Internet for Beginners

1. Internet for Beginners Workshop presented to library assistants in Vredendal, Western Cape, 11 December 2012 Dr Sandy Zinn University of the Western Cape

2. Workshop Outline • Background to Internet & WWW • Web browsers • How to navigate a web page • How to read a URL • Email for beginners • Setting up a web-based email account • Netiquette • Search engines • How to use Google effectively

3. What is the Internet? • Background to Internet & WWW • Web browsers • How to navigate a web page • How to read a URL • Email for beginners • Setting up a web-based email account • Netiquette • Search engines • How to use Google effectively

4. Brief history of the Internet • Research that led to the Internet as we know it was funded by DARPA, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency in the USA. It was envisaged as a communications system to be used in a national emergency. • The first Internet went "live" in 1969 with two sites, UCLA and SRI (Stanford Research Institute). The Internet originated as the realm of the military, research centres, universities and government who identified its data transporting capabilities as significant. • In the 1980s the use of computers became more widespread. In 1989, Compuserve (now run by America Online) and MCI Mail provided the first commercial email connections to the Internet.

5. The Broadband Revolution is upon us! African undersea cables November 2012 http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables

8. Internet users Africa vs Rest of World http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm

9. Africa Top 10 Internet Countries Q2, 2012

10. Internet Penetration Top 5 Africa

11. How to connect to the Internet • Device (computer/tablet/smart phone) • Connection -Phone Line, ADSL, Wireless, Satellite, sim card • Modem - built-in/ USB • Application Software - Web Browser (Firefox/ Explorer/ Safari) • Internet Service Provider (ISP) – Mweb/ Vodacom/ Web Africa

12. Tools & Services on the Internet • download free software such as Adobe Reader to access pdf

14. About the WWW • The Web is a sub-section of the Internet, but it is the fastest growing part of it. • The Web is a large number of computer documents or "Web pages" that are stored on computers around the world and are connected to one another using hyperlinks.  • These Web pages can be seen by anyone through their computer's "Web Browser,“ • Originator of WWW: Tim Berners-Lee (1991) • Web pages are written in coded language such as html making it possible to add pictures, sound & interactivity to plain text

15. What you can do on the Web • Online shopping • Submit your tax return to SARS • Find Government info – Cape Librarian • Read e-books • Entertainment • Webcams • Library catalogues

16. How to navigate a Web page A B C D E

17. How to read a URL http://www.ala.org/ala/onlinelearning/index.cfm • http:// - (hypertext transfer protocol) indicates that this is a web page • www - indicates that this a web resource • ala.org – (American Library Association) is the domain name (unique address) of the machine on which the file is found, the host system • online learning - is the directory indicating the location of the resource on the system • The file name “index.cfm” is the actual document name or specific page you require

18. Can you read this URL? http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/

19. Domain name extensions – guess what they mean • .edu • .org • .ac • .com • co.za • .nl • .net

20. A few ways to access Websites • Enter a Web address into your browser and retrieve a page directly • Browse through sites and select links to move from one page to another both within and beyond the site • Do a search on a search engine such as Google to retrieve pages on any topic • Click on links within e-mail messages

21. Hyperlinks • Hyperlinking is a way of moving between website pages • The text to be hyperlinked is recognizable by being underlined or a different colour • Images or a combination of text + image can also perform hyperlinks

22. Web browsers are programmes used to explore the Internet

23. Email for beginners

24. What is email? • Electronic mail or e-mail is one of the most popular uses of the Internet. • With an e-mail account you can send an electronic message (much like a letter) to anyone with an e-mail account but you need to know their e-mail address. • An e-mail address looks like this: your username, then an @ ('at') symbol, and then a domain name (something .com, .net, or .org in most cases). E.g. szinn@uwc.ac.za

25. Setting up a account • Type the URL “gmail.com” in the address bar • Select (click on) “create an account” • Have your diary or cell phone handy to record the user name and password you decide to choose • Complete the online format and submit • You will receive a welcome message from Gmail

26. Sending an email • Select “Compose mail” • In the “To” field, enter the recipient’s email address • In the “Subject” field type a heading describing the gist of the email • The space below is the area where you type your message much like a letter • When completed you select the “send” button

27. Other options and fields • “Attach a file” option allows you to attach documents, images or any files saved on your computer • CC stands for carbon copy & is used if you want to send a message to multiple people, add the extra addresses in the CC field separated by commas • BCC stands for blind carbon copy. BCC works just like a carbon copy, except the e-mail addresses you type in BCC cannot be seen by recipients.

28. Netiquette • Never send an email in CAPITAL LETTERS only. It is the equivalent of shouting • When communicating with people not your closest friends address them with respect. Use complete sentences with proper capitalization and punctuation. Refrain from using shorthand abbreviations, such as “u” for you. • Refrain from flaming (bashing) - hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users • Don’t use emoticons with people you don’t know well.

29. Search Engines

30. Search Engines - Introduction • A collection of programs that gather information from the Web, index it, & put it in a database so it can be searched. • Search engines take keywords or phrases you enter, search the database for words that match the search expression, and return them to you. • The results (called hits)are hyperlinks to sources that have descriptions, titles, or contents matching the search expression.

31. Types of Search Engines • General • Ask http://www.ask.com • Google http://www.google.com • Exaleadhttp://www.exalead.com • Specialist • KidsClickhttp://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/ • Ananzi (South Africa) http://www.ananzi.co.za • SearchEdu (education information) http://SearchEdu.com/ • Meta • Dogpilehttp://www.dogpile.com/ • Mamma http://www.mamma.com • MetaCrawlerhttp://metacrawler.com

32. Using Google Homepage

33. Basic & Advanced Search • With basic searching use the fewest, most apt words • With advanced search you can tailor your results to be more accurate • Change search settings • Results page

34. Standard view of results for a search on “health”

35. Advanced search hits for “health + “bulimia” + “Afrikaans” OPTIONS

36. http://www.googleguide.com/

37. Finale Are you ready for your ? • You can find many more free templates on the Presentation Magazine website www.presentationmagazine.com