Internet in the Classroom

Assignment #1
In Assignment #1, we're going to browse the Internet, find a few websites and organize them. If you are at school your Internet Browser should open at the Student Reference Portal. If you are accessing this at home, please open the portal on your computer by clicking the link above or typing in the following address: http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/portal/portal.htm.

In the right hand column, there are links to a GECDSB project from a couple of years ago. In that project, we attempted to identify suitable classroom weblinks for Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics and categorize them by where they fit into the Ontario Curriculum by strand and grade level.

Part #1- Visit each of the three areas and find three websites in each of the subject areas that you would find appropriate for your classroom. Write down the URL (Universal Resource Locator) or address for each site. You'll notice that the URL can be very complicated. A common way to make sure that you don't make a mistake transcribing the information is to click in the URL field and press CTRL-C to copy the URL. Then, move to where you want to record things and press CTRL-V to paste the address.

Post your interesting URLs with a short description of content in your school's First Class Conference to share with your colleagues.

Part #2 - OK, that was kind of dumb. Depending upon the site that you found, the URL could be very long and complicated. Surely, with a computer, there's a better way to organize them. And, there is.

With Internet Explorer, sites that you wish to keep track of are called Favorites. From the Favorites Menu, you'll see that there is the option to "Add to Favorites". This will add the address (URL) to your list of favorites.

With Netscape Navigator, they are called Bookmarks. From the Bookmark menu, you can "Bookmark" any page that you wish. In a similar fashion, this will add the address (URL) to your list of bookmarks.

I think that you can see that with both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator that this list could get pretty big. Both programs have another option to "Organize" or "Manage" your URLs by placing them in folders. You'll notice that your original installation included some pre-created folders. On your computer, please create another folder called "Internet in the Classroom". Revisit the sites that you've already written onto paper and add them to your favorites or bookmark them. Move your bookmarked favorites into this folder.

Part #3 - This is getting better. You now can revisit the bookmarked sites by visiting the Favorites or Bookmark menu and selecting what you've stored. The limitation is that they are only available on THAT computer. There may come a time when you decide to create a web page and post it to the Internet. That time isn't here just yet though.

On the Internet, there are services that let you keep track of your favorites, either privately or publicly. One such site is Backflip at: http://www.backflip.com/

Visit this site on the Internet and check out the functionality. In particular, visit some of the public folders that others have already created and made available to others. You'll find this as a terrific resource to find new and exciting Internet resources. If you find a good site, feel free to add it to YOUR favorites. Or, you may wish to start your own Backflip folder.

You can check out my personal public backflip folder at: BSBGUPPIES or http://www.backflip.com/members/bsbguppies/

Part #4 - This Backflip site is a really good resource. Not only should you bookmark it, but let's give it more importance by putting it on your toolbar. Visit the site Backflip at http://www.backflip.com/ and with your mouse click and drag the icon on the URL field to your toolbar. Depending upon how it is setup, you may have to look around in order to find a place to put it.

But, once it's there, a simple click takes you back to the Backflip site.

Congratulations, you've completed Assignment #1.

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