Internet is the buzzword of the millennium. Never before
has a technology spread so rapidly. Never has an invention enabled so many people
to do so many things—things that are strategically important to life in the
information society. So strategic that being able to use the Internet has become
a basic skill. So important that understanding the Internet and knowing how
to communicate over it has become a literacy. Internet literacy is what this book is about. The goal
is to provide a course of study that will enable students to acquire the conceptual
background and the online skills needed to become Internet literate. An important
feature of this book is the way it avoids unnecessary jargon and computer terms.
By focusing on the tasks that an Internet literate person should be able to
accomplish, and by using software that makes those tasks easy to accomplish,
this book provides a course of instruction that any college student, adult learner,
or motivated high school student can successfully complete. Working through
this book will enable students to use the Internet in their daily lives and
become intelligent consumers of information. Another key feature is the way this book teaches the student
how to create Web pages and publish them on the World Wide Web. After learning
how to use Internet search engines to conduct research, students complete a
Web page creation tutorial that steps through the process of online writing
and documenting Internet resources with proper bibliographic style. Thus, the
student becomes a creator and a publisher, not just a consumer, of the Internet.
Along the way, the student creates a home page and a Web page résumé. Several
students have reported that putting their résumés on the Web helped them find
jobs. OrganizationThe course is organized into seven parts. Part One defines
the Internet and explains how it is changing the world. After defining the basic
Internet services of electronic mail, listserv, newsgroups, chat, instant messaging,
videoconferencing, FTP, multimedia streaming, and the World Wide Web, the book
explains how they are being used across a broad range of industries to provide
people with important new capabilities, including telecommuting, home shopping,
online learning, government services, and interactive television. Especially
relevant to college students are the sections on teaching, learning, and interconnected
scholarship. Part Two covers the logistics of getting connected to the
Internet. Students learn about Internet service providers and how to connect
via telephone modems, Ethernet, ISDN, DSL, or cable modems. Then the students
go online and learn how to surf the Net using a World Wide Web browser. This
initial online experience is designed in such a way as to provide students with
the maximum amount of Internet benefit through a minimum knowledge of technical
terms and computing concepts. More knowledge of the inner workings of the Net
comes in later parts of the book. Here, the focus is on ease of use and learning
how to get to places and find things without getting too technical. In Part Three, students learn how to communicate over the
Internet, first through electronic mail, and then via listservs, newsgroups,
and forums. Step-by-step tutorial exercises allow students to practice key concepts
and develop online skills. A chapter on Internet etiquette covers rules, courtesies,
and ethics that all users should observe when communicating online. Part Four is a tutorial on how to use Internet search engines
to find things online via subject-oriented searches, keyword searching, natural
language searches, and metasearching. Students learn how to search scholarly
databases of refereed articles as well as more general sources. In addition
to searching for text, students learn how to conduct multimedia searches for
pictures, animations, audio, and video. A special section on peer-to-peer file
sharing sensitizes students to the ethics of sharing copyrighted works over
the Internet. In support of online writing, students learn the proper
bibliographic style for citing Internet resources. MLA, APA, and CMS styles
are covered. Because almost anyone can learn how to publish information on the
Web, this book encourages the students to question the source and evaluate the
information before citing it. In Part Five, students learn how to establish a presence
on the Internet by creating Web pages and mounting them on the World Wide Web.
A chapter on Web page creation strategies helps students choose the proper tool
for the task at hand. A chapter on Web page design teaches screen design principles
and shows how to lay out Web page elements effectively. Then, students learn
how to create a home page and a Web page résumé and publish documents on the
Web. By linking their home page to their résumé and to other online resources,
students experience how hyperlinks can create a world of interconnected scholarship. Part Six brings the students’ Web pages to life by showing
how to use multimedia on the Internet. After making a waveform audio recording,
students learn how sounds, movies, and animations can be linked to Web pages
and made to play via different kinds of multimedia controllers and streaming
technologies. Then the book provides access to a large number of multimedia
creation tools for making active Web pages. Even though the Internet has already become an essential
part of life in the information society, the Net still is in many ways an emerging
technology that is inspiring debates about how it should evolve and become regulated.
Accordingly, Part Seven gets the students involved in planning for the future
of the Internet by discussing and debating the societal issues of equity, privacy,
security, protectionism, censorship, decency, copyright, and fair use. Then
students learn about the emerging technologies of the multimedia backbone, Internet
talk radio, the real-time streaming protocol, artificial intelligence, voice
recognition, text-to-speech conversion, image recognition, robots, intelligent
agents, videoconferencing, Internet phone services, Webcasting, virtual reality,
wireless communications, and Internet PCs. The book concludes by showing students how to use the Internet
for continued learning about the exciting new products that will be invented
during the coming decades. The best listservs, newsgroups, and Web sites for
keeping up with this fast-paced field are identified, and students learn how
to subscribe for free. World Wide Web Site Accompanying this book is an Internet Literacy Web site
by Pat Sine. It is called the Interlit Web site—Interlit stands
for Internet Literacy. The address of the site is http://www.mhhe.com/cit/hofstetter/.
It provides quick and easy access to all of the Internet resources and examples
referred to in this textbook. In addition to making it easy to find things,
the Interlit Web site can help save you money because almost all of the
resources it uses are available free of charge. Icons coordinate what you read in this book with what you
will find at the Interlit Web site. When you see an icon in the margin
of this text, you will know that you can go to the Interlit Web site
for quick and easy access to that item. For example, in the Web page creation
tutorial, where the book provides a layout analysis of exemplary Web pages,
the Interlit Web site provides hot links that enable you to visit the
exemplars and try them out. End-of-Chapter Exercises Throughout the course, end-of-chapter exercises provide
practical, hands-on assignments for students to complete outside of class. The
instructor can adjust the depth and rigor of the course by deciding which assignments
to require. Highly motivated students can go ahead and complete all of the exercises,
to harness the full potential of the Internet. Progressive Case Projects After the exercises in each chapter is a special section
containing progressive case projects. These projects are called progressive
because they build one upon another in a sequential fashion as the book unfolds.
The student imagines being employed in a small company or school that is planning
to use the Internet to improve daily operations. After completing each chapter,
the student applies its content to solving a real-world need or problem related
to the use of information technology in the workplace. The case projects are
optional. For a quick course about the Internet, the case projects can be skipped.
Longer courses can use the cases to deepen understanding by immersing students
in the solution of real-world problems in the workplace. Appendix B contains
an outline of the progressive case projects. Basic Windows and Macintosh Tutorials At six strategic locations in this book, Windows and Macintosh
tutorials have been provided for inexperienced students who may need help completing
basic computing tasks. The tutorials are presented at the point where students
will first need them. For students or instructors who want to locate the basic
Windows and Macintosh tutorials at other times, Appendix C shows where to find
them. What You Will Need to Use This BookInternet Literacy works with both Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft Internet Explorer on both Windows and Macintosh computers. In
order to complete the exercises and tutorials in this book, the student will
need access to a Windows PC or a Macintosh running either Netscape Navigator
or Microsoft Internet Explorer. The student will also need an Internet account
that provides the basic Internet services of e-mail, newsgroups, FTP, and the
Web. Students who do not already have Internet access should refer to Part Two
of this book, which provides a detailed explanation and comparison of the options
for getting connected to the Internet. Although high-speed connections work
best, all of the exercises in this book can be completed via modem over an ordinary
telephone line. Internet Tooklit By working through the tutorial exercises in this book,
the student will acquire a toolkit full of utilities for authoring Web pages,
manipulating images, recording and editing sound, creating animations, and maintaining
a Web site. Appendix A lists the utilities used in this book. Any of these utilities
that the student does not already have can be downloaded from the Interlit
Web site. Utilities are provided for both Windows and Macintosh computers. Microsoft FrontPage 30-Day Trial CD In the Web page creation tutorial that begins in Chapter
18, you will have your choice of using either Netscape Composer or Microsoft
FrontPage. Netscape Composer is part of Netscape, which is available as a free
download from http://www.netscape.com. If you choose Microsoft FrontPage and
do not already own a copy, you can use the 30-day trial version that comes for
free on the CD that is included with this book. The author is grateful to Microsoft
Corporation for granting permission for McGraw-Hill to distribute the CD with
this book. If you plan to use the 30-day trial version, please understand that
it will expire 30 days after you install it. You should, therefore, not install
it until you are actually ready to begin working on the exercises in Chapter
18. If you wait until then, 30 days will be plenty of time to complete the tutorial.
Then you will be ready to consider whether you want to purchase a retail copy
of Microsoft FrontPage. AcknowledgmentsI have many people to thank for making this project possible,
but most of all, I want to acknowledge my students, who inspired this book through
their enthusiastic participation in the experimental courses that were the precursors
to what we now know as Internet Literacy. I learn more from my students
than from anyone else, and I look forward to every class, not so much to teach,
as to learn. University of Delaware Research Professor L. Leon Campbell
provided valuable service as the author’s “intelligent agent” on the Internet.
Almost daily, Leon sent the author information about issues, trends, and new
developments gleaned from his extensive surfing of the network. Leon is a valued
friend and colleague. Pat Sine, Director of the Office of Educational Technology
at the University of Delaware, created the Interlit Web site that supports
this book. Pat served as an invaluable resource throughout this project, and
I am grateful for her expertise, dedication, and numerous contributions. Dr. Primo Toccafondi, coordinator of the University of
Delaware’s degree programs in Southern Delaware, helped the author teach Internet
Literacy in a distance learning format. I will always be grateful to Toc
for his many suggestions and helpful comments on drafts of the text, as well
as for his camaraderie. Making new friends is one of the lifelong rewards of
working on projects like this one. At PBS, David Collings administers a distance learning
program that uses this textbook to deliver an Internet Literacy course
over the Web. I am grateful to David for his insight and dedication to making
online courses available on the PBS network. Rhonda Sands of McGraw-Hill served as this book’s first-edition
editor, Jodi McPherson edited the second edition, and Dan Silverburg edited
this third edition. I thank Rhonda, Jodi, and Dan for their many contributions,
both editorial and otherwise. I am especially grateful to Dan for the thorough
manner in which he conducted external reviews of this text prior to its publication.
I want to thank the following reviewers for their many insights and suggestions: Dr. Donna Austin, LSU-Shreveport Ron Berry, Northeast Louisiana University Dr. Gary Buterbaugh, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Carolyn Walsh Carter, Milligan College Tim Eichers, Northern Virginia Community College Bret Ellis, Brigham Young University, Hawaii Campus Daris Howard, Ricks College Robert Hubbard, Albertus Magnus College Tim Kennedy, Bellevue Community College Roger Lee, Houston Community College Anita Philipp, Oklahoma City Community College Pratap P. Reddy, Raritan Valley Community College Jerry Ross, Lane Community College Kala Chand Seal, Loyola Marymount University Robert Youngblood, Arizona State University
Information Technology at McGraw-Hill/IrwinAt McGraw-Hill Higher Education, we publish instructional
materials targeted at the higher education market. In an effort to expand the
tools of higher learning, we publish texts, lab manuals, study guides, testing
materials, software, and multimedia products. At McGraw-Hill/Irwin (a division of McGraw-Hill Higher
Education), we realize that technology has created and will continue to create
new mediums for professors and students to use in managing resources and communicating
information to one another. We strive to provide the most flexible and complete
teaching and learning tools available, as well as offer solutions to the changing
world of teaching and learning. McGraw-Hill/Irwin is dedicated to providing the tools for
today’s instructors and students to successfully navigate the world of Information
Technology. Seminar Series—McGraw-Hill/Irwin’s
Technology Connection seminar series offered across the country every year demonstrates
the latest technology products and encourages collaboration among teaching professionals. McGraw-Hill/Osborne—This division of
The McGraw-Hill Companies is known for its best-selling Internet titles, Harley
Hahn’s Internet & Web Yellow Pages, and the Internet Complete Reference.
For more information, visit Osborne at www.osborne.com. Digital Solutions—McGraw-Hill/Irwin
is committed to publishing digital solutions. Taking your course online doesn’t
have to be a solitary adventure, nor does it have to be a difficult one. We
offer several solutions that will allow you to enjoy all the benefits of having
your course material online. Packaging Options—For more information
about our discount options, contact your local McGraw-Hill sales representative
at 1-800-338-3987 or visit our Web site at www.mhhe.com/it.
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