The Internet, sometimes called simply “the Net,” is a worldwide system of computer networks – a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly to users at other computers). It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the ARPANET. The original aim was to create a network that would allow users of a research computer at one university to be able to “talk to” research computers at other universities. A side benefit of ARPANet’s design was that, because messages could be routed or rerouted in more than one direction, the network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed in the event of a military attack or other disaster.

Today, the Internet is a public, cooperative, and self-sustaining facility accessible to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Physically, the Internet uses a portion of the total resources of the currently existing public telecommunication networks. Technically, what distinguishes the Internet is its use of a set of protocols called TCP/IP (for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Two recent adaptations of Internet technology, the intranet and the extranet, also make use of the TCP/IP protocol.

For many Internet users, electronic mail (e-mail) has practically replaced the Postal Service for short written transactions. Electronic mail is the most widely used application on the Net. You can also carry on live “conversations” with other computer users, using Internet Relay Chat (IRC). More recently, Internet telephony hardware and software allows real-time voice conversations.

The most widely used part of the Internet is the World Wide Web (often abbreviated “WWW” or called “the Web”). Its outstanding feature is hypertext, a method of instant cross-referencing. In most Web sites, certain words or phrases appear in text of a different color than the rest; often this text is also underlined. When you select one of these words or phrases, you will be transferred to the site or page that is relevant to this word or phrase. Sometimes there are buttons, images, or portions of images that are “clickable.” If you move the pointer over a spot on a Web site and the pointer changes into a hand, this indicates that you can click and be transferred to another site.

Using the Web, you have access to millions of pages of information. Web browsing is done with a Web browser, the most popular of which are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The appearance of a particular Web site may vary slightly depending on the browser you use. Also, later versions of a particular browser are able to render more “bells and whistles” such as animation, virtual reality, sound, and music files, than earlier versions.

HTML
(Hyper Text Markup Language)

Filename extension	.html, .htm
Internet media type	text/html
Type code	TEXT
Uniform Type Identifier	public.html
Developed by	World Wide Web Consortium & WHATWG
Type of format	Markup language
Extended from	SGML
Extended to	XHTML
Standard(s)	W3C HTML 4.01 W3C HTML 3.2 W3C HTML 5 (draft)

HTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of “tags” surrounded by angle brackets within the web page content. It can include or can load scripts in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML processors like Web browsers; and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The W3C, maintainer of both HTML and CSS standards, encourages the use of CSS over explicit presentational markup.^[1]

Hyper Text Markup Language(HTML) is the encoding scheme used to create and format a web document and for other needs such as displaying a list of information. A need not be an expert programmer but should know some programming to make use of HTML for creating hypertext documents that can be put on the internet.

Blogs appear on the news pretty often these days. For example, a reporter is tipped to a story by a blog, or a blog reports another angle on a story. Blogs show up in magazines a lot, too.

But there is a good chance you have never seen a blog (also known as a weblog) or experienced the blogosphere. What are blogs? There are now millions of them — where did they all come from?

One of the things that is so amazing about blogs is their simplicity.

Think about a “normal Web site.” It usually has a home page, with links to lots of sub-pages that have more detail. HowStuffWorks is like this, with thousands of information pages all organized under a home page. A small business site follows the same format — it might have a home pag­e and five or 10 sub-pages. Most traditional Web sites follow this format. If the site is small, it is sort of like an online brochure. If it is large, it is like an electronic encyclopedia.

­ A typical Web site has a home page that links to sub-pages within the site. CNN.com is typical of this genre. The CNN site contains thousands of articles all organized into big categories. The categories and all the latest stories are accessed from the home page.

- A blog is much simpler:

-A blog is normally a single page of entries. There may be archives of older entries, but the “main page” of a blog is all anyone really cares about.

-A blog is organized in reverse-chronological order, from most recent entry to least recent.

-A blog is normally public — the whole world can see it.

-The entries in a blog usually come from a single author.

-The entries in a blog are usually stream-of-consciousness. There is no particular order to them. For example, if I see a good link, I can throw it in my blog. The tools that most bloggers use make it incredibly easy to add entries to a blog any time they feel like it

It is significantly cheaper to employ online social networking strategies than to pay for advertising. When you social network, you can prescreen potential customers. You learn what your prospects like and what they don’t. That personal relationship you gain when you connect with your potential customer is more valuable than what you would get had you advertised. Advertising is impersonal: the “one size fits all” concept does not seem to work anymore.

Credibility and Trust

Connecting with prospects on a personal level builds trust and credibility. A general rule of thumb is to offer your services, expertise or help before you ask for it. It is acceptable to promote your services when asked. If you’re not careful, your attempts could be considered spam. Instead, wait for the opportunities to present themselves instead of forcing a situation.

Educational Benefits of Social Networking
Education Week has published an article which indicates that Social Networking can have educational benefits. According to a survey commissioned by the National School Boards Association (NSBA), 50% of teens say they talk to their peers about schoolwork online (IM, blog or social networking sites) or via text message. A larger proportion (60%) indicate that they discuss education-related topics such as college and career planning. According to the survey, 96% of students with access to the Internet build social networks. That more than 50% of these students discuss education is promising for educators. NSBA says that Social Networking technologies should be adapted for use in the classroom.

“When it’s another generation’s technology, it’s easy to be uncomfortable with it and say we don’t need it,” said Ann Flynn, the NSBA’s director of educational technology. “We want to say to people, explore these things. Figure out what kinds of tools they are. By no means are we saying people shouldn’t be safe. But we also don’t want to see policies that are so restrictive that the unintended consequence is to keep the technology out of the hands of educators.”

The NSBA suggests setting up chat rooms or blogs where students can talk about, and collaborate on, schoolwork. They also suggest altering policies that ban or restrict the use of these sites while at school. The survey found that the reports of cyberbullying or online bullying could be out of proportion to the fear induced by it. Their report indicated that 7% of students surveyed said they were victims of cyberbullying – this is much less than the 32% indicated in a survey by PEW conducted earlier this summer. The NSBA survey also included a separate study on how districts use technology. 96% of the district leaders interviewed say that teachers assign homework via the Internet, and nearly half of the schools go online for collaborative projects with other schools. Currently, 80% of schools ban chat software, and more than 50% ban the use of social networking sites. This policy may be too restrictive. Social networking can be embraced for its “social” modes of learning, and with education on Internet safety, can be a valuable educational tool.

“One reason why many educators do not find the technologies ‘useful educational tools’ comes from the fact that the teaching paradigm that most teachers use—kids ‘being taught’ (mostly by lecture)—conflicts with these technologies,” he said in an e-mail. “If you are lecturing, they are mainly an interruption. The technologies become much more useful (and in fact necessary) once the paradigm shifts to ‘students teaching themselves’ (with guidance).”

Many analysts also believe that social networking sites will be key assets in future job interviews. Currently 10% of companies review social networking profiles as a part of the candidate review process – a number which will only increase. Education should stem around embracing social networking sites, and their uses for education, but also on what types of information students should and should not be posting online. Security should also be considered part of the education process – this report by CNET recently exposed the dangers of allowing “friends” access to your personal information. You can read the full NSBA report here [PDF]. Tags: social networking, social networking education, education technology, technology in the classroom, facebook, myspace, social learning

• Odds & Sods Sound files of our theme music, plus some assorted tips.
• The Edutainment Page This modestly named site contains a wealth of reviews of non-game based CD-Roms. If you are looking for a good encyclopaedia, or for value material for younger members of the family, this Oz site is highly recommended as a way to get an independent evaluation of what’s out there on the shelves.
• Peter Garriga- Beyond the Black Stump This site is exceptional value. Peter is a computer professional who has developed his site as a kind of hobby. He maintains a heap of terrrific links. In fact we wish we’d found some of them ourselves! This site is highly recommended.
• The Postcard Store. This site is for fun. It allows you to choose a picture postcard from a fairly wide range of famous paintings, include a message, and then email it to a friend. The recipient will receive a message saying there is a postcard waiting for them, plus a mailbox code. They simply check the site, enter their mailbox code and presto! A little gem from MIT’s media lab.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation The essential Electronic Frontier Foundation, protecting “freedom of expression, privacy, and access to online resources and information.”
• The History of Computing A slightly eclectic resource with pointers to a wealth of information about computers. Useful collection of .Gif images (eg. Ada Lovelace).
• The Charles Babbage Institute This site is also about computer history, although it’s more focussed on the serious researcher.
• Internet Society Home Page
• Doug Richardson’s Bookmarks Doug is a lecturer at Sydney University’s continuing education program. He’s compiled this very useful list of Web sites & resources. If you are still coming to terms with the World Wide Web, this site is Highly recommended.
• Quantum’s World Wide Web Search Forms Sooner or later you’ll want to search for something specific on the Web. This search page from our sister program is an easy place to start.
• internet.au magazine. Oz based magazine devoted to the Internet.
• Internet Australasia Another Oz based magazine devoted to the Internet. (Interesting to see the different approaches these competing magazines have taken in building their web pages).
• Next.com “Next” are doing quite interesting things to bridge the gap between conventional publishing and the Internet. There is a lot to explore here, including “Geek Girl“, a cyber ‘Zine by and for net-wise women.
• Firehorse Not sure how to describe this one. It’s got great graphics and links into all sorts of things:- from aboriginal art, to fishing tackle.
• Tandanya Aboriginal Art Tandanya is an art gallery in Adelaide which specialises in works by contemporary aboriginal artists. This web site has pics and prices. (Yes, the paintings are for sale). It is, for obvious reasons, quite graphics intensive.
• The Louvre While we’re on the subject of art, this site is the Australian ‘mirror’ of that famous French museum. (Art transcends Politics)
• Spectrum This a web magazine which caters for people who are interested in developing their own web pages.
• List of USENET FAQs The USENET is a part of the Internet which hosts conferences on specific topics. It is email, rather than WWWeb based, and for that reason it’s much more accessable. This is the mother of all lists of Frequently Asked Questions about the USENET.
• Tom Fine’s Home page Tom is the person who compiled the above list. This is his home page. Included here as a cool example.
• ABC-TV’s BTN program “Behind The News” has always been a very useful resource for educators. Now you can use the web to access complete program scripts plus useful links for teachers.
• Australian Schools on the Internet If you want to see what the next generation is already capable of, check out some of these sites. This is a nation-wide list, so schools trying to locate other net-connected schools should also find it useful.
• Oz Goverment This is a good place to start if you are trying to track down official Australian Government information.
• Global Weather Info Maybe it’ll rain tomorrow, maybe it won’t. But you’ll have a better idea if you check this site. Nice satellite maps.
• Population Clocks If you want to settle arguments about the state of the world’s population, or if you are curious about the total for the USA, you’ll find answers to both questions here.
• International Date and Time Einstein said time was relative, but he’d never heard of the Internet. If you want to know what time it is elsewhere in the World, this is one way to check.
• NASA Information Services via World Wide Web We included this here because we figured every surfer likes a bit of space!
• NetCafe After all this cyber-surfing, you may feel like a break. Netcafe is an interesting place to stop. It’s a real coffee shop in Melbourne, with a home page well worth the visit. You’ll find links to a number of international newspapers, plus an eclectic selection of interesting sites.
• Netscape Navigator FTP and Mirror Sites In designing these pages, for the most part, we’ve avoided using layout which makes extensive use of HTML v3. We wanted to make our site accessable to as many people as possible, no matter what browser they were using. However many of the sites listed here require HTMLv3 capable browsers. The link above will lead you lead you to a site where you can download the latest PC & Mac versions of Netscape. (Pick the site nearest you for speedier download).Netscape 2.0 is roughly 2.5 Mbytes. If you don’t have a fast modem it might be wiser to find someone who already has a copy. For pointers to sites where you can obtain other browsers check TUCOWS