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did you meet your goals for this course? Why or why not? (and also perhaps, how?)

Outline what my goals where

My goals when I enrolled in this course were to learn more about the history of the internet in a literal sense. As in going from Arpanet to modern times. I wanted to talk about competators to the HTTP standard like Ghopher and different browsers like Mosiac and how they inspired and became more modern ones. For example like how Firefox is a decendent of Netscape. I also wanted to learn more about the silent role women often played in the history of technology. I wanted to do this because as a woman in computer science the history of our treatment and place in the field is important to me. I believe that the way the past occured impacts how the future will turn out and in that way it is essential to know about the history of women in computers and networking to understand our future.

why I didn't meet them

I found that given the course's focus on pre-internet networks and the other impacts that lead to its creation before it was made caused me to focus my studies on those older networks such as telegraphs and telephones. This is a personal failing, in retrospect I would have liked to focus my studies more so on what interested me (the modern internet and sexism in the field of technology) rather than taking notes on topics that don't interest me such as the Clay Tablets Shiv Kumar.

I also focused my work a bit too much on the #connections series in the beginning of the couse because as a computer science major I find completing readings an intimidating task and being able to take notes on relevant documentaries I knew of was much more approachable. However, in retrospect although it gave an interesting perspective and angle to my memex it didn't help get closer to my goals I set out for the course.

How I will/could have improved

I should have done more readings on content from the later end of the course, as it interests me more and I would have been more inspired by it. I should have looked for more internet based documentaries in the beginning as to not overwhelm myself but still maintain the path towards reaching my goals I set.

I was concerned that doing readings about content we had not yet covered in the course would be penalized (this was not entirely clear, although I should have asked for clarification). Because of that I did readings about the earlier content which again didn't advance any of my goals for the course. In future I will try to ask for more clarification from professors about assignment constraints and try to do them more to my satisfaction than to that of my professors'.

I should have done more varied readings instead of doing 3 Connections episodes. I wish I had found other sources that related to the content. Although Connections has an interesting perspective on the course material it covers more about the way things change and the patterns rather than the literal change we where supposed to be learning about.

Although I am glad I did the connections videos because they do add important content that is discussed in the 0_Final_Journey_1 page. I just wish I had perhaps not done all 3 of them as it got repetative by that point.

What I unintentionally learned along the way

Although I didn't reach my goals as a result of focusing on the early content of the course too much, doing so did reveal a new perspective I wasn't expecting to find.

The lecture content and readings I may not have done if not for the course such as As we may think show an interesting path to the modern field of computing. The path below shows how Colonialsm and previous inventions such as the telegraph and Telephone led to the modern invention of computers and thus the internet.

I knew of course that the internet was concieved of and used Telephone infrastructure which in turn did the same with telegraphs. However, the connection was not as clear before as it is now. I now can see how even the patent battles that happened over these technologies had very similar events occur and the colonialised borders these inventions are drawn upon.

This can be seen with this path through my memex starting with a note about Colonialism and ending up with the advent of modern computing.

Path through my memex

From Colonialsm to the Origins of Computers

Conclusion about the course and the internet

Overall, although I did not meet the goals I set out to in this course I instead learned something else of value about history and how different "parts" of history interweave. The episodes of the Connections series I added to my memex cover a similar sort of idea, they explore how different ideas and innovations from various fields mix and murge in unexpected ways in order to create something pivotal to our modern world. This course demonstrated that in effect with the internet, telephones, telegraphs, and colonialism and more! Although we understand intuitively these things are at least partially interlinked its facinating to see the degree to which they do. For example its easy to think about the internet in its modern universal form, however that was not always the case as internets started out within national boundries and then through colonial boundries following the lines created by telephones which followed telegraphs which in turn where on colonial borders. Its facinating to know our "universal" internet was not a guarantee and a more regional version such as that in North Korea and to a lesser degree Russia and China was very much possibly going to become the norm and still could if political actions like the potential banning of TikTok in the USA goes through.

Regardless this course has helped me look upon history with a more broad lens and I hope in future I will be able to see where the lines throughout history blur together to be just as complex and intricate as our own modern lives.