Unit5 Virtual Reality

last year, maine launched a plan to become the first state to provide laptop computers to each of its middle school students and teachers. maine is a small northeastern state which, like many other states, is facing budget troubles. but now seventh and eighth graders and their teachers in more than 240 schools have these wireless computers.and the idea is spreading. michigan, for example, has started to spend $22,000,000 for laptop or hand-held computers for sixth graders. schools can get the computers if they can pay 25 dollars for each student.yet such plans have critics, as a story in the magazine u.s. news and world report noted. they say there is little proof that computers are better than traditional teaching methods. other teachers say the computer is simply another tool that depends on how it is used.

passage e:  virtual worldbuild the highway and watch the town grow. at first a few shops appear and maybe a restaurant. then a hotel opens. eventually new houses are built. a village is born.this is also how the virtual world has developed. think of the internet as the road carrying information between two computers. think of the world wide web as the village. at first it is just a place on the virtual road where travelers meet. more travelers come bringing new kinds of information. new villages are started.every village has a founder. tim burners-lee is the man who wrote the software program that led to the foundation of the world wide web. how did he get the idea? he tells us on his own web site. "one of the things computers were not able to do was store contacts from different sources. the dream behind the web is of a common space in which we communicate by sharing information.tim berners-lee could have followed the microsoft route by forming a company to sell the programs he invented. or he could have joined an existing company. but in his view the web is a language, not a product. charging a fee for using his programs would have slowed the growth of the web. and other companies would make similar products to compete. instead of one world wide web there would be several smaller webs. each would use incompatible software. the web is valuable because it uses a common computer language to reach people and share information. competing webs would lose this value. imagine if somebody sent you a bill every time you spoke a word of english.in 1994 tim berners-lee formed the newly formed world wide web consortium, or w3c. more than 200 leading companies and laboratories are represented by w3c. together they make sure that everyone, no matter what their equipment or software, can work equally on the web."the web can help people to understand the way that others live and love. it helps us understand the humanity of people." he says.