The A-mazing Internet

Learning How to Navigate the Web Effectively

The Basics : (November, 2008)

What is the Internet?

What is an IP Address?

What is a Domain Name?

A network of computers, all over the world, connected together.

An address that Web Browsers use to look something up.Example: 156.78.546.44. We see: http://www.-----

It is the name of the company for a website or someone that owns it. Example: www.google.com

Top Level Domain

.com

.gov

.edu.org *

.mil

.us

.ca

.uk.jp

.cn

Shows what group or category the domain name belongs.

Commercial

Gov’ment

EducationOrganization

Military

U. States

Canada

U. Kingdom Japan

China

URL - Web Browsers -

Home Pages -

Links –

Uniform Resource Locator

Another name for a Web Address.

This is computer software that allows you to browse the Internet. Examples: Firefox, Safari, Internet

Explorer.

When you visit a website, the first place that you usually arrive is the home page. Look for an index to navigate the site.

Words, (underlined, a different color. or graphic) when clicked on, will “ link ” you somewhere else.

I n t e r n e t

How information is arranged on the Web

The Web Address can give information about a site. All the /, dots, dashes, extensions can reveal plenty about a site – but

not always.

How to read a URL: “Along with the domain name, the URL describes specific folders, servers, companies, countries,

and communication methods.” (November, p. 11-12, 2008)

Truncating URLs

Truncate: To shorten

You can find out a lot about a site by truncating (or shortening) a URL, a little at a time.

Let’s practice:

Search for the following site:

History of Robots in the Victorian Era

Click on the word soldier

http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/soldier/index.html

http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/

http://www.bigredhair.com/

It’s your turn.

Look up the following URLs and visit the sites:

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

http://zapatopi.net/bsa/

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ http://zapatopi.net/bsa/

http://zapatopi.net

The ABC’s of Authenticating a Website(Laureate Education, 2009)

Author?

Does the website have an author?

Bias?

Is the website showing opinion or fact?

Content?

Is the information thorough?

Date?

Look for a copyright date. Is it an up-to- date site?

Editor?

Is there an editor or fact checker listed?

CREDITS

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.