Table of Contents
Introduction | Welcome to the Web | Browsers and ISP's | Acronym City | Nettiquette | Get Search Savvy | Search Engines | Bookmarks/Favorites | Email | WebQuests | Teacher Resources | Treasures of the Internet and Technology Toolbox | Toys! | Guest Book | Credits |

Internet Integration: a Jump Start
making the web work for you!

Introduction:

The Internet is clearly one of the most valuable learning tools in the history of mankind.
But with more than five billion Web pages already on the net, one could spend years just sorting through the clutter. This page is designed to jump start the journey on the information superhighway and to assist eductators in the pursuit of integrating the Internet into their classrooms quickly, easily and effectively.

Welcome to the Web

• How it all started, ARPANET, DOD. Etc. And no, Al Gore had *nothing* to do with it!  For the lowdown on the real story, read the History of the Internet
• WNET School Internet Primer This excellent Internet Primer is "designed especially for K-12teachers and begins with the assumption that you're new to the Web. You'll learn more about using the Web in your classroom. You'll find tips, interactive templates, and other resources that will put your knowledge to practice!"
• Beginners Guide to the Net "This tutorial will show you why the Internet is such a valuable resource for educators by taking you on a tour through some of the best biggest and best educational sites currently online."
• Learn the Net an Internet Guide and Tutorial
• Internet 101  — "Internet 101 was created for those who want to know just the basics. This guide will provide you with enough knowledge to have fun on the Internet, yet will not bore you with too many details. Think of this as a set of instructions...for people who don't like to read instructions!"
• webTeacher Tutorial  "Welcome to webTeacher, a self-paced Internet Tutorial that puts both basic and in-depth information about the World Wide Web at your fingertips - just a mouse click away!"
• Forget the Java and the HTML! Just Click and Type to Create a Really Cool Web Page Using Netscape Navigator Composer: A Tutorial   - A no-nonsense, easy to follow tutorial that I wrote on how to create your own web pages using Netscape Composer. Features a lot of screen captures and graphics so that you can be "on the net" in a jiffy! (hope you like it!:-)

Browsers and ISP's: Vive la Difference!

Internet Explorer - Windows based, probably going to take over soon thanks to that imp of Satan, but brilliant man and philanthropist, Bill Gates

Netscape Navigator (my favorite!) - The first, the easiest to use, AND the only one  that provides a FREE built in Web Design Composer! Take that Kermit the Gates!

ISP's (Internet Service Providers) - You gotta have them.. but which kind?

AOL - (EWwwww!) I mean, umm easy to use and a favorite with a lot of people.

Cable, ex. Comcast@Home - if you are in an area where the market is not saturated this is a good deal, never a dial-up...always on.. and pretty fast. IF, however, you are in a community where this is very poplular you will find that the speed and stalls to be the same as when you were using your 14.4 modem!

DSL - if you can get this in your area, try it out.. same advantages of cable with no dial-ups and no need for an extra phone line but it's expandable wheras cable, is not.

Acronym City - What does *that* mean!?

If you read email, newsgroups, chat, IM, or just look around the Internet, you're bound to run into acronyms, abbreviations or other computer and the Internet related terms that you may not be familiar with. The most common are:
Computer Terms:

• ASP - Application Service Provider (Internet/web)
• FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
• FTP -  File Transfer Protocol
• HTML - hyper text markup language (internet code language)
• HTTP- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (world wide web protocol)
• ISP - Internet Service Provider
• TCP/IP -  Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
• URL - Uniform Resource Locator (world wide web address)
• WYSIWYG - What You See is What You Get (Web editing interface, like composer)
• WWW - World Wide Web

The next time this happens, just point your browser to the AcronymFinder and lookup the acronym in question.  Or you could also visit the Webopedia: Online Dictionary for Internet Terms and Technical Support to look up more detailed meanings of technology terms!

Email/Chat Terms:

• BTW - by the way
• LOL - laugh out loud
• ATM - at the moment
• IMHO - in my humble opinion
• JK - just kidding
• BRB - be right back

For more chat acronyms and a smiley :-) dicionary go to The Smiley File. Warning though, it will make your teeth ache, it's *that* cute!

 

Netiquette - "When thou enter a city, abide by its customs." - The Talmud

Netiquette is just what it sounds like, Internet Etiquette...it is a set of guidelines and rules on how to behave online with appropriate Internet manners... or, How notto look like nubie online:
 

• SPAM or why not to FWD- Don't forward jokes, stories, cartoons, or programs to people-it clogs that email inbox and is considered tiresome and rude. We've all seen it before a:  prayer for peace, funny cartoon or story, scary virus warning, sad drunk driving story, good luck and good fortune are yours ---if only--- you send this email to 5, 8, 10 or 30 of your best friends. Puh-lease! That's just an electronic form of a chain letter and should be deleted as soon as you get it.  Don't send it to your friends, because if they are net savvy users, they will not thank you for it.
• Get the FAQ, Jack!-If you ever have a question about a page look for the FAQ- Frequently Asked Queststions.
• SHOUTING!! - Don't compose email or IM's in all capital letters- it's considered shouting and is very rude.
• Don't Reply All to a list serve email, if you want to just email the person who sent it. Doing this sends your personal response to that email to ALL the members of the listserve, and sometimes can get you into trouble! Ack!
• Don't send HUGE email attachments (.jpeg, pict, bmp, or doc) to people. Compress the image if you can and or send the email in small groupings. Otherwise, it clogs up their InBox and may push them over the allowable limit for mail storage.

Netiquette Guides -Remember the Human!
 
• The Core Guide to Netiquette from the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea.
• Are You Net Savvy? - a directed Internet Task for students to explore the issues of netiquette, internet safety, internet privacy, knowing your sources, misleading banner ads, and more!
• Netiquette for Kids
• Internet Safety Game
• Life on the Internet: Netiquette"Tips on polite usage of the Internet. As more and more people start using the Internet, more and more is being written about the social conventions of this special community"

Get Search Savvy! And, Or, NOT! Meet my best friend, Boolian!

There are over 500,000 *billion* webpages out there on the net right now....but when you do a typical Altavista or Google search only about 100 billion show up. The other webpages are buried in what we call the "deep web" or pages that are inacessable to the public being either university, government or are high security pages. Therefore, to get the most out of your search, it's important to know the tricks and the techniques to sieve through those 100 billion pages to find those sites that are the most helpful for your purposes.

Searching Tools/Stragtegies/Help

Internet Search Tools Quick Reference Guide for Students and Teachers from SEIR*TEC this is the best chart I have seen that gives you search strategies for each of the major search engines. Print it out and keep it next to your computer, it's that good!

Seven Steps Toward Better Searching- "To become a web Jedi master, you need to become facile with at least one search engine... so facile that doing an effective search becomes completely automatic. This state will come fairly quickly as long as you practice frequently." Read this webpage carefully, then take the quiz at the bottom of the page to see if you are now a Jedi Search Master! (light saber, optional!)

AltaVista search help- "helps you find Web pages, news, discussions, products, images, videos or audio clips on the World Wide Web. Here's how it works. You tell the search service what you're looking for by typing in keywords, phrases, or questions in the search box. The search service responds by giving you a list of all the Web pages, news, discussions and products in our index relating to those topics. The most relevant content will appear at the top of your results."

Yahoo search help

Search Engines - Now that you know how to search savvy, go try it here!

Yahoo!

AltaVista  a great site with a family filter!

MetaCrawler

Dogpile

All the Web

Google

Bookmarks/Favorites —Never Re-Invent the Wheel!

Collection- if you see something you like as you travel, bookmark it, because sometimes it's hard to find your way back! Think of the bookmark as your "virtual breadcrumb" in the forest of the'net.

To manage your bookmarks read the Bookmarks-A-Go-Go portion of this site where you can learn how to:

Save your bookmarks on your HD and/or on a disk so that you can take them with you and preserve them against crashes.

Organize your bookmarks/favorites into folders, with separators.

Sharing/Virtual Desktops
Tired of losing your bookmarks or bringing them with you on a floppy? Store your favorite bookmarks online and organize your digital life with the following free services.

 ikeepbookmarks.com   Web-based bookmark manager - upload your bookmarks to this site for free and have students access them from anywhere in the world. Make a folder for each grade or class!

 bungo

 ecircles

 magicaldesk.com

 visto.com

 myfamily.com

 interplanner.com

Online Hard Drives/Data Storage
Save your work on the Internet- Like an online Swiss bank account for documents, rather than carry disks around, or emailingf yourself your ongoing work or documents, utilize online FREE storage. Great idea if you have an iMac or need to share files with collegues for group projects!

freediskspace.com FREE 300mgs of free hard drive storage on the Internet

 diskwise.com

Email — Keep in touch, Everywhere!
Now, I don't personally believe in allowing elementary or middle school kids to use, access, or send email in school for obvious safety reasons, but teachers should be able to communicate with the outside world for professional reasons.

Hotmail the largest free email service in the world it allows you check your email anywhere in the world . Another benefit, you can configure up to 3 POP mail addresses, so that you can check your school email at home and your home email at school!

Edmail  email for the school and the community

Gaggle.net  "use  Gaggle Network to provide safe, teacher-controlled e-mail accounts for students" One of the best and most secure email services for students. You, the teacher, monitor ALL email accounts and moderate the use by students. It's a lot of work but it's the only way to safely allow students to use email in school. Otherwise, the risks can be too high.

GoMo Mail email with animations, sounds and images

Free Email Addresses   A comprehensive list with comments about each service!

Care2 free email/greeting card service that cares about wildlife, more reliable and less tweaky than Blue Mountain.

WebQuests - Getting the *Best* out of the Web!

The WebQuest Page- by Bernie Dodge - The head guru of ALL WebQuests, this is where you should start to learn about this wonderful teaching tool.

The WebQuest Training Materials

WebQuest Taskonomy: A Taxonomy of Tasks

WebQuests: A Strategy for Scaffolding Higher Level Learning

WebQuests@Work What They Are, Where to Find Them and, How to Use Them Effectively- a consice at-a-glance guide to using WebQuests in your classroom

WebQuests in Our Future: The Teacher's Role in Cyberspace - an excellent slide show by consumate education technology leader, Kathy Schrock

WebQuest Templates- Want to create your own WebQuest? Use these *free* templates!

A WebQuest about WebQuests for Elementary Teachers!

A WebQuest about WebQuests for Middle School Teachers!

WebQuests in the Middle School Curriculum

Teacher Resources and Sites

• Eduhound   Comprehensive and excellent! A great place to start for any educational resource, almost a one stop shop!
• MPT's Learning Works - With its skilled production staff and excellent facilities, MPT creates its own award- winning educational programs, available for students in Maryland and throughout the country. And, taking advantage of ever-changing technology, MPT offers online services on the World Wide Web to enhance and broaden its educational programming. Another must site to bookmark!
• TeacherWeb A fabulous resource! This should be the standard and template  for ALL teacher created websites.  TeacherWeb is a "FREE personal website that's as easy to use as the bulletin board in your classroom. What could be easier than posting assignments, announcements, and other educational material on your own classroom's bulletin board?  With TeacherWeb, you simply type in new homework assignments & special announcements while viewing your website. Then with the click of

a button, your updates will be instantly available to your students using any Internet access!
• Blackboard - Bringing Educatation Online -  Blackboard powers e-Learning and related commerce in the academic marketplace of schools, colleges, universities, and many of the top commercial e-Learning providers on the Internet today. Most services/features are *FREE* more interactive than TeacherWeb
• Lights, Camera, Action!Technology Integration Through Television Production -Created by Dianne P. Wells, Gifted and Talented Resource Teacher, this page introduces and gives excellent links on how to produce a "professional, research-based, live daily television broadcast in addition to producing pre-recorded research-based news magazine segments and public service announcements"
• Get More from the Web -This page chock full of great links to assist the educator in getting more from the web! Constructed by tech savvy Doug Fireside, this page is nicely made, frankly and amusingly annotated, and easily navigated. Some of the links are duplicates of the ones on this page, but there is a lot of really great information there.
• The HyperPowered Curriculum -page was designed for those teachers who use Hyper-Studio and other slide show/presentation software in their classrooms. You can find clip art, scoring rubrics and all sorts of other goodies here. Created by Amado "Sonny" Narvaez, Media Specialist for Montgomery County Public Schools.
• Kathy Shrocks Guide for Educator’s - "is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated daily to include the best sites for teaching and learning." As I said before, Kathy Shrock has created an amazing internet resource for all educators. Definately bookmark this one!
• Filamentality -"is a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web resources into learning activities. It helps you combine the "filaments" of the Web with a learner's "mentality" (get it?). Support is built in through Mentality Tips, so you'll be guided along the way and end up with a Web-based activity you can share with others even if you don' know anything about HTML, Web servers, or all that www-dot stuff."

Treasures on the Internet and Technology Toolbox - Two great resources from MPT!

Treasures on the Internet— A Sampling of Quality Sites and Resources
-Hundreds of excellent links, annotated and organized by curricular subject area. A must to bookmark!
Compiled by: Cynde Mutryn, Manager Technology Professional Development Projects,Maryland Public Television
and Sarah Blattner, Education Technology Specialist, Maryland Public Television

Technology Toolbox - another great site created by Sarah Blattner of MPT!
"MPT’s Technology Toolbox takes teachers through the many adventures of Internet-based projects. This collection of websites, resources, and lesson ideas helps teachers harness the Internet and bring it into their classrooms to transform each school day. There are tips and strategies for integrating everything from online collaboration projects to Web research and  Web authoring tools. Links to Internet investigations, online simulations, and virtual field trips are all housed in the toolbox. Teachers ready to unleash the power of the Internet as a learning tool will find everything they need here." Go here, and bookmark it, quick!

Toys! - Expressing the Geek in Me!

There are a few tech toys out there that are just FAB! If you have access to, or can purchase...don't miss getting and playing with:

• PDA or a Personal Digital Assistant - I particularly am fond of my blue Handspring Visor, but you can certainly Palm it, or get the new Microsoft (hiss!) version of portable computer.  This is truly what the future of computing is going to be: wireless, handheld, multifunctional and digital!
• Digital Camera - So handy a thing to have, I don't know where to start. And the prices now are so affordable! I like the Sony Mavica because it uses a floppy disk, so easy to expand, save and convert digital pics!
• Digital Video Camera - It's the future of creating multimedia in your classroom. With so many programs like iMovie, Avid Cinema, and a host of others, students are able to shoot, edit and finesse a digital multimedia project in just hours!
• CDR/W -  a rewriteable CD drive.. Until rewritable DVD drives come out, this is the best for creating student portfolio's and digital resumes.

Credits - This page was made possible by the generous support of the following:

this page was designed on a Macintosh computer by
gwyneth anne bronwynne jones for the NTTI/MPT conference March24-25, 2000
last updated March 2001

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