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WIT Homeroom Module:
Introduction to the Internet and the World Wide Web using Netscape Navigator



Created by the Orange mentor training group: Bill Geraci, Jane White, Deborah Wade for WIT 2000.

General note: These pages contain a lot of links to other peoples web pages. We can only attest to the quality of these pages as well as their existence as of the date of composition of our pages. These links were good and worthwhile as of early June, 2000. After that you're on your own! ;-)

If you're brand new to this and don't know what to do, take these steps:

Move that mouse thingy around until the arrow thingy turns into the hand thingy right over the big letters below:
Beginners - Click Here
(Finish reading the next few lines and) then click the button on the mouse (while the shape of the pointer is the hand over the "here" above).
This action ("clicking on a link") will take you automatically to the part of the document that has the stuff for beginner. (Later on you might want to come back to some of the formalities.)

NOTE: This module does assume you understand enough about using computers to click around on stuff, use the mouse, pull down a menu, etc.

Contents

Introductory Stuff

All Related Pages
Others' General Guides to Navigator

Our Guide to Netscape Navigator Begins Here

Mac or Windows?
What We'll Cover
What Is the Internet?
That Fascination
What's a URL?
Those Domains
All About Your Browser
Let's Go to a URL
Linking up with those Links
URL Hints
The Different Uses of the Internet
What Is the World Wide Web?
Some Internet Terminology
Some WWW Terminology
What Makes the Web Special?
The Steps in an Internet Session
Bookmarks or Favorites
Files, Images, Etc.
Don't Wait for It!
The Four Web Revolutions: #1: Static Life
The Four Web Revolutions: #2: Interactivity Through Forms
The Four Web Revolutions: #3: Those Scripts and Applets
The Four Web Revolutions: #4: "Real" Interactivity
Two Ways to Get to the Internet
To Make a Modem Connection
Parts of an Modem Connection
Welcome to WWW Searches
Getting to Pages You Want
What is a Search Engine?
When You Get Results
Search Engine Databases
Why qualify your search?
Your Search Friends #1: +
How Computers Search
Your Search Friends #2: ì  î
How to Save WWW Pages
How to Save WWW Images

All Related Pages

We present links to all the pages that are a part of this Module. Other than this one. It's too confusing to link to oneself....

General Links
This page offers annotated links to pages that are useful but not directly related to this topic (using Netscape Navigator as a web browser). Explore!

Teaching Guide
This is our Teaching or Curriculum Guide.

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Others' General Guides to Navigator

Throughout this module you'll find lots of references to web pages written by other people. In some ways, that's the heart of this module: getting you to become a power user of Netscape Navigator by getting you to use Netscape Navigator! Plus, so many have done so much good work....

This group of web sites listed below are web sites that aren't about one part of using the Web or Netscape Navigator but are high-quality, general introductions themselves. We encourage you to peruse their offerings as well as our own.

WebTeach-Basic
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/wit/99/teams/webteach/wtbasic.htm
A good general checklist of Web Browser Skills with links to lessons.

Netscape Tutorial Menu
http://web.cs.mun.ca/nstut/
Another excellent tutorial with activities built in and funny pictures to boot!

CNET Help.com How-Tos and Tips
http://www.help.com/cat/3/310/677/ht/2.html?tag=st.hp.ht.prv.ht
These two pages (the one linked here and the the Next page) has 36 tips, a little more than half are aimed at Internet Explorer. These are pretty good tips although the expanations assume an intermediate knowledge of computers and web browsers. Keep this one for toward the end of the WIT 2000 sessions.

Using Navigator
http://help.netscape.com/products/client/communicator/IntroComm/chap02.html
This is Netscape's own introduction to their product. It's good but long on length and short on over-arching things like tables of contents. Spend some time here after you've made your acquaintance of Navigator through Netscape Tutorial Menu, above.

Welcome to Netscape Communicator
http://help.netscape.com/products/client/communicator/IntroComm/chap01.html
Every wondered what Netscape Communicator is if we keep talking about Netscape Navigator? This page shows the major components of Communicator (including but not limited to Navigator).

Our Guide to Netscape Navigator Begins Here

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Mac or Windows?

You'll be happy to know that, unlike much of computing, the Internet doesn't know or care about what kind of computer you have or use. Almost all the software is available for both kinds of computers. Within this module we'll specify where tactics differ between Windows and Macintosh computers.
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Topics We'll Cover

What is the Internet and our fascination with it
All about URLs
Different uses of the Internet and the WWW
Some terminology
Tips to become more productive
The four stages of how the web was, is and will be used
How to connect to the Internet
A brief guide and some tips for using a Search Engine
How to save information from the web to your own computer
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What Is the Internet?

On the one hand, the Internet is a conglomeration of wires and computers connected throughout the world. That's the Hardware part of the Internet.
  • All computer things always have two sides, the Hardware and the Software. You've got to have both working correctly in order to get done what you want.
On the other hand, the Software side, the Internet is a set of standards (called "protocols" in computer-speak) for exchanging information between different computers
  • More on this later
The Internet was originally set up by the US Government
  • Widely used now

Click these links for more....

Technology
http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Technology/
A guide from CPS' own staff to the Internet-what it is and what it means.

The History section of our General Links page.

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That Fascination

Why do you hear so much about the Internet? Here are a few elements that are part of the fascination. The items beginning with asterisks (*) are conditions that are almost without parallel.

*Almost everything is there

Somewhere
Getting to what you want can be interesting, though....

*Where and When don't matter

Remote or local, distance (and time?) don't matter
The Internet is on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, all 'round the globe

*Anonymity and / or collegiality

You can pretend to be someone you aren't and nobody can see you or hear your voice

*You can use the Internet to buy stuff

*Downloading files of all kinds

Downloading means you may be able to copy files from remote computers to your local computer
This is much cheaper than finding someone to collect your money and mail you something....

Lots of wisdom, lots of schlock because....

There's both bad and good on the Internet. And lots of it. (And mediocre stuff, too!)

*...Nobody's in control!

Unlike anything in (recent) human history, there's nobody in control, no central authority to make or enforce rules.
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What's a URL?

Now to the practical bits....

URL stands for: Universal Resource Locator

URLs are paths through the Internet to a particular resource, usually a WWW page

Enter the URL into the Location line or Load or Open URL dialog box, usually under the File menu. See the links below for a) examples of URLs and b) explanations of URLs.

Click these links for more....

WebTeach-URL
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/wit/99/teams/webteach/wtbasic-URL.htm
A good guide to what a URL is and how it's set up.

Intro To Browsing
http://www.depaul.edu/~dlash/frequent/browsing.htm
Don't be fooled by this heading--about 30 lines down in this web page starts pretty-much the best explanation of URLs I've seen.

Internet 101- About The Web
http://www2.famvid.com/i101/web.html
A very brief intro to the web and then a nice illustration of how URLs are put together.

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Those Domains

The last three characters of a URL are the domain
  • Here are the most common ones:
    • .edu EDUcational institution
    • .com COMmercial institution
    • .org ORGganization (not for profit)
    • .net groups that have to do with the NETwork itself
    • .gov GOVernment sites
    • .mil US MILitary sites
Some URLs end in country codes
  • .de for DEutsche (Germany
  • .uk for United Kingdom
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All About Your Browser

(We assume you're viewing this document in Netscape Navigator (if you're in WIT 2000.))

Click this link for more....

Spend some time with these links to get a general introduction to your browser.

Tutorial frame 1
http://www.teachersfirst.com/tutorial/tutorial_frame_1.htm
A brief guide to what all those buttons are at the top of the Netscape Navigator windows.

Please also see the section at the top of this document for several web sites that offer specific instruction / explanations in using Netscape Navigator.

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Quiz Break!

Please go to this link and try our quizes!

Quiz on Navigator Menus

Quiz on Navigator Buttons

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Let's Go to a URL

Take these steps to go to a specific URL:
  • Click once on the location line at the top of the browser window. This will select all the text in that line (including text off the right side where you can't see it if it's a long URL).
Note that here's a case where you do not twice. Clicking once will select all that text (turn it color) so it's easy to put in your new URL. If you click twice you'll place the blinking insertion point (that line) and the following steps won't work.

If by accident you clicked twice, click again anywhere within a blank area of the web page document window (that will get rid of the blinking line in the Location box) and then single-click in the location line again. This should select the text as above.

  • Type in the URL you want to go to. In this case type in
http://www.amazon.com
    and click Open or hit the Enter key on the keyboard.
Assuming you entered the URL correctly and your computer is correctly on the Internet you'll go to that web site!
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Linking up with those Links

Once you've gotten to a web site, move the pointer around different parts of the document window. When the pointer turns into the hand, you can click to go to that link
  • Links are usually also a different color and underlined
If (on the Mac) you press and hold the pointer anywhere on a browser screen you get a pop-down menu of things you can do. On a Windows computer you do a right-click for the same effect.
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URL Hints

Editing the Location Line

If you get to a link and want to look at the main page for that link, edit the Location line to show just the main site and press the return key.

Example:

A full URL might look like this:

http://cuip.uchicago.edu/wit/2000/develop/compBasics/CompBasics.html
but if you wanted to get to who put the site together, you could edit the URL line so it looks like this:
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/
and then hit the enter key. You'll now go to that site!

If you don't know a URL, guess!

The Different Uses of the Internet

Think of the Internet as a collection of diverse services
  • World Wide Web
    • Also known as Web or WWW or W3
    • The most important service now
    • When most people say "Internet" they mean WWW
  • e-mail
    • Including ListServes
  • Ftp or File Transfer Protocol--Exchanging files
  • news Groups
  • Lots of other stuff
    • Out of the scope of this class
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What Is the World Wide Web?

A protocol for making information available

The Web has two parts

  • WWW Servers somewhere serve "pages"
    • To serve means to make available
  • And a WWW Browser somewhere used to look at these pages
URLs are addresses to Servers.

Your Web Browser (in WIT 2000) is Netscape Navigator / Communicator. The other common browser is Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

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Some Internet Terminology

TCP, TCP/IP
  • Transfer Control Protocol / Internet Protocol
    • The base protocol that allows information to flow through all those connections
Page, Home Page, Pages
  • A file or files made available from a server through the Web
Web Browsers
  • Software on my computer that can get information from Web servers
    • Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer are some Web browsers
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Some WWW Terminology

HTML
  • Hyper Text Markup Language
    • The encoding that makes Web pages work
HTTP
  • Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
    • The protocol that allows the exchange of html documents
HTTP carries HTML documents across TCP/IP
  • TCP/IP also does other protocols
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What Makes the Web Special?

The WWW supports
  • HyperText linking
    • Click on underlined text to go to that ìpageî
  • Graphics
The WWW also has
  • Little "applets" or "Plug-ins" that extend its functionality
    • Small programs (often in Java) that do something
      • Animate Graphics
      • Play sounds
      • Decompress files
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The Steps in an Internet Session

Assuming you have a good connection....
You tell your local client software program where to go
  • For Web Browsing you give it a "URL"
The Client, on your computer, briefly queries the remote Server through the network connection

This Server "serves" the information you requested to your client software

The Client software shows you that information

Client / Server does not maintain an open, ongoing connection

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Bookmarks or Favorites

You can save a list of your favorite URLs for later use
  • Depending on your browser, you can create folders and dividers in the list to make it more organized
Given your individual program you can usually
  • Print / export this page for others to use
  • Arrange bookmarks into folders and sub-folders
  • Edit information / annotations in bookmarks
  • Find within bookmarks
WIT 2000 staff have prepared a module on Bookmarks / Favorites at this URL (http://cuip.uchicago.edu/wit/2000/curriculum/homeroommodule/bookmarks/). We won't develop this more here since they've already Done The Good Deed!
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Files, Images, Etc.

  • As always, observe the copyright! (Click on that link for the WIT 2000 module on that topic.)
    • You can save web pages to disk and review them later
    • You will *not* get graphics
    • This is also good for saving content before it changes
    You can save images to disk for later reuse

    Click these links for more....

    Learning More About The Web
    http://www.teachersfirst.com/tutorial/more-save.shtml
    This group talks about steps and issues in saving web pages and images to your local disk.

    Saving Graphics
    http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/tutorial/graphics.html
    A wonderful guide with activities for Mac and Windows that shows you how to save images from web pages to your computer for later reuse!

    Return to Contents

    Don't Wait for It!

    While your browser loads that page you can
    • Switch your computer to some other program and do other work
    • Create a new browser page and do some other Web searching!
    You will have some slowness...but it's better than doing nothing!

    The above suggestions do assume you know how to switch between open programs on your computer and that you know how to manipulate open windows on your computer and more than one window at a time.

    Creating another Browser window

    On Macintosh

    • Put the pointer over a link
    • Press and hold and continue to hold down the mouse button
    • When the menu comes up, roll the mouse to highlight the menu item you want
      • In this case we want New Window with this Link
    Note that this menu will change depending on what the pointer is over when you press and hold. This is called Context Sensitive.
    • Click (or let up) on the mouse button to activate that menu item
     A new browser window will open, leaving the old one in place.

    How to open an additional browser document window on a Mac

    On Windows

    • Put the pointer over a link
    • Click the right mouse button
    • When the menu comes up, roll the mouse to highlight the menu item you want
      • In this case we want Open in new Window
    Note that this menu will change depending on what the pointer is over when you press and hold. This is called Context Sensitive.
    • Click on the mouse button to activate that menu item
     A new browser window will open, leaving the old one in place.

    The Windows menu to create a new Browser window

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    The Four Web Revolutions: #1: Static Life

    Initially, the WWW was merely making information available
    • Including color, graphics and more
      • User is passive
      • This was the original idea behind the Web
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    The Four Web Revolutions: #2: Interactivity Through Forms

    With the development of "Forms" the user connects and, more than just reading, actually gives info back out to the people running the WWW server
    • This could be commerce (buying stuff), registering for a seminar, etc.
    WWW Server hands off user supplied information to other programs running on the Server
    • User is active--offering information
      • Searches are an example of this
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    The Four Web Revolutions: #3: Those Scripts and Applets

    Browser software can receive and run scripts (ie: applications) on the userís computer
    • Takes less server work; takes advantage of the power of the user's PC
      • "Java" and "JavaScript" are computer programming languages
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    The Four Web Revolutions: #4: ìRealî Interactivity

    "Interactive" video and such
    • Video-on-demand
      • Weíre not there yet....
      • Limited by "Bandwidth"
        • How much information can flow across busy wires and through the protocols
        • Cable TV? Satellite dishes? ISDN lines?
    Other technologies still in development!
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    Two Ways to Get to the Internet

    A direct networked connection
    • Permanent wires from your computer to an Internet connection
    Using phone Lines
    • The traditional way: An analog phone line modem from your computer to an Internet Service Provider (ISP)
    • Newer ways
      • ISDN (now loosing favor)--through modified phone lines with an ISDN modem
      • Cable Modems--the same connection used for TV chanels
      • DSL and ADSL--a more modified phone line
    Each of these sucessive connection mechanisms are faster.

    Click this link for more....

    Life on the Internet: Connecting to the Internet
    http://www.screen.com/start/guide/connecting.html
    A set of annotated links about issues and tactics in connecting a computer to the Internet.
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    To Make a Modem Connection

    Stuff you need
    • A computer
    • Modem
    • Analog phone Line
    • Special System software to talk the"language" or protocol of the Internet
      • For Macs this is SLIP or PPP
    • An Internet access account through some provider
    • Some Internet software to run on your computer once you make the connection
    If you're going to connect through ISDN or Cable or DSL you need Ethernet on your computer. This is standard on recent models of Macs and can be added to Windows computers.
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    Parts of an Modem Connection

    All these pieces have to work together and correctly in order for a modem connection to work!
    1 You! You have to know what you're doing
    2 The Internet Program you want to run
    3 Settings in your system software
    4 Your Computerís Hardware
    5 Your Modem
    6 Your phone connection
    7 The Phone System
    Your Internet Service Providor
    8 Their phone connection
    9 Their modems
    10 Their Server, Your Account
    11 Their connection to the Internet
    12 The Internet
    13The Server youíre connecting to
    Thirteen things have to work right! And you only have direct control over numbers 1-6. Everything else depends on people who you may or may not know how to contact.

    And, unfortunately, the slowest part controls the pace!

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    Welcome to WWW Searches

    Before we begin our brief introduction to searching the WWW, here are links to a number of guides to searching on the WWW.

    A Helpful Guide to Search Engines
    http://www.monash.com/spidap.html
    An excellent guide to searching and search engines. Rankings of different search engines. Start here!

    Search Engines (primer)
    http://www.webteacher.org/winnet/finding/search_engQ.html
    A nice little encapsulation of searching the WWW.

    WWW Links - Finding Information on the Internet
    http://www.jsr.cc.va.us/lrc/internet.htm
    A wonderful complilation of links to topics related to seaching. Example topics: List of Internet Search Engines, Features of Internet Search Engines, Internet Search Strategies.

    Delphi FAQs: Search Engine Comparison Chart
    http://www0.delphi.com/navnet/faq/searchcomparison.html
    A wonderful chart showing some of the major search engines and comparing their features. A handout from a Librarianss conference.

    Life on the Internet: Subject Directories and Search Engines
    http://www.screen.com/start/guide/searchengines.html
    Annotate links for all the main topics you'd want to cover for searching the web. Should be on your Must See list.

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    Getting to Pages You Want

    If you already have a URL, type it in and go!
    • You can get these off TV, from friends, anywhere!
    If you donít already have a URL you can use a ìsearch engineî like
    • www.altavista.com
    • www.yahoo.com
    To look up pages on the web
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    What is a Search Engine?

    Search Engines consist of two pieces

    A "Search Engine"

    • An interface where you put search criteria and click Search
      • This gets processed by the search engine software

    The Database

    • This is the material that the search engine searches. ;-)
      • A collection of information about individual web pages
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    When You Get Results

    Search Engines compare your criteria against its database

    When it finds matches, it takes those results and

    • Creates a web page on the fly for your individual search
    • Sends that web page to your browser
    Notes about Results pages
    • They may change, even moment to moment based on when you run your search
    • The results are only as good as a combination of
      • Your search
      • The quality of the search engine software
      • The quality of the database
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    Search Engine Databases

    Search Engines fill their databases by indexing some of the Web Sites from around the world

    Different search engines are different

    • Different pages may be indexed
    • Different qualities of search engines
    Return to Contents

    Why qualify your search?

    The topics below show a very few of the tactics you can take to qualify your search criteria. Here's why you care:
     
    Changing Search Results Using Search Friends
    Criteria Entered
    Results Found
    torpedo WWII boat
    2,411,330 pages found
    +torpedo +WWII +boat
    1,924 pages found.
    +"torpedo boat" +WWII
    425 pages found. 

    You can see how these tactics (using + and " ) can really affect how your search turns out.

    NOTE that for every web page your criteria eliminates you may be missing something you care about! somoene may have written a wonderful page on these warcraft that may have happened to have included two spaces between "torpedo" and "boat". My criteria would miss that. Something gained (fewer web sites to look at), something lost (possibly great sites).

    Now for the details on those tactics:

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    Your Search Friends #1: +

    The default for most search engines is the Boolean OR
    • This results in searches that find web pages that have any one of your terms in them
    Here are some little tests I ran on the AltaVista Search Engine

    Typing + before each term means Boolean AND

    • This finds only those web pages that have all of the terms that have +
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    How Computers Search

    Computers search based on text strings
    • To a computer all files are one long string of characters. A text string simply ploughs through this list looking for a match
    Spaces in search criteria mean first look for this text and then look for that string
    You can include a space in a string by enclosing the text string inside quotations
    • This narrows your search
    Which leads us to....
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    Your Search Friends #2: " "

    If you know a specific thing youíre searching for and itís a phrase, enclose the phrase in quotes. This causes the search engine to look for exactly that text (including spacing) and not for separate words.
    Return to Contents

    Quiz Break!

    Please go to this link and try our quiz!
    Return to Contents

    How to Save WWW Pages

    Let's say you get to a WWW page you want to save. You can pull down File and go to Save AsÖ
    All while observing copyright, of course!
    Specify a name and place where you want the file to live

    Specify a file type

    • TEXT
      • Just the typing. You get only the text for links, not the link or URL
    • SOURCE or HTML
      • If you open this kind of file in a web browser youíll still have all the web formatting and click-able links
    You now have that file on your disk for later use.

    Note that saving a web page will not get you the graphics in that page. That's a separate action on your part for each graphic you want.

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    How to Save WWW Images

    1. Put the pointer over a graphics
    2. Press and hold the mouse button (right-click on Windows)
    3. When you get a pop-down menu, go to Save This Image AsÖ
    4. Specify a name and place where you want the file to live
    5. Accept whatever file type it offers you
      • Usually .gif or .jpeg
      • You may open these files from inside your browser
        • Double click or do File Open from within the browser

    Click these links for more....

    Learning More About The Web
    http://www.teachersfirst.com/tutorial/more-save.shtml
    This group talks about steps and issues in saving web pages and images to your local disk.

    Saving Graphics
    http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/tutorial/graphics.html
    A wonderful guide with activities for Mac and Windows that shows you how to save images from web pages to your computer for later reuse!

    		 
    The contents of the Web Institute Web Site, including the On-Line Curriculum, Web Tank, and Session Notes, are Copyright 1999-2000, Graham School of General Studies, University of Chicago. No one may print, copy, or otherwise reproduce these materials without the express written permission of the Director of Education Programs at the Graham School. All rights reserved.

    The chapters from Curriculum Webs: A Practical Guide to Weaving the Web into Teaching and Learning are Copyright 1999-2000, Craig A. Cunningham and Marty Billingsley. No one may print, copy, or otherwise reproduce these materials without the express written permission of the authors. All rights reserved.