The Internet is truly an amazing repository of information. In a previous post I mentioned Vannevar Bush's "memex" device, and it is clear that the Internet, specifically with its World Wide Web interface fills that role in grand fashion, well beyond his most optimistic imaginings, I'm sure. Today's reminder of the power, reach, and memory of the Internet comes from an email out of the blue to my official Rasmussen address.
Many years ago, perhaps six or seven, I worked at Valencia Community College here in Orlando as their Director of Internet and Instructional Technologies. While I was there, I created a "Rubric for Assessing Participation in Online Discussion Forums" based on the college's core competencies of Think, Value, Communicate, and Act. Fast forward to the present. A professor at a college in Pennsylvania looking for a rubric for students engaged in the online portion of their class came across the one I had authored. By simply searching the web, this professor was able to locate me to ask permission to use the rubric--and I of course gave it. (By the way, if anyone else sees the rubric and wishes to use it, you have my permission. I only ask that I am credited with authorship and that you let me know if it proves useful to you.)
There are several interesting aspects to this episode, but one of the most interesting ideas to me is the fact that so much of what we create electronically now ends up as part of such a thorough system of record keeping, in the form of the Internet. Just a handful of years ago, not many people would have been able to predict the far ranging consequences of the Internet in the area of "obscure record keeping." Looking into the future, we see some tremendous opportunity for data mining search engines. But even now, it's fun to see what "the world" knows about us. Go ahead: Google yourself and find out.
- Hap Aziz