Internet I

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Internet I

At the end of this class, the student should be able to: 1. Use the maximize and minimize buttons. 2. Use the back, forward, stop, refresh, and home browser buttons. 3. Type an address into the address bar. Know the difference between .com, .org, .mil, .gov, and .edu. 4. Understand links. 5. Know what a search engine is and how to use basic google to find a site when they don't know the address.

Table of contents

1 Outline 2 Handouts 3 Teaching Guide 3.1 Basic Internet Terms 3.2 Browser, Browser Buttons 3.3 Anatomy of a URL 3.4 Components of a basic web site 3.5 Moving Around On The Internet 3.6 Search Engines 3.7 Fun Stuff

Outline

1. Basic Internet Terms
2. Browser, Browser Buttons
3. Anatomy of a URL
4. Components of a basic web site
5. Moving Around On The Internet
6. Search Engines

Handouts

1. Top Domains
2. Web Browser Anatomy
3. Internet Terms
4. Good websites

Teaching Guide

Basic Internet Terms

Internet: The Internet is the global network that connects millions of computers together worldwide. More than 100 countries are linked together via the Internet, exchanging news, data, and opinions.

ISP stands for “Internet Service Provider” – these are companies that provide a connection to the Internet, usually for a monthly fee.

URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locater." Same thing as a "web address"

Web Address is the exact location of a web site on the Internet. Different from an e-mail address.

e-mail address is the address of someone's online mailbox. You can not go to an e-mail address, you can only send things to it. To send an e-mail to someone, you almost always need to have an email address of your own. E-mail addresses have an '@' symbol in them, web addresses do not.

Home Page This one's complicated. There are two kinds of home pages. The first page of any web site is that web site's home page. The page where you start out on your computer when you go online is your home page. So, when you click the "Home" button on your browser, you will go to your home page, not to the home page of the site that you are on.

Browser, Browser Buttons

1. Using the browser
   • A browser is software on your computer that enables you to view web documents. The main browser out there is Internet Explorer, but another popular browser is Firefox.
   • On your desk top, locate the Internet Explorer icon – it is a blue E with a swish around it. Double-click this icon, and the IE browser will open.
   • In the top right corner of the browser window, locate the minimize button, and click it once. IE has disappeared, but it’s still open – look at the bottom of your screen – see that button that appeared next to your Start menu? That’s where your browser was ‘minimized’ to. Click that button to bring the browser back up, or ‘maximize’ it.
   • Next to the minimize button is the ‘Restore Down’ button – click it and see what happens. Click the same button again to bring your window back to normal.
   • Locate the X – click it. IE has closed, and there’s no button at the bottom to push to bring it back. Double-click the IE icon to bring IE back.
2. Browser buttons on the Toolbar:
   • Back: Takes you back to the previous page.
   • Forward: Takes you forward to a page you backed out of.
   • Stop: Stops loading the page you’re trying to load (this can be helpful if the page is taking too long to load, or if you realize you clicked on the wrong thing).
   • Reload: Reloads the current page. Some pages are updated frequently – by reloading them, you can get the most recent additions to the site.
   • Print: In IE, clicking this icon will immediately print the page you are viewing – this can be good, but it can also be a hassle, if you just want the first page of something. To make choices about what you are printing, go to File, then choose Print.
   • Home: Your browser will automatically open to a selected “Home Page.” At the library, the browsers open to our library home page, but your home computer will open to other pages.
     • Whatever your browser’s Home Page is, this will be the page you return to when you click the Home icon in the Toolbar.
     • You can choose which site you want for a homepage by first going to the page you want, then clicking “Tools” then “Internet Options” then “General.” Under “Home Page,” click “Use Current.”
   • Helpful keys for browser work:
     • Enter – after typing a URL into the address bar, or a term into a search bar, hit Enter to go to that page.
     • Backspace – to delete something you’re typing, letter by letter.

Anatomy of a URL

1. Go to http://www.harvard.edu/admissions/#undergrad
2. http:// - stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol.” You will find this at the start of most all web sites. In the case of “secure” sites, this becomes https:// The ‘s’ stands for ‘secure.’ So it you’re paying bills or doing banking or setting up an account with someone and typing in personal information, look for that little ‘s’ to make sure you’re at a secure site.
3. www - stands for World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet, but there are other sites out there that are not on the World Wide Web, and so won’t have the www.
4. harvard - this is the real name of the website, or it's 'domain name.'
5. .edu indicates that it is an institution of higher education. There are other ‘top domains’ such as .com, .org, .gov, .mil.
6. When a web site originates in a different country from the U.S., there is a country code that shows up after the ‘top domain.’ So, if Harvard were in Japan, the web site would be “www.harvard.edu.jp”
7. admissions/ - this is a page within the Harvard website.
8. #undergrad - this is a page within the Admissions portion of the Harvard website.

Components of a basic web site

1. Go to http://www.fvrl.org
2. Look at the layout of the site:
   • Name of the organization at the top – sometimes the name or icon of a company is used to link to that company’s home page as you move through their website.
   • Three columns – two narrow columns on either side, with more permanent information and features on them. The center column has information that changes regularly.
   • About Us in left column – click to find information about the library. In other web sites, check the “About Us” section to help verify the authority of the site. Be suspicious of sites that do not offer any information about who they are or what their credentials are.
   • Links are located throughout the site – some take you to other places within the library web site, and others will take you to an external link. Move the cursor around – when it changes into a hand, you’ve discovered a link.

Moving Around On The Internet

1. There are three ways to get to a web site on the Internet.
   • Type the address, or “URL” into the browser address bar and press enter – you have to type the URL exactly, or you might be sent someplace you don’t want to go. Compare the results of “www.nasa.gov” vs. “www.nasa.com” Other good examples to illustrate the different domains are: www.fvrl.org vs. www.fvrl.com; www.harvard.edu vs. www.harvard.com; www.army.mil vs. www.army.com; www.whitehouse.gov vs. www.whitehouse.com (No, not a porn site.); www.google.com vs. www.google.org.

Teaching hint: Many, if not most, beginners have a difficult time understanding the address bar. Use as many of these kinds of examples as you can think of.

1. • Move from one page to another using a link.
   • Use a search engine.
2. Type www.refdesk.com into the address bar and press Enter. This illustrates the first method of getting from place to place on the Internet. In this case, the web address is short, and if you make a mistake, it is pretty easy to locate where you might have typed the wrong letter. This method doesn’t work if you don’t know a site’s exact URL.
3. At Refdesk, look around at the many different features. Try clicking on things that interest you – each link on this site will take you away from Refdesk to a new web site. When you click on something, watch the address bar to see where you’ve gone. Use the back button to get back to Refdesk each time. This illustrates the second method of moving around on the internet.

These two methods are fine if you know where you're going, or if you like the thrill of the unexpected, but don't do as much good if you are looking for specific information, and you don't know where to start. That's when you need a Search Engine.

Search Engines

1. There are many different types of search engines on the Internet.
2. A search engine takes words that you type into a search box and looks through billions of web pages for matches. Then, using various criteria, it picks out the sites it thinks you are most likely to be looking for. If you don’t find what you are looking for, try typing more words, fewer words, and different words. Try different search engines, too – they all use different criteria for deciding which websites you might want.
3. Compare the same search in Google and Yahoo!
   • Look at Sponsored Results vs. the regular results
     • Sponsored Results are companies that have paid the search engine to be at the top of their list whenever someone uses a certain word as part of their search.
     • regular results come back using other criteria that have to do with how popular the site is, how often other people link to it, and things like that.
   • Look at the way the summaries are chopped up by ... and so forth. This can be misleading.
     • Do a Google search for Charles Burnett Killer Of Sheep
     • Note that in the summary of the first result from http://www.cinescene.com/dash/charlesburnett.html the synopsis states: "Killer of Sheep ('77) was his graduate piece for UCLA Film School. ... It's by far Charles Burnett's worst picture - cloying, overwrought, simplistic."
     • Inside the site, you see that the reviewer gives Killer Of Sheep rave reviews, and is calling "The Annihilation of Fish" Burnett's "worst picture."
4. Search Engine Tricks – use quotes around two or more words for “phrase searching.”
   • For example: have students search for their own name. Compare the results of searching for their name with and without quotes, with and without middle initial, with full and abbreviated first names, with and without full middle name.
5. Try different 'keywords' when you search. Cars, autos, Automobiles, and Vehicles all have similar meanings, but will bring up different results.

Fun Stuff

Things to show your class when you're done with the curriculum, if you have time and they're interested:

Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/)

Weather.com (http://www.weather.com/)