|
WEEK ONE - Lecture INTRODUCTION to the course, computer lab, the other
students and the instructor. PURPOSE – to give a basic understanding of
what the Internet is, and how it works. At the end of the course you will understand
how to organize your research plan so that you can locate information in a
rapid and efficient manner. Although
there are more than two browsers, tonight’s discussion will focus on the
Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers. We will also discuss basic
information such as: hyperlinks, scrolling, moving forward, backward,
searching and printing. The
Internet has more information than any library could possibly contain – even
the Library of Congress. It is a vast spider “Web” of Pages and Sites, E-Mails,
FTP, Telnet, Gopher, the World Wide Web, as well as what is referred to as
the Invisible Web. However,
not all of the information on the Internet is accurate; in fact, much of it
cannot be substantiated. One of the goals of this course is to learn some
techniques you can use to distinguish between reliable information and mere
hoaxes. BOOK
v. ELECTRONIC RESEARCH:
Electronic information does not replace – it supplements. It is not the
intent of this course to chase you away from the Library. Once you become
comfortable using the computer, your new skills will enhance your library
researching skills. Within minutes of thinking about a book you can pull up a
visual image on the computer screen. Later when you search the Library, you
know what it looks like. (i.e., Black’s Law Dictionary is red – it is written
by someone named Black) The
Internet has electronic versions of many of the same resources you find in
the Library – plus a few more resources with names you will soon come to
recognize – such as e-groups, newsgroups, listservs, search engines, directories,
indexes, etc. Most
Internet terminology is relatively straight-forward – However, sometimes the
terminology just seems to spring up from some unknown source and catch on.
Such as “bogs,” “robots,” “bugs” and “spiders” (You do not use bug spray to
get rid of them). What will you know at the end of this class? How the Internet
began, and the parts played by the World Wide Web, E-Mail, Lists, Usenet, Bookmarks and Browsers. You will have gone online and practiced using
the mouse to move from place to place on the browser, and from page to page
on the “Web”. How will we proceed? The class is broken into small lectures
that build upon one another. The first part of the class will always be
instruction followed by time reserved for you to practice your new skills. A homework assignment will be
distributed each week. Most often, you will be able to complete the
assignment during class. If you run out of time, the assignment must be
e-mailed to the instructor’s attention at: birdesq@ix.netcom.com. |