In essence, the Internet is a system of cabling and routers which lets computers talk to each other, share files and exchange information. To truly understand how to best use the Internet as a tool for life-long learning, it is important to understand its history.
In the 1960's, the United States Department of Defense appointed the Advanced Research Project Agency ("ARPA") to create an internal communications system which would survive a nuclear holocaust. The system was required to meet four objectives:
- The system had to make use of existing technology, such as contemporary modems and communications software
- The system had to be decentralized, to limit its vulnerability to attack
- The costs of the system were to be distributed among the various users
- The system had to have the potential for unlimited growth
The resulting network, called the ARPANET, created a method of communication called "dynamic re-routing" which allowed defense computers located all over the United States to communicate with each other electronically. Essentially, an electronic message was divided into packets and each packet was sent to its destination through an ordinary modem and over conventional communications lines. If a packet could not reach its destination because the line was down, it was simply re-routed over other lines until it reached its destination. The packets would then be reconstructed by the computer on the other end where the message would be read.
Throughout the 1970's, universities with defense contracts joined ARPANET, to better communicate with the government departments to which they reported. Once they had access to the Net, academics began to use the system extensively for research and communications with other academics. Non-military use of the network continued to grow; and in 1984, ARPA relinquished responsibility for the network to the National Science Foundation (NSF) whose new mandate was to encourage the development of a national, and then international, network of universities and research institutions. By 1988, the NSFNET had grown from several hundred systems to 100,000. The network reached well beyond the borders of the United States to Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia.
Given the NSF mandate, the NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy prohibited commercial use of the network. By 1992, however, interest in exploring the commercial possibilities of the Net grew, and the NSF began to divest itself of responsibility for the network. At the same time, the network, now known as the Internet, continued to grow at an exponential rate. The introduction of the World Wide Web made the Net much more accessible to a broader range of people. The World Wide Web allows people to browse through pages of information posted on any computer on the Internet in an easy-to-read graphical environment. Moreover, Web pages are hypertext linked; in other words. you can jump from page to page or computer to computer by simply clicking on text or a graphical button.
By 1994, commercial service-providers began to sell access to the network to the public at large and FreeNets appeared in urban centres to provide access free of charge. Persons with accounts on an Internet Service Provider (''ISP") or a FreeNet can now simply dial into the Net from home, using an ordinary personal computer and modem. Today, it is estimated that 100 million users in over 130 countries are connected to the Internet.
The roots of the Internet have left a strong mark. Users are accustomed to free speech and the free exchange of information and ideas. Because each packet sent over the Internet has a return address attached, there is no real anonymity among users. However, users can easily misrepresent who or what they are. In addition, it is easy for children to link to a site with information which may be offensive or inappropriate. Therefore, it is important to provide children using the Internet with the appropriate tools to ensure that their cyber-journeys are safe and productive.
