Collection
Five Takes on the History of the Internet
The Internet is our writing space par excellence, whether we access it via our smartphones, through a Web browser,or using an email application. Having a sense of how this space was imagined, designed, and crafted, and how it has evolved and continues to evolve helps situate us in its larger cultural, social, and technological context of the Internet—not just in this particular digital moment.
There is no “One Grand History” of the Internet, but, rather, multiple histories of the Internet exist, and sometimes these histories compete or are at odds with one another. Embracing the complexity of this history and understanding how we’ve quickly moved from stand-alone computers the size of a house to networked devices with a thousand times more capacity that fit in our pocket is crucial for us as educators, and it is rich knowledge to share with students.
