Last week I asked my Global Media Literacy students what television was. And the discussion was so much fun, I thought I would try it again this week.
So what is the Internet? In some ways, I think my students had a much better handle on what is the Internet than on what is television.
The first response to the question was “search engine,” and by “search engine” my student meant Google. I asked them if they ever used any other search engine, like Microsoft’s Bing. And another student spoke up proclaiming, “I hate it when a page tries to make you use Bing!”
I can think of worse definitions of the Internet than things that Google does.
I also got several responses that dealt with it being:
- a network
- not a physical thing
- can’t touch it
- a series of data sequences
But perhaps the most perceptive response was: Without it my computer’s useless!