Lesson 17

The Internet
And The World
Wide Web
 Learning Outcomes

►Illustrate the nature and characteristics of

the Internet and the World Wide Web.
►Evaluate and critique the instructional
value of the World Wide Web.
►Create real life scenarios to illustrate
both and positive and negative use of the
Internet and the Web.
 ► Introduction

The internet is said to be the most fluid, coercive

and demanding type of communication medium
that has brought dramatic changes in the way
people work and learn. The internet offers a
wealth of information ranging from primary
source of material to statics on just about
everything.
One does not need to be an IT savvy to make the
internet a variable tool because it offers a rich set
of useful features and functions.
The development of the internet and The
World Wide Web has gone along way in terms
of their features, capabilities and application.
The first time the author made of the internet is
in early 90’s. The experience was a memorable
one because of her desire to learn more about
it, so she hire a private tutor to conduct an one-
on-one session. Well at that time, access is not
as speedy as it is today and the amount of
information was not as enormous as they are
now.
 When people think of technology, information,
access and the like, it seems that the first thing
comes in their mind is the internet and the World
Wide Web.
These two terms are usually associated with
Information Communication Technology or
ICT.
Learning Activity♀
Learning
Directions:
► Visit this interactive website on the Internet Live Stats
URL: http://www.internetlivestats.com/
► Interact with this website in five minutes and record the
latest statistical data reported per day on the following:
•Videos viewed
•Facebook active users
•Twitter active users
•Photos uploaded on instagram
•Pinterest active users
•Skype calls
► You may look for additional data on the
usage of the internet in this site.
► After five minutes, share your insights and
learning experience s while catching up with
the speedy transmission of internet statistical
data and information.
 Internet Live Stats puts the total number of
websites online today at a little over 1 billion, while
close to 1.7 billion of us have now signed up for
facebook. The site pulls together all this information
from more than 250 sources and uses a customized
algorithm to try and make an educated guess about
what’s happening online.
According to Brantner, (as cited in nield,2016) in
his report at Motherboard, the reach of the web
continues to grow rapidly: there are now 3.4 billion
people online (46.1 % of the world’s population),
while internet-savvy young adults spend an average
of 27 hours online every week.
 User’s across the Globe typically perform
54,907 Google searches,7,252 tweets, 125,406
Youtube video views and send 2,501,018 emails
every second – numbers that are only growing larger
as more people get online (Nield,2006)
As pre-service teachers, what are these
statistical figures trying to tell you? To what event
will these developments in the internet and the
World Wide Web affect or transform today’s
education?
 The Internet and The World
Wide Web
Every time this author introduces this topic about
the internet to her class in Educational Technology,
she usually begins with this simple question, “Is
internet a place?”
The usual answer she receives from the majority
of her students is shaking of their heads to convey
their “No” answer. While a few will outright say
“yes”. For those who expressed a “yes” answer , this
author pursues this with her follow up question, “if it
is a place , then where is it located?”
 A long silence prevails in the class
because those who opted “yes” cannot cite the
physical or the geographic location of the
internet. But suddenly someone cried out his
answer and said “Out there in space!. Yes the
internet is located out there (making a hand
gesture to refer to a space).
So is it really in space? Where can you
find this space?
How do we define internet?
 Several users of internet may express
their definitions of internet in different
perspective depending again on their
orientation.
A computer programmer and technical
people may define the internet from a
technical point of view. They would probably
say.
“Internet is a collection of wires, cables
and networks. It is a network of networks
connecting thousands, millions or even
billions of other networks.
 It is a global system of interconnected
computer networks that use the Internet protocol
suite(TPC/IP) to link billions of devices worldwide
(Internet, n.d.).
So the internet is not a place and, therefore,
does not have a specific physical location.
How about the World Wide Web or the
WWW?
The web for short is basically a system of
Internet servers that support specially formatted
documents. The documents are formatted in a mark-
up language called HTML (HyperText Markup
Language) that supports links to other documents, as
well as graphics, audio, and video files (Bale, n.d.).
 The World Wide Web may likewise be
defined as an information system on the Internet that
allows documents to be connected to other
documents by hypertext links, enabling the user to
search for information by moving from one
documents to another.
I encountered in my readings one author who
made use of an analogy to define internet and the
web. He said “ the internet is like a megamall, and
the website are like stores inside the megamall, the
act of surfing in the net is also like window
shopping”.
Historical Development of the Internet
and the World Wide Web
September 2, 1969 marks the birth of the
internet. Historical record tells us that it is on this
day that two computers communicated with each
other. And on Oct 29, 1969 message was sent from
computer to computer in different location. On Jan 1,
1983, ARPANET adopted the standard TCP/IP
protocol. About two decades after the discovery of
the internet, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World
Wide Web in march 1989. The first email was sent
in 1971 and Mosaic became the first web browser.
(Cellania, 2009).
 The World Wide Web is the key to the
development of the information Age and is the
principal tool that billions of people use today to
interact with the internet. The speedy access to the
internet gave rise to the emergence of social media
which today is the buzzword for both the young
and the old.
According to an info graphic from social
media monitoring platform Simply 360, there are
three eras to show the development of social media,
namely; The Primitive Era, The Medieval Era, and
The Golden Era.
 The Primitive Era
(1979) Post news to news groups

(Bulletin Board System) Late 70’s first site with

login option for interaction

(1980) CompuServe first chat introduced

( 1984) Prodigy Communications Corporations

pioneered online
 The Medieval Era
(1988) Introduction to internet relay chat file
sharing, link sharing and keeping in touch.

(November 1996) Introduction to ICQ multi user messaging,

Multiplayer games, made emoticons & abbreviations such as
“LOL” and “BRB” become famous.

(1997) Six Degrees

Glimpse of first social media resembling that of today’s features
like create profile and add friends.

(1997) Live Journal

First to introduce dynamic content on the blogs and forum.
 The Golden Era of
Social Media
(2001) Wikipedia The online free encyclopaedia
was launched.

(2002) Friendster Operated by allowing people

to meet new people and increase their network.

(2003) Hi5 Included photo sharing, user groups,

social gaming and status update.

(2003) MySpace Private messaging, public

comments posted to user’s profile, bulletins sent
to friends
(2004) Facebook For Harvard University students
use only.

(2004) Orkut Owned by google, meet old

and new friends, rate friends change themes,
etc..

(2004) Flickr Photo sharing platform.

(2005) YouTube First organized video streaming

and video sharing platform.
(2005) Reddit Entertainment and social
networking platform.

(2006) Facebook Best performing social

media platform till date with 1.44 billion
active users.

(2006) Twitter A microblogging platform

with a question and answer format.

(2007) Tumblr Live streaming and

microblogging platform.
(2009) WhatsApp iOS Android and Windows
based application for personal and group chats.

(2012) Snapchat New platform for chatting

by posting pictures.

(2012) Tinder A social discovery application

for iOS and Android devices.

(2013) Vine A multiple platform video sharing

social application

(2014) Pheed A social platform with live broadcast

option.
 Basic Web-Related Terms and Concept
Surfing and navigating in the internet can be miserable if one
does not have familiarity with some basic internet related terms
and concepts.

► Bandwidth refers to the amount of information your

connection to be the Internet can carry, usually measured in bits
per second.
For example, a gigabit Ethernet connection has a bandwidth
of 1,000 Mbps, (125 megabytes per second)

► ISP is short for “Internet Service Provider”, It’s the company

that provides you with access to the internet.
Examples, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or BrightHouse
► URL is the abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator. URL
is the global address of documents and other resources on the
World Wide Web. The 1st part of the URL is called a protocol
identifier and it indicates what protocol to use, and the 2nd part
is called resource name and it specifies the IP address or the
domain name where the resource is located. The protocol
identifier and the resource name are separated by a colon and
two forward slashes.
For example: For the URL http://example.com , the protocol
identifier is http . the resource name is example.com .

► Domain name is a name that identifies a computer or

computers on the internet. These names appear as a part of a
Website’s URL.
For example: www.bkmediagroup.com
bkmediagroup is the domain name.
► Fold is the line past which someone has to scroll to see more
content. Everything that shows up when a page first load is
“above the fold” and “below” – or “after the fold” refers to the
content further down the page. This is a web-design term.
► Browser is the software you use to view web pages such as
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. These
are some of the more common browsers, although there are
others like Safari and Opera.
► HTML short for “HyperText Markup Language”, HTML is
a cross-platform language for creating and formatting web
pages. Elements and tags are used to affect copy images,
sounds, frames, animation and more.
► Hyperlink is an electronic connection between one page to
either other web pages on the same website (internal linking), or
web pages located on another website (external linking).
Example:
► Navigation refers to the process by which users access
information on the internet. Usually when we use the term,
we’re talking about the menus, links, icons and buttons on your
site, along with where they are and where they take a use.

► PDF is short for “Portable Document Format”, they were

first developed by Adobe. The idea behind the PDF was to
create a file format that is not dependent on applications,
software, hardware or software for proper viewing. Every PDF
file has a complete description of a document, including the text,
fonts, graphics, and other information needed to display it.
 ► Search Engine is a program that searches documents. (i.e.
web page, which as HTML documents) for specified keywords
and returns the list of documents. A search engine has two parts,
a spider and an indexer. The spider is the program that fetches
the documents, and the indexer reads the documents and creates
an index based on the words or ideas contained in each
document.
Examples:
 Instructional Value of the
Internet and The Web
In this era when access to knowledge and information is just
a touch away, delivery of education has dramatically
transformed. There is so much talk about virtual schooling and
indeed this has been what many schools, colleges and
universities worldwide are trying to face as the greatest
challenge of the 21st century teaching and learning. The onset of
online learning programs gain popularity and acceptance in the
educational arena as another innovative approach in the business
of education.
In addition, the Wikipedia is swiftly gaining legitimacy
today in the academic world. One cannot, therefore, negate that
these developments are immeasurably attributed to the World
Wide Web.
These are the following instructional values and benefits of the
internet and the World Wide Web:

⁕ Access to knowledge and information

⁕ Access to instructional resources
⁕ Extended learning opportunities
⁕ Support lifelong learning
⁕ Support Computer-Based Instruction
⁕ Support delivery of distance learning programs
⁕ Promote, facilitate and support other academic functions
such as; enrollment, access to program of instruction, and
serves as communication channel between and among
parents, teachers and students.
⁕ Support social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and others.
 LEARNING ACTIVITY
Scenario Building
Directions: (This is a collaborative learning activity)

⁘ Create two collaborative learning groups.

⁘ Each group is tasked to create a scenario illustrating the
educational application of the internet or the day-to-day
applications of the internet.
⁘ Each scenario should reflect some issues and concern presented
in the scenario.
⁘ Suggest solutions to these issues and concerns.
⁘ Write your short narrative scenario on the space provided.
⁘ After 10 minutes, each group leader is given 5 minutes to share
his/her group’s scenario in class.
Duration: 20 minutes

Title of
Scenario:___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
The following are the issues and concerns in our scenario:
⁘__________________________________________________________
⁘__________________________________________________________
⁘__________________________________________________________
Suggest solutions to these issues and concerns:
⁘__________________________________________________________
⁘__________________________________________________________
⁘__________________________________________________________
 Website Evaluation Criteria
As a student in teacher education, you spend longer time
surfing in the internet to do your school work, homework and
other research activities. In the course of navigating in the
internet , you encounter numerous and what seem to be
countless websites.
If you are looking for a specific knowledge or
information, these websites can create confusion on your part
because you cannot tell which of these sites provides the
correct information or data you need. So how does one
decide which sites gives the authentic and correct
information? What indicators should one look for in a
particular site before making the final choice?
 Due to rapid development in formation and communication
technology, it is difficult to define standards in web evaluation.
Abdullah (1998), suggest the following checklist derived from
the summary of criteria for evaluating websites:

⁘Technical considerations. Include among others, the

website’s features and capabilities, such as use of graphics and
animations relevant to the subject matter and the stability and
the consistency of the pages because some sites require the use
of more advanced browser.

⁘ Purpose. The objective of the website should be clearly stated

and content should support the purpose. It should define whether
the purpose is to educate, entertain, advertise or evangelize.
Advertising should not outshine the presentation of the content.
⁘ Content. It should be comprehensive and easily understood
by the visitor of the site. Information should be current and
updated. There should be a logical order in the presentation of
the content. Copyright information should reflect for guidance to
the visitor of the site. Like should be provided for additional
information to support the content.

⁘ Authorship and Sponsorship. Are relevant information that

should be reflected in every authentic site. Name of individual
or group responsible for creating the site should be spelled out.
The site should likewise reflect the author or manager of the site
and other contact information. References or other sources of
information should be provided.
⁘ Functionality. Covers the use of appropriate language in
messages, and directions should be clearly stated understood by
the visitors of site. The navigation buttons, shape and location
should be consistent along with the use of features such as
headers, background, fonts and color.

⁘ Design. Is one of the criteria that can hold visitor’s attention.

It should be simple and appealing to the intended audiences. The
design elements and features on the site like the searchable
databases, animations, graphics, sounds files, and transitional
pages, should be clearly labelled. Large images should be
presented in thumbnail, with links to the larger versions. The use
of appropriate color is equally important in a website. The
principle of contrast in the choice of color should be observed.
 While the above mentioned evaluation criteria cover the
overall elements that make up a website, it is more important for
you teachers to focus on the evaluation of the web resources or
materials you find in the website. After all, the very purpose of
surfing is to search for the correct knowledge, information and
data.
Alexander and Tale (1996-98) cited five criteria for
evaluating web resources, namely; authority, accuracy,
objectivity, currency and coverage.

⁘ Accuracy – how reliable and free from error is the

information? Are there editors and facts checkers? Almost
anyone can publish on the web. Many Web resources not
verified by editors an/or fact checkers. Web standards to ensure
accuracy not fully developed.
⁘ Authority – what are the author’s qualifications for writing
on the subject? How reputable is the publisher? It is often
difficult to determine authorship of Web resources. If author’s
name is listed, his/her qualifications are frequently not
mentioned. Publisher’s responsibility is often not indicated.

⁘ Objectivity – is the information presented with minimum of

bias? To what extent does the information sway the opinion of
the web visitor? Web often functions as a “virtual soapbox”.
The goals/aims of person or groups presenting the material are
often not clearly stated.
⁘ Currency – is the content of the work up to date? Is the
publication date clearly indicated? The dates are not always
included on Web pages. If included, a date may have various
meaning such as:
• Date first created
• Date placed on web
• Date last revised

⁘ Coverage – what topics are included in the work? To what

depth are topics explored? Web coverage may differ from
print or media coverage. It is often hard to determine the
extent of web coverage.
 Challenges of Web Resources
The following are the additional challenges of Web resources
and their corresponding coping strategies:

⁕ Use of Hypertext Links. The quality of webpages linked to

original Webpage may vary. High quality Webpage may be
linked to poor quality Webpage. Therefore, evaluate each
Webpage independently.

⁕ Use of Frames. Each frame display a separate webpage.

Each frame should likewise be evaluated separately.

⁕ Search Engine can retrieve page out of context. Always try

to return to the “home page” to determine the source of
information.
⁕ Marking-Oriented Web Pages. In other media, there are
usually clear visual and/or audio distinctions between
advertising and information. In the Web, distinction between
advertising and information can become extremely blurred. Try
to determine if advertising and informational content are
supplied by the same person or organization.

⁕ Blending of Entertainment, information and Advertising.

The Web has brought “Infomercial” concept to new heights.

⁕ Software requirements may limit access. Full access may

require additional software. Browsers may alter the appearance
of Webpages. Be aware that software limitations may alter how
much information is obtainable or alter the appearance of
information obtained.
⁕ Instability of Web pages. Webpages may move or disappear
without notice. User may not be able to refer back to a webpage.
Try to determine the stability of your source. Document the
source to the fullest extent possible.

⁕ Susceptibility of Web pages to alteration. It can be

deliberately altered or accidentally altered. Verify information
using other sources.

The development of evaluation techniques for Web

resources is an on going process. The continuous emergence of
new technology is outpacing the ability to create standards and
guidelines. However, the five traditional Web evaluation
techniques developed by Alexander and Tale (1996-updated in
2001) can serve as basic techniques in determining the
authenticity of Web resources.
 Synthesis: Key Themes and Concepts
⁘ Internet is a collection of wires, cables. It is a network of
networks connecting thousands and even millions of other
networks.
⁘ The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer
networks that make use of the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP)
to link billions of devices worldwide.
⁘ The World Wide Web is an information system on the
internet that allows documents to be connected to other
documents by hypertext links, enabling the user to search for
information by moving from one document to another.
⁘ The World Wide Web is the key to the development of the
Information Age and is the principal tool that billions of people
today use to interact on the internet.
⁘ The speedy access to the internet gave rise to the emergence
of social media which is today the buzzword for both the young
and the old.
⁘ September 2, 1969 marks the birth of internet. Historical
record tells us that on that day the two computers communicated
with each other.
⁘ On Oct 29, 1969 message was sent from computer to
computer in different locations.
⁘ On Jan 1, 1983, ARPANET adopted the standard TCP/IP
protocol. About two decades after the discovery of the Internet,
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in March 1989.
⁘ The first email was sent in 1971 and Mosaic became the first
web browser.
⁘ There are some key terminologies one should know to
optimize use of the various tools and resources of the internet
and the web.
⁘ The internet and the Web offer numerous educational and
instructional benefits to education in particular and to the public
in general.
⁘ There are five techniques/criteria in evaluating Web
resources, namely; Authority, Accuracy, Objectivity, Currency
and Coverage.
⁘ There are several additional challenges posed by Web
resources.
⁘ The development of Web evaluation standards is an on-
going process.
 Thank you!☻
Prepared by: Mary Rose Mae A. Malolot
BEED STUDENT