"Gee Whiz" Intro to the Internet's Capabilities

Whether you consider yourself an internet novice or a power-user, check out some of these resources to familiarize yourself with a tiny sampling of the content available on the information superhighway.

The internet offers amazing power to access public information:

• Education Related:
  • THOMAS: US Congress on the Internet
  • Universal Currency Converter ( more math links at www.wtvi.com/math
  • NASA's Space Calendar, Athena Earth and Space Science Curriculum, and Hubble Space Telescope picture
  • Volcano World maintained by NASA
• Non-Education Related:
  • Switchboard: A searchable address/phone database of people and businesses (includes maps).
  • MapQuest-TripQuest: Design and print your own custom maps and travel planners, including door to door directions
  • The LIST: A searchable database of almost 5000 different internet service providers (ISPs). Find the best deal for your area. Remember price is not everything: check how many modems and lines the ISP has for you to access. Call their modem numbers at peak hours and check for busy signals.

Pre-requisite Skills

Before learning to create webpages, it is important to get comfortable navigating the internet, locating information, and copying/pasting webpage information. Print out the following online articles to assist in this learning process:

• "Successful Search Strategies" article (November 97 TechEdge): Learn to conduct successful searches on Yahoo, AltaVista, and Excite. Specific "search syntax" required for each search engine is explained, as well as boolean search syntax.
• "Web Browser Skills for Research" article (August 97 TechEdge): Learn to copy and paste text and graphics from a webpage into a word processing document.

News links

CNN	USA Today	The Economist	US News and World Report
The Atlantic Monthly	PBS Online	The Lubbock Avalanche Journal Online	Online Newspapers of K-12 Schools
Today's Headlines by Category	Current US Stock Market Update	National Geographic

Other Resources for learning about the internet:

• Interested in how the world-wide web (WWW) got started? Check out the Little History of the World-Wide Web.
• Life on the Internet: Exploring is a good guide for newcomers to the internet, offering information and links.
• Have questions about the WWW? Consult this growing list of WWW FAQs (Frequently asked questions) page.
• Don't commit an electronic fauxpas! Read about Netiquette for the World-Wide Web (Manners of the web!)

Continue to Part 1: School Web Sites

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Course and Website by Wesley A. Fryer of Lubbock, Texas.
Site sponsored by WesTech Vision Inc.