by Gary Gach
SAN FRANCISCO -- A trade show is, in and of itself, a sure sign that an industry has come of age. In the 15th century, for example, as printing spread in the West and capitalists backed the printing of books, book fairs arose in Lyons, Frankfurt, and other major cities of medieval Europe. Flash-forward to cinema: what is a film festival but trade show for movies?
It's the same with computers, today. Only two decades ago, when the first computer trade show was held in San Francisco, the Internet was unveiled, linking four (read 'em, four) sites -- as well as prototypes for hypertext, graphical user interface, and the mouse. In November, Las Vegas will see the annual, ritual climax of all computer shows since, in the ultraweird hyperwired cyber-apocalypse known in the trade as Comdex. (Techies tremble at the very word.)
But amid all the bright lights and ballyhoo of new products, bells, and whistles, there are the occasional gatherings where the industry moves forward by the free exchange of sheer ideas. The focus here is neither hard nor soft wares but their implications and applications.
The current application driving the use of the Internet is an internal communication system, also known as "groupware," and "intranet." The next big application will be education and training.
One such an application-driven event is the new WebNet, a multi-disciplinary forum featuring the presentation of papers, garnished with keynote speakers, tutorials, and panels. At its October 15-19 premiere, over 500 attendees from many disciplines and countries explored applications of the Web in business, publishing, and -- most widely represented -- education.
"Distance learning" was a frequently heard phrase in this heterogeneous society. Say you teach Urdu and have only five students per semester; chances are your university is going to have a hard time justifying your salary. But now you can sign up an additional five or 10 to take your course, for credit, online.
Taking a step back, one of the next questions will be what to do once there are thousands of modular course packages online, but students (or employees) who have hundreds of differing knowledge-bases and skill-sets. Then, rather than dispense prefabricated curriculum chunks, you can mix-and-match, like Lego toys, dynamically generating training and education materials based on the profile that is input by each user "on the fly."
Other terms commonly heard were "empowerment of the student," "self-paced learning," and "peer learning." It doesn't take very long before the telecommunications as a new teaching medium becomes rephrased: it changes how we will teach, and how we will learn.
Besides very specialized speeches ranging from sharing a Website for a class in dream study to one on the role of gender online, there were some strong generalists. (As Howard Gossage, grandfather of generalism, once said, "We don't know who it was discovered water, but we're pretty sure it wasn't a fish.") Gerald "Chip" Maguire, for example, delivered a brilliant keynote speech, "Glimpses of the Future of Computer Networks." Assume all communication will be digital -- the way computers work -- he says.
Now imagine all communication devices as being mobile, and on the Net, for work, for learning, and for home. So, for example, you're in your car on the freeway and you want to know the traffic pattern in the cloverleaf ahead: there's a panel in your car that can show you the exact picture, car-by-car, via the Net.
Maguire went on to demonstrate "heads-up" devices worn like glasses. Animal rights activists might want to leave the room when I report that scientists are experimenting with connecting Net-centric fibers to the eyes of living cats.
Is the future of mobile computing to be implantable walkstations? Well, it's just one of many, many avenues explored by the likes of WebNet, a crossroads of the future.
WebNet is well-grounded in educational applications, partly owing to having allied with the prestigious Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) <http://www.aace.org>. Besides publishing seven scholarly journals, AACE is responsible for over a dozen conferences and seminars per year. And WebNet's board includes key representatives from France, Switzerland (home of the WorldWide Web), Minnesota (home of gopher) and Austria (home of Hyper-G, the next-generation Internet).
Next year's WebNet is already scheduled for Toronto, with Hawaii being scouted out as the venue for '98. Look to WebNet and their kith and kin to see why the "information" revolution is also about knowledge -- knowledge, they say, is power.
- WebNet: <http://www.aace.org/conf/webnet>;
- Gerald Maguire's "Glimpses of the Future of Computer Networks": <http://www.it.lith.se/~maguire>;
- Computer conference calendar: <http://conference.calendar.com>