WWW

Early 90s: Dial-up internet, noisy modems, purring like cats racing to make a connection in an ever-increasing traffic like Manila’s. Learning the protocols on email and chat programs, and browsing the World Wide Web by carefully typing in website addresses or URLs. Any mistake in capitalization or punctuation would result in painful retyping. Until there was cut, copy and paste. Until there was hypertext and you just had to click on the link. Now with AI, the internet knows what you’re thinking, what you need or want, what you desire… and feeds you with it. Buy now, it says. Would you click, consume and digest, or exercise judgment and free will as a rational animal? (Let’s leave this for another blog.)

At Far Eastern University – East Asia Institute of Computer Information Technology (FEU-EACIT), our students were asked to simulate an IT seminar-workshop for the public. They were to do research and try new word/data processors and programs for anti-virus, educational games, animation, auto computing, and design for their respective oral presentations. Albeit with fear and/or excitement, these future IT professionals took on the challenge, hating/loving their teacher in the process, and came out the other side beaming with pride in their accomplishments and stronger friendship. Now they’ve come far and away the best in their chosen fields, and nothing makes a teacher retire with the happiest of hearts. Even without the internet! MLJ/09082025/FUE-EACITSimulation1990s