Archive for the ‘Activities & Readings’ Category

Nerds 2.0 Videos

Monday, May 10th, 2021
Video #1Video #2Video #3Video #4
What Did The Internet Look Like Back Then?

When the Internet first came out it was viewed as being revolutionary. Most did not know of its full potential and how it would change the world. Life was much simpler back then.

Click to View Video #1


Self Check Questions

 

Reflective Question 1

This video was released around the year 2000. How many users was it estimated that were online at that time and what was the suggestion of the number of online users in the subsequent five years.

Cringley noted that the estimate of the number of users online at the time was 10 million, up from three million four years prior. He estimated that in 2005 there could be a billion. The numbers would grow exponentially every year.

Incorrect

Reflective Question 2

What was the first killer app for the Web?

Correct
Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

What was meant by the "Web lifestyle" as portrayed in the video?

Everything was accelerated including the workday.. entrepreneurs were working 24/7 seven days a week to get on board this fat moving train .. one people year equated to seven 'dog' years... fast and furious .. hard to do planning when you cannot build a business model.. this era was the dawn of design thinking in business...
definition of design thinking according to IDEO:

Design thinking can help your team or organization:

1-Better understand the unmet needs of the people you’re creating for (customers, clients, students, users, etc...).
2-Reduce the risk associated with launching new ideas, products, and services.
3-Generate solutions that are revolutionary, not just incremental.
4-Learn and iterate faster.

Incorrect

How Did All of This Get Started?

The Web/Internet did not start out as a commercial venture. Just like with subsequent commercial ventures, the Web began as a military development. In this video we look at some of the technical basics behind how the Internet first worked. Your burning questions here are:

  • what thoughtful/design/wicked problem did the military have that needed to be solved?
  • what was it about this government/military venture that allowed the visionaries to commercialize it?

Click to View Video #2


Self Check Questions

 

Reflective Question 1

What historical event took place that stimulated the military to decide it needed to rapidly advance its technology?

I think you know it was Sputnik. What you may not know is that during the 1950s the USA was going through a post WWII euphoria. We had just 'won' the war and folks were back at home restoring their lives back to some sense of normalcy. During these halcyon days our technology was falling behind the Russians. Sputnik woke us up. It was not small coincidence that our president was ex-military. The need to re-establish our technological superiority was a big motivator. The military-industrial complex emerged (supported by the largest universities in the country that became majorly government funded arms of our military).

Incorrect

Reflective Question 2

What was the main driver of the need for packet switching?

There was actually more than one driver: 1- the technology/bandwidth was not sufficient to support the amount of data that needed to be delivered for military purposes and 2- the military needed a back up means to deliver information in case of a disruption .. by splitting it all up... if one node went down it did not prevent all of it from being dropped, as multiple pathways were established and rebuilt at the receiving end

Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

What problems did the military share with the eventual commercial ventures that evolved when the Web became commercialized

Correct
Incorrect

How Did All of This Get Started?

We stated earlier the Web/Internet did not start out as a commercial venture. In this video we answer the questions:

  • what was that magic moment? and
  • What happened once the flood gates came open?

Click to View Video #3


Self Check Questions

 

Reflective Question 1

What is the importance of Rick Boucher's momentous announcement made on the House floor in 1992?

He announced an amendment to a Bill that would permit the commercialization of the ARPANet.

Incorrect

Reflective Question 2

Name two problems/issues that were posed that resulted in the packet switching framework of message delivery for the original version of the ARPANet (i.e., the original Internet)?

1- How to get around the lack of adequate bandwidth for passing messages and data
2- The need to design a system that was secure and would be sustainable if an attack came about so that at least a pert of the messages/data would still be delivered)

Bottom line (in case you missed it)... the idea of packets is to chunk up the messages and distribute each piece using alternative pathways and have the receiver at the other end reconstruct that message

Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

What new invention/creation was developed around that same time that assisted with the democratization of the Net? What was it called?

Mosaic (the precursor of the modern day Mozilla)

Incorrect

Reflective Question 4

What do you suppose happened to Mosaic very quickly (within a year or two) and why do you think this happened?

Mosaic was developed at a university as an open source product (i.e., could be used by others to develop their own product version). That happened at another University and was called Netscape Navigator. This product, too, would be surpassed buy others that came along... Chrome from Google is one of them.. the difference here is that Alphabet built theirs not on open source but using their own patented algorithms. So their design/creative question how could they built it better and protect that asset. In Change Theory this is the Law of Progressive/Successive Generations.

Incorrect

Reflective Question 5

What principle of design thinking do you suppose led to the creation of Mosaic?

First asking the right question(s)... perhaps as simple as asking what is needed to make the Web more useful for / easy to use on the part of the American public? or How do you make more human a sophisticated technology (i.e., put a human face on it)? This is a very simple psychological maxim: in order to draw a person to something or make a person more empathetic towards something it needs to be humanized.. recall in design thinking one of the attributes is 'empathy'

"everyone now was a Webhead" .. not just a nerd

Incorrect

Does Creating a 'Creative Culture' Beget Further Creativity?

In this last video we explore how the whole idea of networking computers came about and how folks utilized Design Thinking to make that all happen


Click to View Video #4

 


Self Check Questions

 

Reflective Question 1

So all along we have been told that ARPA invented the Internet... and in this episode we are now being told that it was Tim Berners Lee (CERN) that invented the World Wide Web (www)... how does that all add up?

ARPA built something for military use on a single, closed-ended system (all the computers were/had to be compatible).. what Berners Lee did was figure out how to make it more ubiquitous and create a system to join incompatible closed-ended systems together.... incompatible computers joined together (utilizing a system of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)) plus other enhancements.

Design Question: How can we take the basics of packet switching and the benefits of the Net and take it to the next level and join closed-ended systems together?

Incorrect

Reflective Question 2

OK.. was the introduction of CERN to the equation just another 'false flag'? Cringley is now saying that it wasn't Berners Lee but Tim Nelson who really invented the world wide Web (Zanandu)? Which one was it?

Well, technically, Nelson didn't 'invent' anything .. he created a design for it .. the seed/kernel .. bringing us to the next

Design Question: is a 'solution' is not a real solution unless it can be (and is tested)? ... the real teachable moment here is that if you come up with an idea or solution it really is not one unless you test it to see if it actually works... modeling is not building... that is why in this degree program then end is for you to go out and build the solution you come up with and even possibly take it to your dissertation and validate it. The goal is not to simply brainstorm and cogitate but to actually take action on something.. this is the major difference between a Ph.D. and an Ed.D. (just in case you are still wondering).

Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

Last question in this series .. what design question formed the basis for the development of Novell?

Design Question: How can I take the basic idea of networking computers that are remotely located all over the world and utilize those same principles to network local computers? It was not that obvious... back then the idea of actually asking that question had never come up.. PCs were thought of as not necessary to be networked... what drove the need (among other things) was 1- the need to chare information and 2- the need to back up the data on all computers without having to go to each one and do it locally.

Later on customer service entities needed the ability to be ably to drop in to others for support and training.. that came about a long time later and in the early days was considered to be (for many of the close ended computers) an impossibility or to highly expense... amazing how far we have come simply by one person or group asking the right questions to build on what is previously known about something (and discovering how to actually build that solution).

Incorrect

Nerds Video 2.0 #4

Tuesday, April 6th, 2021
Does Creating a ‘Creative Culture’ Beget Further Creativity?

In this last video we explore how the whole idea of networking computers came about and how folks utilized design Thinking to make that all happen


Click to View Video #4


Self Check Questions

Reflective Question 1

So all along we have been told that ARPA invented the Internet... and in this episode we are now being told that it was Tim Berners Lee (CERN) that invented the World Wide Web (www)... how does that all add up?

ARPA built something for military use on a single, closed-ended system (all the computers were/had to be compatible).. what Berners Lee did was figure out how to make it more ubiquitous and create a system to join incompatible closed-ended systems together.... incompatible computers joined together (utilizing a system of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)) plus other enhancements.

Design Question: How can we take the basics of packet switching and the benefits of the Net and take it to the next level and join closed-ended systems together?

Incorrect

Reflective Question 2

OK.. was the introduction of CERN to the equation just another 'false flag'? Cringley is now saying that it wasn't Berners Lee but Tim Nelson who really invented the world wide Web (Zanandu)? Which one was it?

Well, technically, Nelson didn't 'invent' anything .. he created a design for it .. the seed/kernel .. bringing us to the next

Design Question: is a 'solution' is not a real solution unless it can be (and is tested)? ... the real teachable moment here is that if you come up with an idea or solution it really is not one unless you test it to see if it actually works... modeling is not building... that is why in this degree program then end is for you to go out and build the solution you come up with and even possibly take it to your dissertation and validate it. The goal is not to simply brainstorm and cogitate but to actually take action on something.. this is the major difference between a Ph.D. and an Ed.D. (just in case you are still wondering).

Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

Last question in this series .. what design question formed the basis for the development of Novell?

Design Question: How can I take the basic idea of networking computers that are remotely located all over the world and utilize those same principles to network local computers? It was not that obvious... back then the idea of actually asking that question had never come up.. PCs were thought of as not necessary to be networked... what drove the need (among other things) was 1- the need to chare information and 2- the need to back up the data on all computers without having to go to each one and do it locally.

Later on customer service entities needed the ability to be ably to drop in to others for support and training.. that came about a long time later and in the early days was considered to be (for many of the close ended computers) an impossibility or to highly expense... amazing how far we have come simply by one person or group asking the right questions to build on what is previously known about something (and discovering how to actually build that solution).

Incorrect

Nerds 2.0 Video #3

Wednesday, March 24th, 2021
How Did All of This Get Started?

TAs stated earlier the Web/Internet did not start out as a commercial venture. Just like with subsequent commercial ventures, the Web began as a military development. In this video we look at some of the technical basics behind how the Internet first worked. Your burning questions here are 1- what wicked problem did the military have that needed to be solved? 2- what was it at how the commercialization came about and how entrepreneurs utilized design thinking to grow a whole new industry. ?

Click to View Video #3


Self Check Questions

Reflective Question 1

What is the importance of Rick Boucher's momentous announcement made on the House floor in 1992?

He announced an amendment to a Bill that would permit the commercialization of the ARPANet.

Incorrect

Reflective Question 2

Do you think the folks from ARPA had this result/goal in mind when they created the Net?

Correct
Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

What new invention/creation was developed around that same time that assisted with the democratization of the Net? What was it called?

Mosaic (the precursor of the modern day Mozilla)

Incorrect

Reflective Question 4

What do you suppose happened to Mosaic very quickly (within a year or two) and why do you think this happened?

Mosaic was developed at a university as an open source product (i.e., could be used by others to develop their own product version). That happened at another University and was called Netscape Navigator. This product, too, would be surpassed buy others that came along... Chrome from Google is one of them.. the difference here is that Alphabet built theirs not on open source but using their own patented algorithms. So their design/creative question how could they built it better and protect that asset. In Change Theory this is the Law of Progressive/Successive Generations.

Incorrect

Reflective Question 5

What principle of design thinking do you suppose led to the creation of Mosaic?

First asking the right question(s)... perhaps as simple as asking what is needed to make the Web more useful for / easy to use on the part of the American public? or How do you make more human a sophisticated technology (i.e., put a human face on it)? This is a very simple psychological maxim: in order to draw a person to something or make a person more empathetic towards something it needs to be humanized.. recall in design thinking one of the attributes is 'empathy'

"everyone now was a Webhead" .. not just a nerd

Incorrect

Nerds 2.0 Video #2

Wednesday, March 24th, 2021
How Did All of This Get Started?

The Web/Internet did not start out as a commercial venture. Just like with subsequent commercial ventures, the Web began as a military development. In this video we look at some of the technical basics behind how the Internet first worked. Your burning questions here are 1- what wicked problem did the military have that needed to be solved? 2- what was it about this government/military venture that allowed the visionaries to commercialize it?

Click to View Video #2


Self Check Questions

Reflective Question 2

What historical event took place that stimulated the military to decide it needed to rapidly advance its technology?

I think you know it was Sputnik. What you may not know is that during the 1950s the USA was going through a post WWII euphoria. We had just 'won' the war and folks were back at home restoring their lives back to some sense of normalcy. During these halcyon days our technology was falling behind the Russians. Sputnik woke us up. It was not small coincidence that our president was ex-military. The need to re-establish our technological superiority was a big motivator. The military-industrial complex emerged (supported by the largest universities in the country that became majorly government funded arms of our military).

Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

What was the main driver of the need for packet switching?

There was actually more than one driver: 1- the technology/bandwidth was not sufficient to support the amount of data that needed to be delivered for military purposes and 2- the military needed a back up means to deliver information in case of a disruption .. by splitting it all up... if one node went down it did not prevent all of it from being dropped, as multiple pathways were established and rebuilt at the receiving end

Incorrect

Reflective Question 3

What problems did the military share with the eventual commercial ventures that evolved when the Web became commercialized

Correct
Incorrect