Leonard to the Internet by Thomas J. Misa (2004) is a very enlightening book that discussed how inventions have progressed throughout the years. It was interesting to see how cultural wants and needs have played such a large part in the evolution of technology. You can truly see how both society changes technology but also technology changes society.
I enjoyed seeing how each group was able to summarize their chapter in either a youtube video or voice thread. It was a new spin on presentations that I have never experienced before. The book goes into great detail, listening to each group’s presentation brought more information in a shorter amount of time. It was very entertaining and also allowed us to take what we have learned in class and put it into practice. The more familiar I feel with a certain program, the more likely I’m going to continue to use it and therefore it was to my advantage to have an opportunity to practice the different techniques we have learned. It was fairly easy to work in a group on this project. Having learned Google Docs, we were able to keep each other up to date and add suggestions along the way. It was a luxury to be able to work from home and meet only once in person to add our final touches. There are projects I work on in my job that takes longer to complete with a team despite are all in the same office. We use the typical email system and since learning Google Docs, I have suggested numerous times to switch and hope to have everyone in the office using it soon.
There were numerous topics in Misa’s book that I found were things I had never known before or never spent the time to think about. First, in Chapter 1 the group spoke about Leonardo Da Vinci as a military engineer. I had never known that Leonardo developed his masterpieces between military contracts. Even at that time, the demands of the culture outweighed the creativity of an inventor. Secondly, the cultural shift that Johann Gutenberg’s printing press caused in the spread of knowledge and access to knowledge can only make me think of how the internet has and will continue to change our current world’s knowledge base and their access to information. Answers to today’s questions are only a few finger types away. How will our children or our children’s children search for answers to their everyday questions? Lastly, the demand of society and how it has shaped what was invented at that time. Many groups spoke about how there were great inventors at that time but it was the contracts or patents that were made that needed to be fulfilled or limited what an inventor could do which led to less time to be able to invent from their own imagination. It makes me wonder what could have been invented if they had more time to devote to their own projects and had open accessibility to the knowledge at that time. Many of the inventions were motivated by the needs of society. If inventors were able to invent from their own imagination, would society have been changed by their inventions.
This is still the same for today. If society is in need of a new product, big companies like Apple, General Motors, General Electric, etc. strive to meet those needs and work to up-the-ante. Misa encourages us to think more deeply about the technologies that come before us. In chapter 10, Misa tells us “technologies can be a powerful means for making the world a better place” (p. 319). He encourages us all to take into greater consideration the effects we can make on technology and how we can also help shape the future because of that. I have to agree that as technological advances are made, we learn from the past. If we can keep in mind why the advancements are being made, we will continue to work towards a better future.
