World Wide Web Guide * for Students

to the Internet

Presentation

Definition of the Internet Approach to the Internet History of the Internet Searching the Web & evaluation Internet tools software

The Internet is a...

...distributed

hypermedia

network

of networks

Distributed

Information on the Internet is located on many millions of computers

No one agency has jurisdiction of the Internet; everyone plays a part

Hypermedia

The Internet supports many different

formats of information Text files Pictures Photographs Sound files Video files

Network of Networks

Network : two or more computers hooked together

TCP/IP is the language

of the Internet that allows

unlikecomputers to “talk” Network of networks : over 40,000

networks of computers all hooked together

The Internet is a...

Distributed Hypermedia Network of networks

How to Approach the Internet

Don’t get frustrated Keep it simple Give yourself time to explore Find a mentor to help Look for personal interests first

History of the Internet Started in 1969 by the Advanced Research

Projects Agency (ARPA)

The Department of Defense wanted a system that would still work if part of it were destroyed

In 1983, the research computers that were networked became ARPANET

History of the Internet

In 1986 the National Science Foundation took the initiative and ran the network backbone

In 1995, the NSF stepped out and commercial providers took over the Internet

E-Mail Addresses

Username followed by “@” symbol Computer name and domain Domains : net, org, edu, mil, gov, com

Gback@yahoo.comUsername Computer name & domain

Different Domains on the Net

.com commercial

.net network

.edu educational

.org organization

.net network

.mil military

.gov government

URL: Uniform Resource Locator “Address” of a file on the Internet Contains type of protocol followed by the

computer name, directory and file name

http:// hypertext transfer protocol (WWW)

ftp:// file transfer protocol

gopher:// gopher site

news: newsgroup

telnet:// telnet

mailto: e-mail address

Speaking “URL”http://www.capecod.net/~kschrock/index.htm

h-t-t-p colon slash slash

w-w-w dot capecod dot net

slash tilde kschrock

slash index dot htm

Anatomy of a URL

http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/eval.htm

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Address of ISP

Networkdomain

Directory on the server

File name (HTML format)

html – Hypertext Markup Language

The World Wide Web

A global network of information servers Information may be in the form of text,

audio, video, or animation Many millions of sites containing

documents with links to other documents Fastest growing area of the Internet

Finding Information on the WWW

Search Engines Software programs that scan the

contents of Web servers to create large indices of information

User can perform keyword searches of these indices; combining of terms

AltaVista, Lycos, Webcrawler, HotBot

Finding Information on the WWW

Directories Collections of resources compiled and

organized by a person May be searchable via keyword May be general or subject-specific Yahoo, Magellan, Lycos A2Z

Evaluating Information on the Net

Who wrote it? When was it written? Why was it written? Is it biased? Is it authentic? Is the author an

expert?

Is the page easy to use? Is the page free from

HTML errors? Are the graphics useful? Can you verify the

information? Is a bibliography

included?

World Wide Web Browser Allows you to view WWW sites which contain text,

pictures, and sound

Netscape vs. Internet Explorer vs. Mosaic

After installation, browsers must be configured for your machine

Easy to move back and forth between pages due to cache

Parts of a Browser Window

Menu Tool Bar URL Field

Document viewing area

Status Bar

Browser Configuration and Helper Applications The browser can display text and certain formats

of pictures For other formats the browser needs to have

“helper applications” configured

Example:

If you choose a sound file, you have to have told the browser what piece of software on your machine is to be run to play the file

Saving File to Disk

File-Save on browser menu Choose whether you want to save as a

HTML or text file Choose location for saving Does not save graphics, only text To save graphics, position cursor and use

right mouse button to “save this image as...”

The Internet is useful when you need to know something that is...

not in your textbooks or library based on data collected by the government likely to require specialized knowledge best understood from eyewitness accounts fast-breaking news

The Internet is not useful for...

a quick overview or definition of a topic face-to-face interaction with other students

and teachers drawing, writing, building, planting, or any

other type of hands-on activities

The Internet is also good for :

collaborating on projects with students all over the world

finding and contacting experts getting real-world experience in researching

and evaluating information publishing students’ projects and

publications

THE ENDOriginal Concept By Ms. Daphne ElmsAddition Editing byClarence HamiltonWashington Middle SchoolMCPSSMobile, Al.

Booker T. Washington Middle School Library