LAB 3: Internet Skills

Crn# 43431 - Spring 2013

LAB 3: Internet skills

Name______Section/Instructor

Step 4. For now, explore the LCC web page system. If you are not viewing the Lane Home page, please make sure your URL address is reset to http://www2.lanecc.edu . You will be asked to answer specific questions and/or describe what you see. Do not copy & paste from the following websites, but use them to answer the questions. a. Find the page for the department that you are a major in or that most interests you. Hint: Use the Programs Link at the very top of Lane’s webpage. If you don’t see your major or Department listed, try some of the clusters of majors such as “Career and Technical”. If your department has a page, pursue it and write down the type of information that is available. If not, choose the page of another department that interests you.

b. Return to the Lane "home page" (the Lane Logo in the top left corner of the screen is a link that will take you there automatically). Now use the CURRENT STUDENTS link and scroll down through the various types of ‘help’ for students. You'll have to make choices as to which way to go next to answer one of the following questions: (a) What kind of assistance can you get from this system if you're interested in Financial Aid? or (b) What types of support are available for Students under Life & Family?, or (c) What kind of information is available about Academic Advising?

When you are done, return to Lane's Home Page.

Step 5. MyLane From the Lane Home page left click on the Hyperlink located on the lower right side of the page called “myLane”. It will take you to a new page where you will enter your L number and password to log in to myLane. Now answer the following two questions: 1) Under the “enrollment tab” where is your unofficial transcript? 2) Where do you find “campus Announcement” in myLane?

Step 6. Accessing the Internet using URLs. A “URL” (Uniform Resource Locator) is the “address” of a webpage on the Internet. The URL names several key elements separated with slashes that identify what computer holds the information and where on that computer the information resides. Here are two examples:

lanecc.edu/ instadv/ getstart.htm (domain name/ directory/ filename.extension)

1 Crn# 43431 - Spring 2013

http://uoadmit.uoregon.edu/ index.html (server.domain name/ filename.extension)

At this point you will "leave" Lane's webpages and "travel" through the Internet to a computer somewhere else. For this part of the assignment, you will provide the URL by typing it in the open text box on the Menu, (labeled “Address Bar” in MS-Internet Explorer). Access each of the following URLs one at a time. You don't have to return "home" in between each one. a. http://www.uoregon.edu (University of Oregon) describe briefly the kinds of information you find

b. http://www.ci.springfield.or.us (City of Springfield) describe briefly the kinds of information you find

c. http://www.eugene-or.gov (City of Eugene) Explore at least two of the menu/submenu items located under each of the city’s top-most headings and briefly describe the information you find for each.

2) d. http://211info.org/ This United Way website connects people in Oregon & southwest Washington with information about community resources. On the map provided, click on Lane county to find Lane County’s 211 online site, and then click the www.unitedwaylane.org. link. 1) Describe a place where you might get help (list provider and type of help offered).

2) Describe a place that you might consider volunteering time (list program and type of task).

e. http://www.ipl2.org/div/news/ Find an overseas (non-U.S.) newspaper/ news source link at University of Michigan’s Internet Public Library Newspapers. What newspaper did you find? List the name of the newspaper, what city it’s from, and the URL.

2 Crn# 43431 - Spring 2013

f. http://www.tripcheck.com/ This is the Oregon Dept. of Transportation travel information site. Click on the link to Cameras or Custom Cams and choose one of the road cams to see road conditions in an area of interest to you. Describe 1) where, and 2) what’s happening.

2) g. http://my.monster.com/securitycenter/ One of the best ways to search for a new job is to use online job sites such as Monster.com, HotJobs.com and CareerBuilder.com. Before you do, explore this monster.com site for techniques of safe job searching. List some of the safety issues you found.

Step 7. Searching the Internet The Internet has a number of "search" tools to allow you to "look up" information much the way you would in a library card catalog, only the "catalog" is world-wide. Of course, only information that's stored on a computer linked to the Internet will be found. One way is to click on the browser’s “Search” button which brings up the browser’s default search engine. A more efficient way is oriented the type of search to using a specific search tool.

First, connect to the LCC library page at http://www.lanecc.edu/library/. Review some of the different online sources of information and read through “Evaluating Information on the Web” (under the Services to Students heading). Now you are ready to try a search engine. Pick a topic of interest to you. Then go to http://www.20search.com/ and try one of the search engines by typing in your topic, and click on "Search".

What will be returned to you will be a list of active hyperlinks, shown in blue on the screen. You can follow up on these by clicking on each of them to see what information is stored with each link. Sometimes the information may be helpful, sometimes not. Often the list you get back is so long you can't even follow up on every one. This suggests you might want to select a more specific topic, like "oak trees" instead of "trees." In the space below write: 1) which search engine you used, 2) what topic you searched, 3) the number of hits returned, and 4) how useful or not the information was that the search located.

3 Crn# 43431 - Spring 2013

Step 8. Privacy on the Internet The Center for Democracy and Technology publishes news of interest to those with questions or concerns about privacy issues on the Internet. Connect to www.cdt.org. Read several of the articles and/or follow several of the links. Describe your reaction to the information and comments made on these pages.

Step 9. Using Web applications Housing maps (www.housingmaps.com) displays rental listings from the online classified site Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) on top of Google’s mapping software (maps.google.com). Go to Housing maps and find a “For Rent” listing in Portland, OR in the $1,500 - $2,500 per month range. If none are available, try another price category or try “Rooms” or “Sublets”. List the general address and the first sentence in the description of the property below

Step 10. Using a news reader site Some websites specialize in pulling information from a lot of different websites and displaying it on one page. These sites are often called news readers or news aggregator sites and often have many types of information they aggregate. Go to Netvibes (www.netvibes.com). Under I’m just ME, choose Get started, then the Free Basic option. Choose the News and it will create a series of aggregates called a dashboard. Tabs on the dashboard will appear with news Headlines as the default widget. Explore the Headlines, and then choose one of the other widgets on the tabs and a specific aggregate to explore (the website being aggregated and the number of topic links is at the top). If the current tabs don’t interest you, click the “+” on the right, and you’ll be given the opportunity to create another tab.

1) List the Date and some Information from the news page you viewed

2) List the category tab you chose.

3) List some information from it the from a specific aggregate you chose to explore.