the telegraph. As I briefly mentioned before, there was an optical telegraph that had a system of flaps and different things that allowed the viewer to communicate from a fair distance away. Of course there were terrible limitations to this including weather, time of day, and distance. But, this would be something you were totally unaware of because once again, in history we have a tendency to gloss over the way that you got to the desired outcome- the actual invention at its best. You never hear about two inventors who were so preoccupied in fighting over who was doing more work that they almost came to an actual fight. You never hear about people falling in love over the telegraph wire or how there were marriages performed across state lines by telegraph. Learning about the process of the creation of the telegraph was very interesting because it was basically a comprehensive guide to the whole design process. From the first models to the actual workings of the telegraph and the impacts on the world, it was an interesting way to see the “highway of thought” at its beginnings.

There are also a lot of similarities between the telegraph and the modern Internet we have today. They both drastically improved the pace of the world and the way we share information, they also both started off as being for the government. It also changed the way jobs were used. For instance, some jobs (like the pony express) were no longer needed. But, we saw a rise in skilled workers to be able to use Morse code, same thing for the Internet- we no longer needed typists to type a paper for you, now we needed computer programmers or other jobs similar to that. The use of code and encryptions is still relevant today but it started with the telegraph. These are only several of many similarities, but I was shocked at just how many there were!

As we talked about in class, good learning design reflects the thoughtful considerations of the technologies chosen and considers the cognitive, social, societal, and physical consequences. This statement is true both of designs from the telegraph days to our current Internet. These considerations are also similar between both the telegraph and Internet today because they are good designs. Such as, there was now a way to verify information in a fast reliable way, which was cognitively sound. As far as social we see a whole crop of people in The Victorian Internet that are able to communicate with each other that was not at all possible before hand. (This was also similar to the video we watched about the printing press bringing people together- even if it was only through their ideas). The Internet did the same thing, it made the world smaller and people in each society were more able to understand what was going on in different places throughout the world in a much broader sense than before. Physically things also changed drastically with telegraph and Internet. Before both of these technologies, people were able to write letters but the mail was unreliable, slow, and news was so outdated that by the time it got to you from a different country literally wars could be over and no one would have any idea. Physical limitations were now something totally overcome. Information could be delivered at an astounding rate, and this of course presented new consequences. These consequences were things like how to keep up with the traffic of the telegraph messages, how to make the telegraph wires able to be submerged into the Atlantic ocean, and there were even things like wars being fought and criminals being caught with the use and help of technology. The Internet has even less physical limitations today. We have different consequences, but as far as physical limitations, you literally cannot even go in your own personal car these days without having Wi-Fi as an optional upgrade.

All of this being said, I think the way all of these things would effect my own teaching practices is that we need to be aware of the consequences of technology. It really can be a can of worms at times. Technology is wonderful but it does create problems that can be unforeseen. This is why you need to think about the consequences before jumping in. Such as, in my library we often use something called Playaways. These are audiobooks the older students in fourth and fifth grades can check out. There is one book title per audiobook and the kids absolutely love using this technology to listen to a book. They are also super helpful for kids who struggle with comprehension, because they can read and listen and that seems to really increase their ability to take in all the details and maximize their comprehension. This all being said, there are consequences for this new technology. Cognitively some of the students only listen with half an ear and are not really using them the same way they would a book. They lose interest faster and are more likely to not read the entire book listening than physically reading it. Socially, there are less Payaways than there are students so they need to be willing to share, which can sometimes be a drawback. As far as our society of students, we have third graders who continually ask me to change my mind and let them get the Playawys like the older kids. And physically, there needed to be space made in the library for these things to be stored so the kids can use them. So, the benefits much outweigh the drawbacks, but you need to have a good design plan for implementation before you use technology in the classroom or library setting.