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Internet Terms and Technologies

The Internet is a phenomenon. It has certainly changed the way most of us communicate, learn, shop, get information... and we probably haven't even begun to conceptualize all of the organizational and societal implications and future changes as a result of this technological advance.

Here are a few sites to skim to get a feel for what's happening on the Internet:

Open Market's site shows interesting Internet factoids.

W3Schools.com shows various browser statistics.

The Georgia Institute of Technology conducts WWW User Surveys with information about demographics and much more.

A bit of history

If you're not already familiar with the history of the Internet take a look at A Brief History of the Internet by some of its founders. Really interesting and enlightening. What's amazing to me is the 'critical mass' that occurred to make this happen. (Quiz: when was the term "Internet" formally coined?)

Internet terminology

Check out this GAME to see if you can select the correct definitions for these Internet terms! :-)  If you're feeling like you need to get up to speed on how the Internet works, check out The Web Teacher tutorial!

All the ways that we've come to use the Internet on a daily basis can be used for learning, as well. Think about how these kinds of Internet features might be used for education: communication tools (e.g., listservs, bulletin boards, and threaded discussions), curriculum sites, online tutorials, web-quests (online field trips), online feedback and game tools (quizzes and  games)...

Here are just some of the ways the Internet is being used for learning...

• Websites that showcase student projects.

• Threaded discussions used to talk about important issues (like we do on in our discussion area) or to exchange information (ditto) or to post questions that experts can respond to.

• Email passed between students who are working together on a project or sent to the instructor about a question.

• Email attachments allowing homeschooled students to send papers to mentors for feedback and grading.

• FTP sites allow large files to be exchanged and websites to be publicly posted for others to view.

• E-commerce allows students to sign up for classes and buy their books.

One of the interesting things about websites designed for educational use is that they can be used in an in-person setting (as an adjunct to what's happening in class), at a distance, or a combination of both (hybrid in-person AND at a distance)

Next week, after our discussion of instructional design, we'll start looking at sites with an educational intent and evaluating them.

Internet Technologies

Some of the course projects will contain a section where you will learn some aspect of Internet technology. At the end, you'll be asked to answer a question (or questions) and/or reflect on what you learned and send that information to Patti (part of the send-to-Patti activities explained in the assignment link).

Here's the first...

Think you can't understand all the technology behind the Internet? Think again! You know the "How Things Work" series? Well, they've done one called "How Web Servers and the Internet Work." It's short and to the point. Read it, fill out the form, and get it to me no later than the last day of the project.

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