Internet: Theory and Practice D7XG 35

As part of your HNC/D Social Science, you will be required to use computers and the internet to search for information, complete assessments and perhaps even apply to university!

Ten years ago, only a handful of university students and computer enthusiasts had access to email and the internet. Today, it plays an increasingly important role in our everyday lives, whether at college, at work or at home.

Working in small groups, discuss the ways in which you use the internet. Where do you access it from? Are your friends and family on the internet? When did you first start using the internet? How easy do you find it to use?

Problems with the internet

The development of the internet has not been problem-free, and in this unit, we will look at some of the problems associated with using the internet and how to overcome them.

In the same groups, discuss the pros and cons of using the internet. You may want to consider:

• Speed of accessing information
• Cross-cultural issues and opportunities
• Barriers to accessing the internet (cost, disability)
• Information sources, plagiarism and reliability of information
• Any other issues you can think of?

Some of these terms may be unfamiliar to you – discuss them in the group to see if you can work out what they mean, and ask your tutor if you are uncertain.

This Unit

This unit has four outcomes (we will be doing them out of order!)

We will start by making sure everyone is comfortable in using a PC, and with an introduction to Word – the main programme you will be using in writing up assessments and other college work.

Next, we will move on to email, setting up email accounts, communicating and managing communications via the internet (LO3).

We’ll then take a look at using the internet effectively, navigating, searching and managing information on the Internet (LO2).

You will be required to investigate a topic using the Internet, selecting websites, reviewing and rating them. Hopefully, you will be able to use this Outcome to search the internet for information relevant to your integrative project, or a related area (LO4).

Lastly, you will be tested on the structure, operation and terminology of the internet. To complete this outcome (LO1), we will work on group projects to produce class webpages in Macromedia Dreamweaver. The aim of these pages, which will be available on the social science website (http://socialscience.stow.ac.uk), is to help you to develop practical skills and theoretical knowledge of the internet and basic web design, and also to create a resource which you and other students can refer to throughout the year.

Too easy? Too hard?

Some of you may have a lot of experience in using the internet already, while others will be nervous about using a computer at all! Well, don’t panic/riot/walk out just yet.

Those of you with lots of experience – you will probably find that you can move straight to the assessments for the early part of the unit. Once you have completed the initial assessments, you will be able to use the time to work on your other units, particularly your integrative assessment. You will need to return to the class for the last outcome of IT, to participate in the group activity. Your tutor will advise on assessment dates and group allocation. There will be opportunities to explore other software packages such as Fireworks (internet graphics) as well.

Those of you with less experience – once the whiz kids are out of the way, your tutor will be able to give you more attention and get you up to speed with all things internet related! If you haven’t used the internet much or you aren’t confident with a PC, this unit is a fantastic opportunity to polish up your skills.

Getting started

You will be working in pairs for this exercise.

1. Later in this unit, you will need an email account that you can access from the college. If you do not have such an account (e.g. hotmail, yahoo), you should set one up now.

Go to www.hotmail.com and click on ‘sign me up’, then follow the steps outlined. Help your partner to do this if they are unsure (try not to do it for them!)

2. Once you have both checked that your email addresses will work from the college (you may wish to write down your email address if you are likely to forget it!), take a few minutes to share favourite websites. These can be serious or fun, but please remember that your internet use is monitored, and do not try to access sites which are pornographic or offensive.

Can’t remember your website address? Go to www.google.com and try searching for it!

Once you have done this, return to your own PC.

The social science team at Stow have maintained a website for several years now, and have built up material and links for a number of subjects (unfortunately not a complete list, but we’re getting there!).

To access the website, go to http://socialscience.stow.ac.uk (or just type in ‘socialscience.stow.ac.uk’ to the address bar – note that there is no ‘www’).

To find links to additional useful sites, click on the links page and then on ‘links by topic’.