Let me try to explain what you will find in the following pages. As a Princeton student, I am required to write a Senior Thesis in order to graduate. I am studying towards a degree in computer science and a certificate in cognitive studies, so my thesis needed to pertain to both of these areas. One of my interests is education and how people learn. So, last spring for my Junior Paper, I learned how to write applications for a Macintosh computer with the motivation that for my Senior Thesis, I was going to produce a piece of educational software. Last summer, I surveyed school children and teachers to determine what subject area I should use to create such a program.
When I arrived at school in September, one of my advisors asked if I had considered making a video for my thesis. I left his office and thought about the idea for a while and realized that in a year, working by myself, I could not create a piece of software like large companies with several employees on a project could produce. So, I thought that by using the life-like imaging of video, the visual appearance of my educational material would be of a higher quality than if I designed some simple Macintosh graphics.
I quickly set to work learning about lighting and interviewing methods. I learned how to use both a video camera and a video toaster. After doing research so I could narrow my topic from the history of technology to the history of information technology, I set about designing interview questions. Part of my goal in creating my video was to capture some of my family history as well as paint a picture of what life was like through three generations of the twentieth century.
The audience I was designing this documentary for consisted of both children and adults. I wanted the adults to watch the video and say, "Hey, I remember that. Yes, that's what life was like." In addition to tracing history, I wanted to explain some of the current technology and how it works. From this presentation, I wanted the adults to say "Now, I understand what my kids are talking about and it is really not that difficult or scary." I wanted my younger viewers to get a feel for what life was like without some of the modern conveniences, and to get excited about being familiar with so much current technology.
Well, my research continued, and I finally wrote a two-page list of interview questions, then collected four-and-a-half hours worth of interviews. As I wrote the rough draft of my narration to go along with selected pieces of the interviews, my project grew from an hour long documentary to a three hour mini-series. At this point in time, my advisor expressed concern that my now epic length video would take an extremely long time to edit. I was reluctant to cast away the idea of making my video, but finally realized that I would be much happier with a high quality document than a lousy document and even lousier video. After my advisor read my rough draft, he concluded that video was not a necessary medium for my script at all and that illustration would provide the reader just as much benefit.
So, that's the story of how my thesis evolved into its current state. The various quotes throughout the document were taken from the videotaped interviews which I was going to use in my documentary. I collected the pictures throughout the year to use in my video. I was going to display the still photographs while the narrator was speaking.
I hope you enjoy my thesis and find the approach interesting. I had a great deal of fun doing my research and learning about the video-making process. In addition, I learned a multitude of new information. I hope you walk away from this document with a greater understanding of how information technology evolved through the decade and where it is destined to go next.
©1995: Kathleen Guinee, A Journey through the History of Information Technology