Introduction
Welcome to the tutorial for using the
Internet and Netscape. This manual contains all
the material you will need to learn how to get in, surf for
fun, find information, and close the program.
Module
1
Getting on the Internet
In order to surf the net you have to
have a basic understanding of how to navigate within your
computer screen (Windows) and how to use your mouse.
This instruction assumes that you know how to do
that already. But just as a refresher, try to
complete a few of the things I will tell you about now.
Turning on the
Computer
On most computers, you turn on the
computer from the front. If the Windows Program
Manager doesn’t automatically come up, then from the C
PROMPT (looks like C:>) you can type WIN
to start Windows. If any other letter comes up
first, type C: and press Enter.
Then type WIN.
Opening Netscape
Now that Windows is open, you should
see the PROGRAM MANAGER window,
filled with little boxes called ICONS.
You are in Windows Version 3.1. In Windows 95
this is called the Desktop and there are icons for the
various places to go in your computer.
Navigating in
Windows
With your mouse, point to some of the
icons. Double click the left mouse button on the
Solitaire icon to open it up. This is a good game
to play to get used to your mouse.
In every window you will see two
little triangle buttons in the upper right hand corner.
The triangle that points UP will maximize your
screen. Click on it Now. See your
program fill up the screen. The DOWN triangle
will minimize your program back into a little icon, but WILL
NOT CLOSE IT. Click on the MINIMIZE BUTTON now.
Now click on the icon for solitaire once again.
In Windows 95, the maximize button looks like a screen, and
the minimize button is a minus sign.
Now use the ALT-TAB
keys on the keyboard to change back to the opening window, PROGRAM
MANAGER.
To do this effectively: Hold down the ALT
key with your thumb, and tap the TAB
key once. You will see a little grey box pop up
in the middle of your screen to let you know what else is
open in Windows. When you let up on the ALT
key, the program in the little grey box will open.
Double-click the mouse on a different
icon to open a different program. This time try ACCESSORIES,
and then click on NOTEPAD.
We’ll use this one later.
Once again, use ALT-TAB to
shuffle through the windows you have open until you get back
to the PROGRAM MANAGER window.
(On Windows 95 you can use the STATUS
BAR at the bottom of the screen and just click
on each button.)
Use ALT-TAB
again to open one of the programs. Use the mouse
to double click on the large minus sign in the far upper
left-hand corner of the screen. This will close
the program. Repeat this activity for the other programs that
you opened.
That’s about all you need to know
about Windows and a mouse to begin surfing.
Opening NETSCAPE
At this point you can double click on
the Netscape Icon to open the
program. In Windows 95 you may have to do this
from the START button at the lower
left-hand corner of the screen. Click on START,
move the mouse up to PROGRAMS, and
move the mouse to the right over to Netscape.
Click the left mouse button and you will begin.
You are now hooked up to the Internet
and ready to surf.
Back to the
top.
Module
2
Reading the Screen (and
speaking the lingo)
There are several parts of the screen
that will help you whiz around effectively in this program.
Please read the description of each one below,
try to find it on your screen, and try the activities
following.
Title Bar - tells
you the name of your program (NETSCAPE)
Menu Bar- contains
drop down menus with helpful functions
Toolbar -
contains buttons that quickly execute a command
Scroll bars - help
to quickly scroll through text on the screen
Net buttons -
buttons that take you to places on the Net
Location Box -
where the URL is typed in to take you places on the Net
HELP - located
on the Menu Bar
There are also several terms that
Netters throw about that would be good for you to know:
Bookmark - a favorite place, a saved
link to a Web address (like an address book)
Browse or Surf - a way of going from
Web page to Web page by clicking hypertext links
Download - Moving files from
somewhere on the Internet into your computer
Home Page - a major or central
document at a WWW site
HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol)
- the technique used by Web servers to dispense information
to Web browsers
Hypertext links - a specially
designated word or image that takes a Web browser to a new
place
Internet - a collection of networks
and computers all over the world which share information
Netscape - a Web browser
Search Engine - a device by which
you can search for information on the Web with keywords
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - an
Internet address that any Web browser can understand
Web Browser - a program used to
connect to sites on the WWW, such as Netscape
World Wide Web (also WWW) - a subset
of the Internet
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Module
3
Let’s Surf!!
Surfing or browsing the Internet is
easy because you can just use the TOOLBAR
BUTTONS, NET BUTTONS, and HYPERTEXT
LINKS to move around the world.
Let’s begin with the NET
BUTTONS. These buttons take you
immediately to Websites that have different kinds of
information on them:
What’s New - website that
contains links that are brand new on the Web
What’s Cool - websites that are
judged to be the really neat ones
Net search - website that contains
several search engines
Destinations - website that includes
contents from all of these buttons
People - website that finds
addresses, phone numbers and e-mail of individuals
Software - website for downloading
software
Now with these buttons, all you need
to know about is HYPERTEXT LINKS.
A HYPERTEXT LINK
is a word or words that are colored blue and underlined with
a blue line. When you move your mouse close to a
link the arrow turns into a little hand. If you click your
left mouse button now, you will instantly be transported to
the address hidden behind that blue word. The
address takes you to a new website which is about that blue
word.
The TOOLBAR
helps keep you from getting totally lost. The BACK
button will take you back one page, the page you previously
visited. Then if you want to go back to the page
you just left, the FORWARD button
will do that for you. The HOME
button will take you to the starting HOME PAGE
of your browser.
The MENU BAR
has some helpful items also. In the GO
menu, there is an option called VIEW HISTORY,
which shows you the last several pages (websites) you have
visited.
Student Activity
1) Take some time now to play with the NET
BUTTONS and HYPERTEXT LINKS.
2) Find at least one neat place from the WHAT’S
NEW button.
3) Find at least one neat place from the WHAT’S
COOL button.
4) Play with the TOOLBAR
BUTTONS to see what happens when you click on BACK,
FORWARD, and HOME.
5) Go to the GO
menu to see a history of where you’ve been.
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Module
4
Search the Net
To search for information on the World
Wide Web, you need to work through several steps:
The first thing you must identify when
looking for information is -- what are you looking for? For
example, my principal asked me to find some acceptable use
policies that other schools are using for their
students’ access to the Internet.
Next, you need to delineate TERMS
- Figure out some specific words to use in your search. These
terms depend upon the situation, or the information need.
Sometimes you can type in one word and get just what you
need.
In this case, I could use Acceptable,
Use or Policy.
But sometimes you might need more than
that one term to limit a search if it brings up too much
information. In that case, you need to know about
Boolean operators. So, ...
You must identify the linking words
that will help the search engine find those terms for you, if
necessary. These are the Boolean
operators. Boolean operators are simply linking
words such as AND, OR and NOT. Each search engine
is different in how it performs a search, but mostly, this is
what the Boolean operators will do:
| AND - finds documents that contain BOTH terms
(for example, if you type in "acceptable AND
use AND policy," it will bring up documents
that contain all three terms -- Acceptable,
Use, and Policy.) OR - this operator finds documents that will
contain Either or Both terms (for example, if you
type in "acceptable OR use OR policy"
-- the computer will find all the documents that
contain all three terms, and all the documents
containing just one of the terms alone.)
NOT - excludes documents containing a term - for
example, if you type in "acceptable NOT use"
-- the computer will find all the records that
contain the term acceptable, but will not show
the records with acceptable that also contain
the term use
|
Knowing
the Boolean Operators, I will choose to search with:
Acceptable AND
Use AND Policy
or
(Acceptable Use
Policy)
or
"Acceptable
Use Policy"
Now I pick out a search engine - there
are LOTS of them and you can see most of them when you click
on the NET SEARCH button.
However, my favorite is ALTA VISTA.
Then we’ll type in the URL
for the Search Engine. (Remember, Uniform
Resource Locator, or the address) for Altavista.
This is what we know about URLs:
There is a Protocol
at the beginning, for the WWW, it is http://
There is a basic
address that ends in edu, com, gov,
org, or net
There are directories
that are separated with forward slashes -
/public/ixt/home/
Last there is a filename
- /home.html
They are EXTREEEEMELY
case sensitive - you must type EXACTLY
what you see
http://altavista.digital.com/queries/search/answer.html
|
Let’s do it together from
here. Type in the URL for Altavista. To do
this, you use the mouse to highlight the URL
that you presently see in the LOCATION BOX at
the top of the screen. Just click the mouse
at the beginning and drag it to the end, or click in the
box - it should turn blue.
Type the following into the box
(it will type right over what’s already there):
http://altavista.digital.com/
Press ENTER, and Alta
Vista’s home page should come up. While
you are waiting, you’ll see comets moving in the
little box in the upper right hand corner of the page.
This means that Netscape is working to bring
the page you’ve asked for into your computer.
Now find the search box (it looks
like the location box), and type in
Acceptable and
Use and Policy
Alta Vista doesn’t care about
case, so all lower or all upper case is fine.
Press ENTER.
At last! You get a new page with a
list of ‘hits’ that are blue hypertext links.
As you scroll down the page, you can see if
any of them might be helpful, and follow any links you
choose. At the bottom of the page, remember
that you can see more pages if you choose.
At the bottom of the page you will
see a horizontal line of numbers - these are pages that
contain more ‘hits’ if you want to see them,
and the first page didn’t yield anything
interesting. Just click on one of the
numbers.
Now you don’t really have to
do all these things every time, but this is a good
learning experience!
One
very important thing to remember about search engines is:
NEVER compare them to other library
databases or sophisticated systems. The Web
is neither very structured nor sophisticated.
You WILL pull in a lot of useless information
when you do a search, and it will not necessarily be very
precise. However, there is a lot of good
stuff out there that can be found, so happy hunting.
Student Activity
Now try a search of your own.
Remember the Boolean Operators:
| And - Finds documents (or websites)
containing all terms you type |
Or - Finds documents containing all terms
or only one of the terms |
| Not -
Leaves out documents containing a term you type |
Parentheses or Quotation
marks - Treats terms as one
word and finds them together |
URLs
for Internet Search Engines
Altavista - http://altavista.digital.com/
Excite - http://www.excite.com/
Magellan - http://www.mckinley.com/
Infoseek - http://guide.infoseek.com/
Lycos -
http://www.lycos.com/
Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com/
Webcrawler - http://webcrawler.com/
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the top
Module
5
Remembering Where
You’ve Been and Keeping the Information
Bookmarks
There are a couple of ways to keep
track of where you’ve been and where you want to go the
next time you go surfing. One of these ways is to
use BOOKMARKS. This is found on the MENU
BAR. When you click on Bookmarks, you can
choose to ADD a Bookmark, or VIEW a Bookmark.
Let’s say you have found a page
that you love and never want to forget. While you
are looking at that page, simply point your mouse to the Bookmarks
Menu, and click on ADD Bookmark.
Now that address is in your bookmark file.
Now let’s say that tomorrow you
get on the Internet and want to go to this page first.
Click on the Bookmarks Menu, and choose View
Bookmarks. Your list of Bookmarks will come
up and all you have to do is click on the one you want in
order to go there.
Printing
Perhaps you have found some
information that you will only need once, and you want to
print this. If you don’t mind getting the
whole page, just go to the Menu Bar and click on
File, and choose Print. This could be
bad, however, if the page is really long (a home-page"
could be 20 or more "real" pages to your printer).
So here are some tricks:
1) Cut and Paste
-- With your mouse, highlight only what you want to print
and see if the File Menu and Print will let you choose a
selection. If not, Copy the highlighted
selection from the Edit Menu, and then open up Notepad
or another word processing program and use Paste
from the Edit Menu. To go back to your
browser, use the Status Bar at the bottom of the page in
Windows 95, or press ALT-TAB in Windows.
2) You can Save this page to a disk
and print it out later from a word processor. To
do this, go to the File Menu, and choose Save As.
In the dialog box, type in the Drive Letter where
you want the file to go, and type in what you want to name
it.
3) Use the file menu,
and click on print preview. Find
the pages you want with the Zoom in
and Next page buttons. Then go to File
Menu, Print, and tell
it exactly which pages to print.
Downloading
Sometimes you might see some freeware
and shareware (computer programs that are free or very cheap)
that you might like to have, and on the Internet you will
find it all over the place. It is easy to
download from a browser, with just a simple click on a
hypertext link, but:
BEWARE
The Internet is also a breeding ground for
viruses that can make your life miserable.
Anything you download should be checked for viruses before
you open it up (try to execute it).
Student Activity
1) Cruise for awhile or search for some new
information. If you find a page you really like,
add a bookmark. Add several bookmarks, and then
go back to the Bookmark Menu and try to click on one of the
bookmarks that you added first.
2) If you feel adventurous, you can play
with your Bookmark list, by editing it, moving things around
or deleting items. There are drop down menus for
you to view while you are in your bookmark file.
If you don’t feel adventurous, just go right on.
It’s not the end of the world for your to
know all about bookmarks right now!
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Module
6
Evaluating Material and
Information
This is probably the most difficult
part of Internet surfing. How can you tell if
your information is good, or current, or bogus?
You have to evaluate this information just like
you would information that you get from TV, or magazines or
books. Just because it’s on the Internet
doesn’t make it authoritative.
As far as some evaluation criteria for
the websites themselves, you can ask these questions:
| 1) Is the page easy to read?
(uncluttered) 2) Do the
results of a search match what you needed?
3) Are the essential instructions
for searching or using the page easy to find?
4) Is the content up-to-date?
(sometimes at the very bottom of the page there is a
note about update)
5) Does it take too long to load?
(sometimes lots of graphics are not worth the wait)
6) Do all the links work? (very old
pages or pages that are not kept current aren’t
worth the time you waste going to broken links)
7) Are the results of a search
posted in ways that tell enough information? (some
search engines will provide a lengthy explanation of
the sites they found)
|
With
everything you have learned in this session, you should now
be able to successfully wheel and maneuver the Internet!!
Try some of these URLs and evaluate them
according to the preceding criteria.
Student Activity
Try some of the following URLs and evaluate
them according to the preceding criteria.
Back
to the top
Module
7
Getting Off the Internet
Depending on your computer platform,
there are several ways to leave Netscape.
| Windows 95 - Click on the X box in the
upper right hand corner of the screen. Windows - Click on FILE in the
Menu Bar, and then choose EXIT.
Windows - Double click on the BIG MINUS
SIGN in the far upper left hand corner.
|
Student Activity
1. Close Netscape.
2. Open Netscape.
3. Close Netscape.
One last remark:
There are other things on the
Internet, such as e-mail, chat rooms, bulletin boards, etc.,
in which you can participate. There are two
things to keep in mind when you use these services:
1. Security
2. Netiquette.
Security is important, just because
you don’t know who is out there. You might
not want to put your family’s pictures, address or phone
number out there for people to see (and maybe exploit).
Warn your students about the same possibilities.
Netiquette is being polite to others
on the Internet. It includes things like speaking
nicely, not hogging up space or time, keeping your hands off
of other people’s files, not copying or quoting things
without permission, and just generally following the golden
rule.
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