Higher learning, the Wi-Fi way

AT YALE University in the 1960s, where I first worked as a researcher and teacher, the mainframe computers of the day were huge and expensive. The sole point of access to this scarce and precious resource was the university’s computer centre. As the focus for so many people’s work, this access point became a lively public space. It concentrated the expertise of an intellectual community in one area that became a place of intense, round-the-clock, peer-to-peer learning. You came to rely on seeing other computer users there and it became a place to be seen, a place where you could…