Tim Berners Lee wove World Wide Web creating mass medium for 21st Century

Tim Berners Lee 'invented' the World Wide Web 23 years ago on March 13, but chances are you have never heard of him. Two years ago, I wrote a piece about him for my blog and decided to update it a bit.

In 1999, Time magazine named Berners Lee as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, saying, "He wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century. The World Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He designed it. He loosed it on the world. And he more than anyone else has fought to keep it open, nonproprietary and free."

In my earlier article I noted that Berners Lee had commented on the forward slash in URLS being unnecessary. I was delighted to see on Wikepedia that he confirmed it years later after I heard him speak at the University of Toronto. In a Times article in October 2009, Berners-Lee admitted that the forward slashes ("//") in a web address were actually "unnecessary". He told the newspaper that he could easily have designed URLs not to have the forward slashes. "There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said in his lighthearted apology`.


Most recently in November 2009, Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web Foundation in order to "Advance the Web to empower humanity by launching transformative programs that build local capacity to leverage the Web as a medium for positive change."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee



HERE IS MY ARTICLE POSTED ON MARCH 13, 2009.

The 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web didn't get much media attention today. In fact I just noticed a short article on MSN marking the occasion, and its inventor Tim Berners-Lee is not well known outside academia.

But Berners-Lee may be the single most important person since Guttenberg in changing the way we communicate. I was so privileged to spend an afternoon listening to him in 1996 while attending a conference "The Internet Beyond the Year 2000" at the University of Toronto. To be honest, even though I had developed one of the first graduate programs in New Media Communications in Canada at College of the Rockies, I had no idea who Tim Berners-Lee was before that afternoon.

Perhaps most striking about him was his great modesty Here was one of the great thinkers and scientists of our time, and he had no need to be 'the sage on the stage.' After giving his talk, Berners-Lee sat on the edge of the stage to take questions.

The first question was from Dr Somebody from Some University, who started with "Dr Berners-Lee.." and before he got any further, he was cut off by Berners-Lee who said, "Tim will do." The professor didn't get it and again said, "Dr Berners-Lee.." only to be cut off with "Tim" and a shake of his head. The room broke up.

He was asked many questions but one that stuck in my mind was, "What would you do differently now." Berners-Lee replied after a moment, "I realized I didn't need the forward slash." Again the room broke up.

He was also asked about the process involved in inventing the web and how long it took. He said that he had been "thinking" about it for a long time and then one day simply decided to get it done.

Perhaps the single most impressive moment I saw of Berners-Lee was at a showcase of technology and industry. Students from Confederation High School in Nepean had created a web page, and Berners-Lee, hands behind his back, went up to them and asked some questions. At no time did he identify himself as the inventor of the web.

After he left I went over and asked the students if they knew who their visitor was. They didn't and when I told them, like students everywhere, they were afraid they had made mistakes. I assured them Berners-Lee was likely delighted to see their work.

For those who don't know exactly what he did, Berners Lee wrote the first Web clients and server and defined the URL, HTTP, and HTML specifications on which the Web depends. He was then working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory.

Knighted in 2003, Sir Tim Berners Lee is now the director of the W3 Consortium and is a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To have been able to spend time listening to him has to count as one of the most truly memorable moments of my entire teaching career.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

Storytelling as the dominant sound of our lives

MJM as newspaper reporter 1960s

I am one of those most blessed people who have never really worked one day because I have been able to spend it living, in the words of Reynolds Price, the American writer, with the sound of story as the dominant sound in my life.

Since I was a child growing up in the small community of Chapleau in northern Ontario, story has been central to me whether I was playing in the living room or creating my own plays for the Junior Red Cross Society performances in Grade at Chapleau Public School.

Thanks to my mother, Muriel E (Hunt) Morris, who instilled a love of reading in me before I could hardly walk, and gave me the freedom to explore all the great children's literature of my time, story has been the place where I have lived.

Little did I realize that my experience as the Chapleau High School reporter (with Joy Evans) for the long gone Mid North News, and a television program on CHAP TV in 1958 (with Phyllis Chrusoskie,and others) would lead to a lifetime spent telling stories and talking about the stories of others in classrooms in Ontario and British Columbia. And people even hired me to write stories about people and events in daily newspapers, for television, in magazines and the internet and books.

I worked as a reporter and/or editor at several daily newspapers including the Star-Phoenix (Saskatoon), Kingston Whig-Standard, Timmins Daily Press, Chatham Daily News, Brampton Times and was northern Ontario correspondent for the Toronto Star.

And yes, as any of my students will tell you, I loved to tell stories. Not all were necessarily appreciated of course and I was once criticized in student evaluations when I was at College of the Rockies for talking too much about my beloved cat Buckwheat. A student wrote that he/she got nothing from my course because "All he ever did was tell stories about his cat Buckwheat." Yes, for sure at times I got carried away on my favourite topics, like hockey when I was in Chapleau.

When I mentioned to one of my former students in a talk on Facebook that I was also into Chapleau politics, she replied, "Yes, I know, but really you did hockey." And yes, to any of my students who may read this, I know that Monday was hockey story day if we won, and no comment when we lost!

MJM 2016 a Michael Pelzer Photo

Today I am learning to listen to the voices of so many former students who are taking time to share part of their stories with me on Facebook, and telling stories about me too. Thank you so much.

I agree with Reynolds Price, the writer, that to "tell and hear stories is essential" -- and he argues it comes second after nourishment and before love and shelter. "Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths."

In my life for sure, in the brightest and darkest moments, the sound of story is the dominant sound. Think about it. For example today there is nothing I enjoy better than hearing from my great friend Mike, who shares stories from his life with me and makes my day.



Leave comment or email me at mj.morris@live.ca

ON STAYING CONNECTED!

Me pontificating at COTR

UPDATED MARCH 2013
Almost 20 years  ago now Howard Rheingold, one of the pioneers of virtual communities, said that " a tremendous power shift is underway ... this power shift is about people and our ability to connect with each other in new ways... " Speaking at the first Writers' Retreat on Interactive Technology and Equipment conference sponsored by the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Rheingold noted in 1994 that he was struck by the "citizen-to citizen movement now known as virtual community" popping up everywhere he travelled.

I was at the conference preparing to teach my first Writing for New Media course at College of the Rockies where I was also working on a grad program in New Media Communications launched a year later. Very few people at the time agreed with Rheingold and other internet pioneers who believed as I did that we were embarking on the biggest societal change in communications since the days of Gutenberg and his printing press.

I spoke on the topic of how the Internet could defeat politicians, or help them win,  at an annual conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists in 1995,  and argued, that in due course, it would be a major contributing factor. Interestingly, the old guard in the room vehemently disagreed with me, while campus journalists supported my position.

The old guard, and me, had never heard of Barack Obama in 1995.

Fast forward to now! You don't hear much about virtual communities now, as all the talk is about social networking sites, one of the fastest growing and popular uses of the internet. The power shift has occurred despite the naysayers then and now, because of our need to connect, one with the other, especially because we now live in the world of many-to-many medium as Rheingold also predicted.

Take the popularity of Facebook for example. I joined  at the suggestion of some of my former students, and I extend great thanks to them. I have been able to reconnect with so many people with whom I had lost touch for many years, and catch up on thouple of examples.

By 1998 at least five of my students were involved in online romances, and if meir lives. Facebook is also an example of the success of new media with its convergence of all media to digital forms.

At any given time on Facebook, "friends" are using text, still photos, videos and all kind of cool things to communicate with one another and a broader audience if they wish. One-to-one and many-to-many!!!

However, the communications potential of Facebook and Twitter is not being maximized as far too often it is simply a one-way street. For example, journalists use Twitter primarily in my view to retweet among themselves as part of some mutual admiration society.

While teaching new media at COTR I made many fearless predictions about where we were headed. At times I really didn't have a clue but knew something big was happening. Let me share a cemory serves me right, three had gone off to meet their new loved one. They met in chat rooms.

In my office at COTR

One day in the lab, one student who was deeply involved in chat rooms was pounding away on her computer, when suddenly in a burst of anger rushed from the room, went outside and lit a cigarette. I went out to see what had happened. It turns out that the virtual friend turned out to be a he instead of a she, or vice versa, I just forget, but the emotions were every bit as real as in any budding romance.

Finally, in the COTR library where students had access to computers, they were banned by the powers-that-be from accessing chat rooms, which in those days was the main reason the students wanted to use the computers. To me it was a sure sign that big changes could not be far off. The kids were way ahead in social networking, while the established order wanted to ban them from the practice. Now kids are "tweeting" and "facebooking" -- at least for the moment.

Me in 2011 in Orlando, FL

When I think of it though, my generation liked to pass notes around the classroom to our friends, which of course was forbidden. Now they stay in touch by texting each other on cel phones, and using Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. Plus ca change. Plus c`est la meme chose.

I would love to hear your comments on social networking and its place in your life, and how you enjoy staying connected with others.