STS - INFORMATION AGE Enigma

THE GUTENBERG PRESS o An enciphering

machine that the

o Invented by Johannes German armed

Gutenberg around 1440. forces used to

o Device that applies securely send

pressure to an inked messages.

surface lying on a print o Alan Turing, an English mathematician, was

medium, such as cloth hired in 1936 by the British top-secret

or paper, to transfer Government Code and Cipher School at

ink. Bletchley Park to break the

o Johannes Gutenberg's moveable type press

marked the beginning of the Printing Bombe
Revolution in the western world, a colossal
moment in the history of information and o An electromechanical
learning. With access to printing presses, machine that enabled
scientists, philosophers, politicians, and the British to decipher
religious officials could replicate their the messages
ideas quickly and make them available to of the German Enigma machine.
large audiences.
Turing Machine
Human Computers
People who compiled actuarial tables and did o First published by
engineering calculations served as “Computers.” Alan Turing in his
paper, On
HARVARD MARK 1 Computable
Numbers, with an
- Designed in 1937 by Application
Harvard student, to the Entscheidungsproblem.
Howard H. Aiken. o A theoretical machine that can solve any
problem from simple instructions encoded
- Created by the on a paper tape
United States to addressed the serious shortage
of human computers for military calculations.

- A general purpose electromechanical computer

that was 50 feet long and capable of doing
calculations in seconds
1970’s 1973 – ONWARD
Social media platforms were introduced.
o The generation who witnessed the dawn of
the computer age, was described as the Instant messaging applications
generation with “electronic brains.” • AOL
o The people of this generation were the • Yahoo Messenger
first to be introduced to personal • Windows messenger
computers (PCs) • MSN messenger

Homebrew Computer Club Game-based social networking sites

• Facebook
o An early computer hobbyist group • Friendster
- They gathered regularly to trade parts of • Myspace
computer hardware and talked about how to
make computers more accessible to Business-oriented social networking websites
everyone. • Linked in
o Members of the club ended up being high- • Xing
profile entrepreneurs, including the • Indeed
founders of Apple Inc.
Messaging, video and voice calling services
Steve Wozniak • Skype
• Viber
o Co-founder of Apple Inc.
o Developed the computer that made him Blogging platform, image and video hosting
famous: the Apple I websites
o Designed the operating system, hardware, • Flickr
and circuit board of the computer all by
himself. Discovery and dating-oriented websites
• Tinder
Steve Jobs • Tagged

o Wozniak’s friend Video sharing services

o Suggested to sell the Apple I as a • YouTube
fully assembled printed circuit
board. This jumpstarted the career Reel time social media feed aggregator
of Wozniak and Jobs as founders of • Friend feed
Apple Inc.

Apple I, also called Apple-1 or Apple Computer 1

Live streaming
• Justin.tv
• Twitch.tv

Photo-video sharing websites

• Pinterest
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• Keek
• Vine

Question and Answer platform

• Chegg
• Quora
STS - GUIDELINES TO CHECK THE 2. Who published the site?

RELIABILITY OF WEB SOURCES

How to find out?

1.Who is the author of the article/site?

 Look at the domain name of the website
How to find out?
that will tell you who is hosting the site.
Example 1: The Lee College website is
Look for the “About” or “More About the Author”
http://www.lee.edu/library
link at the top, bottom, or sidebar of the webpage.

The domain name is “lee.edu.” This tells

 Does the author provide his or her
you that the library website is hosted by
credentials?
Lee College.
 What type of expertise does he or she
have on the subject he or she is writing
 Search the domain name at
about? Does he or she indicate what his or
http://www.whois.sc/
her education is?
 What type of experience does he or she
The site provides information about the
have? Should you trust his or her
owners of registered domain names.
knowledge of the subject?

o What is the organization’s main

Try searching on the internet for information
purpose?
about the author.
o Is it educational?
o Commercial?
 What kind of websites are associated with
o Is it a reputable organization?
the author’s name? Is he or she affiliated
with any educational institution?
 Do commercial sites come up? Do the  Do not ignore the suffix on the domain
websites associated with the author give name (the three-letter part that comes
you any clues to particular biases the after the “.”).
author might have?
The suffix is usually (but not always)
descriptive of what type of entity hosts
the website.
Here are examples: o What type of sites link to the website you
are evaluating? Is the website being cited
.edu = educational by others?
.com = commercial
.mil = military Examples of Useful and Reliable Web Sources
.gov = government
.org = nonprofit  AFA e-Newsletter (Alzheimer’s Foundation
of America Newsletter)
3. What is the main purpose of the site? Why  American Memory
did the author write it and why did the  Bartleby.com Great Books Online
publisher post it?  Chronicling America
 Cyber Bullying
o To sell a product?  Drug information websites:
o As a personal hubby? - National Library of
o As public service Medicine’s Medline Plus
o To further scholarship on a topic? - Drugs.com
o To provide general information on a - PDRhealth
topic?
o To persuade you of a particular
 Global Gateway: World Culture & Resources
point of view?
 Google Books
 Googlescholar.com
4. Who is the intended audience?
 History sites with primary documents:
- AMDOCS: Documents for the
o Scholars or the general public?
study of American history
o Which age group is it written for?
- Avalon Project: Documents in Law,
o Is it aimed at people from particular
History and Diplomacy
geographic area?
- Internet Modern History
o Is it aimed at members of a particular
Sourcebook: Colonial Latin America
profession or with specific training. - Teacher Oz’s Kingdom of History
 Illinois Digital Archives
5. What is the quality of information provided  Internet Archive
on the website?  Internet Public Library
 ipl2
o Timeliness – when was the website first  Librarian’s Internet Index
published?  Making of America
o Does the author site their sources?  Maps
o What type of other sites does the website  NationMaster
link to? Are they reputable sites?
 Nursing sites
- AHRQ (www.ahrq.gov)
- National Guidelines Clearinghouse
(www.guideline.gov)
- PubMed (www.nlm.nih.gov)
 Project Gutenberg
 Shmoop
 Statemaster
 Virtual Reference