The Impact of the Internet on My Educational Career

The Internet has shaped our lives and society as a whole.  The concept, which originally began as an exchange of information for the furthering of education and defense development, has come to full vision where today I work from home, attend school, teach classes and shop for my family via the Internet. My geek hero is Claude Shannon, a man who worked for Ma Bell and created the interlacing topography for phone analogue computer communications.

My college educational pursuits began while I was still in high school in 1984, so I have truly seen and been affected by the immense growth of the Internet as both student and teacher having lived without the Internet and now having a career based upon the Internet.  My relationship with the Internet hasn't always been free from controversy, but overall, I am truly grateful for its existence.

My first interaction with the Internet was 1993. It was a slow dial-up modem connection with "online" text only type exchanges used to buy/sell.  The college I went to at the time did not have the technology that I had in my home as they did not have the personnel or connection hardware available. Websites were text based articles contained in rudimentary directories.

In 1995, just two years later and at a university, I had my real first taste of the Internet for educational use and an entire world was opened. Only the computers in the universities library and few computer labs had Internet connectivity and it wasn't even all of those.  In the library, out of 25 student computers, only five had dial-up modem capabilities. Even with such limitations, students were not discouraged.  Immediately, I could access the facts I needed from other university or government websites. No longer was I limited to relying on data months or even years old from printed materials, searching through card catalogs and carrying stacks of books.

The Internet and I did hit a rocky patch that year.  While researching a paper and harmlessly looking for facts on Unfunded Mandates pushed by the Federal government to State-level government, I visited a Department of Agriculture site and searched their directory for relevant materials. A few clicks further and I was in another part of the Federal governments site I was not supposed to be able to access and my attempt to get out resulted in university security appearing from nowhere. We had this great tool, but the drawback of securing that tool made it a risk.

In 1995, I could not see the vast growth and future of the Internet.  Two short years later, working at a software company, I could see the fruition of what we have today.  The Internet has impacted every aspect of my life:

• School - The Internet allows me to be able to attend classes, submit projects, do research and have any type of resource I need at my fingertips, take proctored exams, and have meetings with teachers and mentors from anywhere there is connectivity from almost any kind of electronic communication device such as phone, laptop, desktop, or tablet.
• Work - My office is four states away and now, through the Internet, I have a greater attendance rate, never miss a meeting, am immediately available to remote a machine, and have higher productivity than I did when I was working from an office.
• Communication - My oldest child lives in Germany and my youngest child is in diapers.  The Internet allows them to still know each other, talk and see each other, making live visits less traumatic.
• Teaching - I teach a couple of classes a year at a local community college.  The Internet allows my students to have almost anytime access to me through social media, instant messaging, and email.
• Basic Living - I live in a community that is remote and small yet I furnished my home, clothed my children, have access to every brand, size, and color no matter what the item thanks to the Internet. 

I will close with showing the greatest impact the Internet has made in my life.  In May 2010, I drove to my office at 7:45am and it was sunny and very bright outside.  Within an hour, we were under tornado watch and the skies had turned very dark.  Another 30 minutes, there was golf ball sized hail, winds of 60mph, and it was pitch black outside.  They moved me from my office to a central location in the building and with my laptop, continued to work until we lost electricity.  When the electricity returned, our servers did not come up and we had no inside/outside network connectivity.  I was "caught" by the Vice President playing solitaire and she was not impressed.  She told me to do my job as it would have been done before the Internet.  As respectful as possible, I stated, "Before the Internet, my job did not exist."