Internet

The Information Superhighway






  **Read Me! **


**Wow, that's cool... ** > >
 * There are approximately 1,319,872,109 people on the Internet.
 * MySpace hosts over 110 million registered users.
 * By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.
 * The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.
 * As currently built, there is room for 4.3 billion addresses on the Internet. One-third of those are already in use.
 * E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.
 * Somalia, a north-African country, boasts the highest percentage growth of Internet users in the world going from a mere 200 in 2000 to 90,000 in 2007
 * Iceland has the most Internet users per capita of any country in the world with over 86 percent of people using the Web, compared with only 69 percent of Americans.
 * About 183 billion e-mail messages are sent every day by about 1.2 billion e-mail users around the world.
 * The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.
 * The world's first computer, called the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2 was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer.
 * Approximately 365 million people in the world have computers while half of the world's 6.5 billion population has never seen or used a telephone.
 * The pound key (#) symbol's true name is octothorpe.
 * The chess-playing computer created by IBM called Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in a game of chess in May 1997. Kasparov demanded a rematch, to which IBM replied with a resounding, "no way."
 * No, Al Gore didn't "invent" the Internet, but he was part of the congressional body that funded it in an effort to connect the government with all the agencies and institutes of higher education who needed to talk to each other about the research for the government contracts in which they all had a hand.

**"Parts is Parts"** There are actually multiple parts of the "Internet." ** Browsers ** //A browsers are the way your computer looks around the Internet//. Browsers "come and go" and are actually software that is created for the purpose of navigating around the four parts of the Internet. Netscape was very popular at one point in time, but few use it today. Internet Explorer (a product of Microsoft) continues to be a popular browwser, along with Safari (for the MAC) and Mozilla's Firefox. If you use only one of these browsers, you should download another and try it out. They offer different features and you may find one that meets your needs more than your current choice. If you download any of these, know that they will NOT download a virus, they will NOT spam your computer and they are COMPLETELY free.
 * [|newgroups]
 * [|ftp]
 * [|email]
 * [|world wide web]

**Search Engines** A search engine is how your browser searches for information. There are so many search engines and the choice of which one to use depends on which interface and what attributes you prefer. But the MOST IMPORTANT thing to know about search engines is that NO one search engine searches more than 20% of the Internet. So, if you ONLY use Google (guilty, as charged), you are missing at least 80% of the Internet. So get out of your rut and see what else is out there. Change your search engine.

Some of my favorites include: [|AltaVista], [|AllTheWeb], and [|Clusty]. But these are only three!.

Check out this list for a more options! [|Search Engines.doc]

Every website belongs to a domain or group of like content websites.
 * What's With the Dot (Domains)**

For the most part, there are 4 MAJOR domains (although others do exist):
 * .com** at the end of a website address means that it is hosted by a commercial entity. Being a .com doesn't necessitate a bad thing. National Geographic is a .com and they are a rich source of valid information.


 * .edu** at the end of a website URL indicates the site is hosted by an institute of learning. This usually indicates a good source of information, but think about all those professors with a saracastic sense of humor (would you're students know the difference between humor and information?): http://www.ndc.edu/sutheimer/Default.htm


 * .org** at the end of a website URL indicates the site is hosted by a non-profit organization. This usually is a good sign, but consider this non-profit organization: [|http://www.martinlutherking.org] or [|http://www.whitehouse.org]


 * .gov** at the end of a website address indicates the site is hosted by the government (sometimes you find a .mil which was common to use with government military sites, but often now I see these obsorbed into the .gov domain).

 **See Me!** There are just a few sites as a teacher you really cannot miss:    
 * [|Thinkfinity]: If you can only get to ONE website for a content area, this is it. Click on this link and go to your content area and prepare to get THE single richest content site (most brought to you by the teaching organization of that content area, i.e., National Mathematics Teachers, etc.)
 * <span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt">[|Cyberguides]: Written by and for teachers, this rich California database gives you EVERYTHING you need to teach the best-of-the-best in literature (grouped by age level).
 * <span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt">[|4teachers.org] <span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt"> Funded by the federal government, this is a WONDERFUL website of on-line tools to use (rubric maker, permission slips, online quizzes, just to name a few)
 * <span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt">[|Epals] Are you a state citizen, or a global citizen? Connect your students with another peer somewhere else in the world and watch their writing improve!

<span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">**<span style="COLOR: rgb(180,71,8); BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,234,0)">Teach Me! ** So how do YOU search the Internet and how will you teach your students to be effective searchers? DO NOT MISS these techniques to vastly improve your searching on the Internet and shorten the amount of time it takes you to find "the perfect information." [|Better Searching.doc]
 * <span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt"> <span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; language: en-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: +mn-ea; mso-bidi-font-family: +mn-cs; mso-color-index: 1; mso-font-kerning: 12.0pt">http://www.rt66.com/~ozone/cam2.htm: And now you can actually BE at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem or SEE the camps on Mt. Everest. Webcams around the world!

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> **<span style="COLOR: rgb(180,71,8); BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,234,0)">Try Me! ** Your assignment is to create a CREATIVE, HIGH-LEVEL thinking scavenger hunt/field trip, designed to take your students on a learning adventure to further explore something in your scope and sequence.

--background --creative use of fonts --engaging graphics --high-level thinking questions (minimum 10). --links to wonderful wesites --student instructions written at the top of the document (so that the kids know what to do) --a lesson for your unit --for student use with research or to take them further into something you have done in class --embedded or copied into your wiki
 * Your field trip / scavenger hunt should include the following:**

--10 annotated websites (these are sites you will use or keep for student use, but you can only duplicate 2 sites you used in your field trip/scavenger hunt) --must be a living document (so you need to COPY it into your wiki so you can add to it easily)
 * Your weblist should include the following:**

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace">[|...field trip example] <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace">[|...scavenger hunt example] <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-no-proof: yes"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace">[|…scavenger hunt example #2] <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-no-proof: yes"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace">[|…scavenger hunt example #3] <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-no-proof: yes"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace">[|…scavenger hunt example #4] <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive"> PowerPoint seen in class: <span style="DISPLAY: block; COLOR: rgb(215,82,9); TEXT-ALIGN: center"> <span style="DISPLAY: block; COLOR: rgb(218,153,62); TEXT-ALIGN: left">
 * Want to see some examples?**