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A LANGUAGE IFROFESSIONAL'S GUIDE TO THE

Carolyn G. Fidelman, Northeastern University and Language Marketplace

ABSTRACT

The World Wide Web has recently become a household word, but what does it have to offer those in the language teaching and research fields? This article explains how the Web helps nontechnical users access on-line data without having to learn complicated commands or have extensive backgrounds in technology. This new 'point-and- click' way of getting all that the Internet has to offer may be the long-sought 'killer application' of the information superhighway. Just as spreadsheets and word processing brought the personal computer into our lives, so too will the Web and its browser , such as Navigator™ or NCSA , make the Internet as user-friendly as our local library. This article takes the reader through some Web sites of interest to language professionals, examines copyright constraints on using Web data, discusses how to get set up for Webbing, and explains how to create individual Web documents.

KEYWORDS

Internet, World Wide Web, Network, Information, Professional Resources, Browsers, CMC (Computer Mediated Communication)

At least 15,000 language professionals have electronic mail addresses. About 6,000 use the Internet not only for sending individual messages back and forth, but also for participation on-line professional discussion groups. According to a survey conducted in September 1994,1 about one third of these are also using the Internet to retrieve information on a variety of topics. They are using the Internet as their "virtual library."

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 113 The easiest way to find information on the Internet these days is with a system called the World Wide Web (also familiarly called "the Web" or “WWW” and an application called a Web "browser" (such as NCSA Mosaic or ). This article will examine:

1. Internet basics

2. The World Wide Web: definition

3. World Wide Web navigation using a typical browser

4. Location of Web sites of interest

5. Copyright issues with Web information

6. Becoming a Web user

7. Navigating the Web

8. Authoring on the Web

THE INTERNET: A TELEPHONE SYSTEM FOR COMPUTERS

The Internet is today's equivalent of a telephone system for computers — consisting of about 40,000 inter-linked local and campus computer networks at companies, universities, and government agencies worldwide. In turn, these networks link about 4 million computers and 30 million people.

Through a desktop computer connected to a local area network (LAN), one can share files with others within an organization, print documents on printers anywhere on a network, and exchange electronic mail organization-wide. If the network is part of the Internet, an individual computer can also talk to computers on any of the other 40,000 networks comprising the Internet — in much the same way that an individual telephone can reach phones anywhere in the world.

IP Datagrams: Computers sending messages to each other

The core of the Internet is IP, the - a language that computers use to talk to one another. Stripping away all the wires, equipment, and software, the Internet is nothing more than 4 million computers exchanging IP messages with each other (usually referred to as “packets” or “datagrams”). Everything else — electronic mail, file transfers, browsing the Web — is accomplished by software that

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 114 sends requests for data from one computer to another, and other software that sends back the requested data, all in the form of IP messages.

As shown in Figure 1, a user typically interacts with "client" software located on a desktop machine, which, in turn, exchanges requests and responses with "server' software (software that performs a service — typically by returning requested information) located somewhere across the Internet. All of the requests and responses are sent inside IP messages.

For example, an FTP () client will send a request for a file to an FTP server, which in turn will send back the requested file. A client lets you log onto a remote machine that is running a Telnet server (the Internet equivalent of dialing up a machine and logging in). An SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) client will exchange electronic mail with an SMTP server. A client will retrieve menus and files from Gopher servers, and an HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) client will retrieve documents from an HTTP server.

THE WORLD WIDE WEB: ALL THE ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS IN THE WORLD

The World Wide Web is the name given to the vast virtual library of documents stored on the millions of computers connected to the Internet.

URLs: Dewey Decimal for the Internet

A "Uniform Resource Locator," or URL, is a standard way to define how to find a document on the Web. Here are some annotated samples:

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 115 telnet://library.mit.edu uses the Telnet protocol to log into the machine library.mit.edu ftp://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/ uses the FTP protocol to contact the machine sumex-aim.stanford.edu and retrieve a list of the files and sub-directories in the directory info-mac. (Note: this is the best source of in the world.) gopher://gopher.agoralang.com:2411/ uses the Gopher protocol to send a message to port 2411 (a port is analogous to a telephone extension), on machine gopher.agoralang.com, asking for the top-level gopher menu. http://agoralang.com/index.html uses the HyperText Transfer Protocol (http) to send a message to machine agoralang.com, requesting the hypertext document named index..

In each case, the URL specifies a protocol (how to format the requests and responses sent inside IP messages), a machine name, an optional port number, and a directory/file path. Standard filename extensions (e.g. “.html" define the type of the retrieved document).

If you have an Internet connection, all the appropriate software, and all the necessary administrative permissions (i.e. accounts and passwords where required), a URL tells how to retrieve and display the specified document.

Web Browsers: Navigating the Web with ease

In the past, retrieving a document from the Web was a complicated multi-step process. First one would use a protocol-specific program (e.g. an FTP client) to retrieve a document. Then the document would be downloaded2 to a desktop PC from the host computer. Finally, a document-type-specific program (e.g. a specific word processor or image viewing program) would be used to read the document.

Web "browsers" complete the above process automatically. If a computer is directly connected to the Internet (either through a campus network or a dial-up "SLIP" or "PPP" connection — described later), and the PC runs a "browser," the user need only type in a URL. The browser does the rest— it uses the specified protocol to contact the specified machine, retrieves the specified document, and then displays the document. Most browsers can display a wide variety of document formats, and are able to automatically start "helper applications" to display additional formats.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 116 Hypertext: Linking the Web together

The internal language of the Web, that which holds it together, is hypertext. In the past, most Web documents consisted of a single medium (text, an image, or a sound file). Today, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) provides a standard format for defining compound multimedia documents.

An HTML document is a text file that provides instructions to a — telling it how to assemble and display a multimedia document (e.g. by providing text, format instructions, and a list of image files to retrieve and display). HTML includes mechanisms for defining a variety of user interactions, such as fill-in-the-blank forms and "mailto's" (i.e. “click here to send an e-mall message to the specified e-mail address”).

The most important feature of HTML documents is the ability to include "" — references to other Web documents. Think of these as “active footnotes.” When you are reading a document with your Web browser, and come across a link (usually shown as underlined or highlighted text), you can just Point-and-click and your browser will retrieve the referenced document.

NAVIGATING THE WEB WITH NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR

The original graphical Web browser is a program called "NCSA Mosaic," developed at the National Supercomputer Applications Center of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. NCSA Mosaic is freely available for download across the Internet. A number of newer browsers have been developed in the past two years, including a commercial product called "Netscape Navigator" (developed by some of the who wrote the original NCSA Mosaic). The following figures illustrate the basics of using Netscape Navigator to navigate the Web. Other browsers operate in very similar ways. (Note: All of the illustrations in this article are from the Macintosh version of Netscape Navigator. Netscape Navigator and NCSA Mosaic are also available for the Windows and environments,

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 117 and operate identically in those environments. Many of the other available browsers only work on a single type of computer.)

Manually entering addresses

In many cases, the URL of a document will be known by a user — for example, by reading it in an article such as this one. As shown in Figure 3, Netscape Navigator, like all browsers, allows a user to simply type in that URL.

Using a "link" to go to an address

Typically, however, users will work from a standard “home page” — a document containing links to many other places. Most browsers come preconfigured to retrieve a standard home page every time the program is started (usually the vendor's or university's home page). Users usually have the option of setting an alternative URL as a start-up home page. Figure 4, shows a home page — an HTML document, containing links to resources used by the user on a regular basis. Later in this article, the process of creating a home page will be described.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 118 On the page displayed above, clicking on the words "Agora Language Marketplace" will take the user to the main screen for the Agora Language Marketplace (which resides on a mainframe somewhere in Massachusetts). Hidden in the displayed document is the information that makes clicking on this link equivalent to typing in the URL http://agoralang.com. Similarly, clicking on any of the other displayed links to retrieve and display those documents (or in the case of some kinds of files, such as software, automatically copies those files to the user's personal computer).

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 119 Some of the other buttons and functions a browser offers

Most browsers also provide functions to help you move from page to page and perform other common functions. For example, Figure 4 illustrates that the Netscape Navigator provides buttons including "Back" to the last page viewed, "Forward" to return to where the user is, "Open" to allow the user to type in a URL as in Figure 3, "Home" to return to the local Home Page, and “Print" to print the current document. Netscape Navigator also has a second row of buttons ("Net Search," “What's New?," etc.) that link to vendor- defined URLs, including on-line help for using Netscape Navigator.

While navigating the Web, the user will see many places to revisit. Most browsers provide a way to save URLs for future reference. The menu bar above Netscape Navigator's icon bar contains a selection called “Bookmarks." To store a URL for later revisiting, select “Add " and it will automatically add that name and URL to the "Bookmark" list without the user having to copy it in manually. That is very helpful because some URLs can be extremely long, and they need to be entered exactly. One can pull down the bookmark menu at any time and select to go directly to the site of interest. (Note: NCSA Mosaic and some other browsers call these bookmarks a "hotlist.")

Interacting with HTML documents

The example from the project "The Agora Language Marketplace” illustrates a user's interaction with a home page. The specific pages, interactive registration pages for CALICO '95, highlight some of the more interactive capabilities of HTML. Much of this interactivity is provided behind the scenes, by the HTTP server on which the document resides.

The user, from a Local Home Page, clicks the item "Agora Language Marketplace." As information is transferred, the big N in the upper right corner of the page "pulses" and status messages appear on the lower left of the Netscape Navigator window. If the user is connected to a high-speed campus network and accessing a site that is adequately powered for its traffic, information may show up very quickly. On the other hand, if the user's computer is connected via a slower dial-up line, downloading large files, such as images, will take longer. Downloading will also take longer if the documents reside on a popular server, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratories's Web site at the time the spacecraft was transmitting live pictures from Jupiter. When too many users are accessing a site, transmission of files either slows down considerably or an error message appears to advise the user that the site is too busy.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 120 Once the process is complete, the user sees the Agora main menu, which looks like this:

The box next to the word “Location:" in the upper center section of the Netscape Navigator page indicates the address of the current display. Clicking and dragging on that address allows the user to paste it into a word processing document running in another window if desired.

The information on a is more visually accessible than on a gopher page. Web pages display various typefaces, diacritical marks, bold text, italic text, bulleted lists, and best of all, pictures. (The ç of the word “Français" can display its accent.) Most users do not enjoy reading extensive e-mail or gopher documents on-line because the ASCII text and lack of formatting is tiring to read. On the other hand, reading comprehension probably increases with the new, more aesthetically pleasing Web document format. The PRINT button at the top of the Netscape Navigator document page will send the entire current document (not just the currently visible screen) to a printer or save it to a text file on the user's computer for off-line reading.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 121 For all the examples listed in the remainder of this article, the Netscape Navigator menu bars and surrounding program have been removed to concentrate attention on the documents themselves.

"Net Surfing" to the CALICO Annual Symposium

Clicking on the item "Register On-Line Here!: CALICO '95 Annual Symposium Middlebury, VT June 19-23" in the Agora Language Marketplace's main menu takes the reader to the following page:

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 122 The title, the details of the conference, menu items that lead to more information on the session titles, and a more detailed description with explanation of fees are visible. The most interesting feature of this page is the opportunity to fill in a form for On-Line Registration!

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 123 This page is self-explanatory. Clicking in the fields and tabbing from field to field allows the user to fill them in with information. Clicking the "Register Me" button mails an e-mall version of the completed registration form to CALICO's e-mail address.

Mastercard/Visa registrants were asked to send their information by fax because secure transaction capability was not implemented for this Web site. Netscape Navigator users talking to a site using Netscape Navigator's secure server product can send encrypted, secure information (but NCSA Mosaic users can't access that site securely). Netscape Navigator users will notice that there is a small key symbol on the lower left of all Netscape Navigator screens, usually a picture of a broken key, indicating that information one sends is not secure from access by unethical individuals. A normal key on some sites indicates a secure Web site where it is safe to submit a Mastercard or Visa number.

SELECTING WWW SITES

The library is analogous to the World Wide Web (and to Gopher). As in a library, users could not access information without a card catalog or Dewey Decimal numbering system. A user might go to some shelves and start paging through a few books, even finding some interesting tidbits. But wandering aimlessly from one tome to another, the user would ultimately conclude that this was a waste of time and eventually see “library surfing" as a superfluous activity.

It is important to learn the filtering and search mechanisms of the World Wide Web and listen to recommendations in finding your way about the Web. At this time there are over 6 million Web sites across the globe, hardly the kind of system for "hit or miss" approaches.

Recommendations

This section contains some examples of language sites that demonstrate the value of the Web for language professionals and searching strategies for locating WWW resources. The URLs of all the resources mentioned in this article are listed at the end.

There are several categories of Web sites that will be demonstrated in the following pages. They are:

1. Content Sites

2. Lists of Lists

3. Organizational Sites

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 124 Content Sites are sites that actually contain the text, pictures, sound or video that are the end point of a search for information. Examples are Teodor Flonta's De Proverbio: Electronic journal of International Proverb Studies for text, the WebMuseum, Paris for pictures, and the Voice of America site for sound. There is another "highly interactive" category in navigation of a game or learning program. The on-line Spanish and Italian lessons of the Human Languages Home Page would be one example of this type.

The WebMuseum, Paris (formerly Web Louvre) is as popular on the World Wide Web as the National Gallery of Art videodisc was in the 80s. The site is laid out very well and is informative and visually appealing, particularly in color. (It won a "Best of the Web '94" award for Best Use of Multiple Media from the “International W3 Conference" in Geneva on May 26, 1994.)

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 125 Tyler Jones, Webmaster (author and manager) of the Human Languages Page, collaboratively authored a series of language lessons at his site. His Spanish Lesson One contains the typical list of basic words. Clicking on one of the words automatically loads a "helper application" and plays the prerecorded word. There are some sites on the Web where one sees video clips upon clicking certain items. The Web's graphic, sound and video capabilities combined with hypertext navigation, creates a powerful tool for learning.

The Voice of America (VOA) site offers sound, but in this case the sound bites are "mega" bites. For the short items (under one minute), the downloading process is not too time-consuming. With a 14.4 modem it took 2 minutes to download a 22 second audio segment at off-peak hours. Downloading a ten minute segment at 8pm took almost an hour. This is impractical if a user is paying for on-line service by the minute. Tuning in to the Voice of America by radio and taping off the air would offer a better option in this case.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 126 CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 127 The Paris Pages are a very rich source of links to information about the monuments, métro, special exhibitions, stores, and cafés in the "city of lights.” The project, led by a student at the University of California, receives contributions from France, the USA and many other countries whose citizens love the culture and beauty of France. Entering a site like this, one begins to understand the pull of the Web and the impulse of some to spend hours wandering about it.

Clicking the "Interactive Map" selection in the Paris Pages leads the user to a large map with monument and museum titles coded by number. One has only to click on the name or the number to go to a page showing several pictures about that location and providing interesting historical and current information.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 128 Lists Of Lists sites attempt to archive all there is of a certain subcategory of sites to help people with special interests find their way on the Here are some list sites for the language aficionado.

The Human Languages Home Page is lists the names of selected Web sites in all possible language categories. This Japanese list illustrates the range of sites available for a given language. Notice that there is a short tutorial with audio for travelers, a "quick and dirty" grammar, a "Kanji of the Day" writing primer, a dictionary, and the organizational site for a discussion group.

One of the most talked-about lists on the Human Languages Page is the Klingon resource list for Star Trek aficionados.

Tennessee Bob Peckham at the University of Tennessee has categorized as many French sites as possible, resulting in a comprehensive list for French speakers. He also posts newly found sites intermittently to the FLTEACH and LLTI discussion lists. His work is widely-respected and he is currently linked to from over 40 sites worldwide, including several in France.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 129 CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 130 Organizational Sites are a way for a language department, an academic organization or a commercial publisher to put organizational information, archives, and contact procedures in one cluster of linked documents.

Cambridge University Press has a very well-designed page with just enough information on page one to lead the user in without hiding the database access features one might want in a publisher's site.

Many language departments and language laboratories are placing information on their own Web sites. The University of Toledo's language department has a well known site which also doubles as a very good "List of Lists" site in one of its subheadings. Locally, there is information for students and faculty that facilitate the operations of the department.

The on-line discussion group FLTEACH's Web site serves as a good introduction to the Web for language professionals. It presents major on-line language resources and leads into more detailed menus of its discussion list archives or to some starting points for a language-oriented "net-scapade."

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 131 CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 132 COPYRIGHT ISSUES

With the wealth of material in this medium users may be tempted to download vast amounts of text or sound for personal use, research, public performance, or use in the classroom. Although copyright legislation is, as yet, unclear or nonexistent, the normal rules of copyright law and the Berne Convention probably apply. If in doubt, it is recommended that users ask permission.

In an on-line article entitled “Frequently Asked Questions About Copyright" Terry Carroll discusses some conditions that void normal copyright protection. He contends that copyrights should be assumed unless an author makes an unambiguous statement or overt act that indicates intent to dedicate the work to the public domain. In other words, simply posting a work on a computer network does not imply that the author has abandoned copyright.

The “fair use" doctrine does not give us any true guidelines for amounts and types of material that can be used without permission. Many publishers and universities have policy statements, but they are little more than educated guesses as not much has been tried in court. Most of these policies have not dealt with the issues of materials downloaded from the Internet.

Judicial tendencies reveal that the more commercially viable a piece, the more it is protected. Unpublished works are more protected than published, while artistic and literary expression is more protected. Factual reporting is less protected and educational uses are less likely to be prosecuted unless they collide with the commercial issue. There have not been many court cases to test the legality of using the electronic documents and communications of another person or company.

With the existence of e-mall, it is very easy to ask for permission. Most Web pages list the author's e-mall address or the e-mail address of someone who can contact the author. Permissions for all 9 illustrations requiring it in this article were granted within 12 hours of having asked for them.

The Copyright Office's on-line information at the URL gopher://marvel.loc.gov offers additional details. A site that elaborates on the Copyright Office's information is at Stanford University gopher://palimpsest.stanford.edu:70/ 11/ByTopic/ copyright.

The Coalition for Network Information's on-line discussion list is an ongoing discussion of copyright law as it applies to cyberspace. This organization also has in its Web site an executive summary of research by the AAU Task Force on Intellectual Property Rights in an Electronic Environment. Section 4.a. "Universities as Users of Copyright Materials" of URL: http://arl.cni.org/ aau/IPl.html is especially interesting reading.

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 133 For a print article on copyright as it applies to language teaching or the language laboratory uses see Parkhurst and Carpenter's comprehensive article “Copyright and Non-Print Media: Learning Labs and the Law."

CONNECTING TO THE WEB

Many users currently log into a "host computer" to read e-mail using a "dumb terminal' suchasaVT100oraPCasaterminalemulatorconnectedtoacampus mainframe running the VAX/VMS or LTNIX . These users may only have access to text portions of the Web. Individual client programs (e.g. Telnet, FTP) provide access to login and file transfer sites, respectively. It is likely that a Gopher client runs on such a host, providing streamlined access to Gopher, FTP, and Telnet servers. To determine if this type of network is used, type "gopher” at the command prompt. Though many gopher clients do not "understand" URLs (one also needs to specify a document using a different format). The host may also run a program called — a text-only Web browser that allows access to most URLS, to view text portions of HTTP documents, and to retrieve files for later download to a desktop PC (i.e., if users want to view an image file, they must download it from the host computer using software like Kermit or XModem and then use an appropriate program to view the image).

To fully access the Web, users should run Netscape Navigator or another browser directly on their desktop with a direct connection between the desktop computer and the Internet (i.e., the PC must be able to exchange IP messages directly with other machines). To access the Web, users will need:

1. A desktop computer, as opposed to a dumb terminal.

2. The Internet standard communications software TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) that lets a desktop machine talk to other machines connected to the Internet. On a Macintosh, users will need MacTCP (shipped with new computers or available from Apple). For a Windows Machine, is offered free of charge. On a UNIX workstation this software usually comes pre- installed.

3. A connection to the Internet.

• On-campus, this is typically accomplished by installing an card in your PC and then connecting to the campus network.

• Dial-up access is available in many areas using the SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol). These protocols allow the PC to dial up a "SLIP server" or "PPP server” — devices that allow dial-up machines to

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 134 exchange IP packets with other machines on the Internet. SLIP or PPP service is increasingly available from both local and national vendors and is often available from a campus computer center. A 14.4 or 28.8 kilobaud modem is needed to get acceptable performance.

4. A Web browser software package. NCSA Mosaic is available as freeware from the National Supercomputer Applications Center. However, the more powerful Netscape Navigator browser is available for download across the Internet, and it is free to nonprofit and educational users. For any browser, users will need to obtain several "helper applications" to view specialized file types (such as listening to a sound file).

Once everything is set up, using a Web browser is extremely simple. However, obtaining an Internet connection, installing all the software, and performing the initial configuration can be somewhat confusing. The campus computer center, dial-up Internet service vendor, or a local computer society should be able to assist users in initial setup.

An alternative option is to obtain access through a commercial service, such as or America On-line. Users of the Windows version of Prodigy can automatically download and install a version of Netscape Navigator at the click of a button, and Compuserve has just released a similar service. America On-line and Delphi include their own browser software when customers buy accounts. IGC, the operators of EcoNet and Peacenet, also offer an Internet service to their subscribers — while a bit more complicated to install than Prodigy, IGC's offering is simpler than starting from scratch and offers a somewhat more complete range of services.

NAVIGATING ON THE WEB: NET SEARCHING STRATEGIES

A first step for users is try some of the sites mentioned in this article. These may lead to other sites of interest. Using the “Add Bookmark" choice in the browser is a useful strategy when encountering a site the user may wish to revisit at a later time.

Buttons on the Netscape Navigator's toolbar automatically take the user to lists of useful starting points (including directories and searching tools). For example, the "Net Search” button links to a page listing a variety of "Search Engines." Some excellent resources from this page are:

Yahoo!'s search engine, formerly sponsored by Stanford University, now a service of the Yahoo! Corporation, a subsidiary of the Netscape Corporation: http://www.yahoo.com/

The Magellan Internet Directory, sponsored by the McKinley Group, Inc., offering a 4- star rating scale for many sites:

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 135 http://www.mckinley.com/

Alta Vista, sponsored by Digital Equipment Corporation: http://altavista.digital.com/

Other good starting points are:

Netscape Navigator Home Page: http://home.netscape.com/

Network Starting Points from NCSA: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/StartingPoints/ NetworkStartingPoints.html

The biggest problem with the Web is getting through the incredible maze to sites that truly do increase one's productivity rather than to wile away the time.

CREATING PERSONAL HOME PAGES

A Home Page allows users to "begin at their own doorstep." Favorite quotations pictures, or personalized lists of Web sites are additional ways to personalize home pages on the Web.

Behind all web pages are simple ASCII text documents with special codes typed in around the content words to give the page its formatting and linking capability when displayed via the browser. These codes are called “HTML” or "HyperText Markup Language." Compare the page below with its realization in Figure 4 earlier in this article. It is the simple ASCII text document undergirding the document that shows up when "Open File" is selected from the File menu of the browser. (Normally, an ASCII text document has no formatting of its own like bold face type. The bold face is inserted below to set the HTML coding apart from the actual content of the page.)

My Local Home Page Carolyn’sLocalHomePage

Saying of the day:
”If two people agree all the time, one of them is unnecessary.” David Mahoney

Language Sites

Figure 18. HTML document: “My Local Home Page”

For learning HTML coding and other aspects of publishing on the World Wide Web, a recommended book is Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a Week by Laura Lemay, SAMS Publishing, 1995 ISBN 0-672-30667-0. In general, codes tend to surround the content text. In order to make the C in Carolyn larger than the following characters one would enter and around the "C." At present, fonts cannot be specified in HTML because the font type is always set by the browser.3

In order to make a list of items show up as an indented, bulleted list, one places the code < UL > at the beginning of the list and < /UL > at the end of the list. Each bulleted item of the list is preceded by a < LI >. Some code types do not require a terminating "word" of the format < /XX >. To make a line break one places the code
at the end of the line with no further "closing” code. In order for text to break and skip a line an author types < P > (for paragraph) with no terminating code. Studying this example enables potential Web page authors to see other ways in which the visual effects are achieved with HTML coding. The NCSA Home Page is a free resource for on-line beginners' guides. For example users can directly type in the URL http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ demoweb/html-primer.html and arrive at, see, and print from the screen of "A Beginner's Guide to HTML."

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 137 CONCLUSION

The World Wide Web can make it easy to get information that one used to spend hours obtaining in the library, on the phone, or at the fax machine. There are many things to learn about the surge of Web uses and new Web-related software that are not covered in this article. The intent of this article has been to give a basic grounding in the origins and workings of the WWW. Readers may have heard about the new Netscape Navigator 2.0 browser and Java software applications (called "applets”) which increase the technical uses of the World Wide Web. From a design point of view, the existence of the presents a challenge to business and educational professionals as they attempt to understand the ways that operations can be improved by wise use of the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Well-designed World Wide Web documents can provide visually rich, interactive, and instantaneous information to people all over the globe, especially important to sometimes linguistically-isolated professionals and students. Through this new medium many possibilities exist for offering links to the people and ideas of other cultures.

SELECTED URLS

Agora Language Marketplace http://agoralang.com

Cambridge University Press http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk

Copyright Office's on-line information gopher: marvel.loc.gov also at Stanford Univ.: gopher://palimpsest.stanford.edu:70/11/ByTopic/copyright

De Proverbio: An Electronic journal of International Proverb Studies: http://info.utas.edu.au/docs/flonta/

FLTEACH Home Page http://www.cortland.edu/www_root/flteach/flteach.html

The Human Languages Home Page: http://www.willamette.edu/~tjones/languages/Language-Page.html

The Paris Pages http://www.paris.org/

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 138 Tennessee Bob's Famous French Links: http://192.239.144.18/departments/french/french.html

University of Toledo's Foreign Language Department http://131.183.82.151/home.html

Voice of America gopher://gopher.voa.gov:70/1

WebMuseum, Paris (formerly, Web Louvre) http://sunsite.unc.edu/wm/

BROWSER SOFTWARE AND WHERE YOU CAN GET IT

Netscape Navigator 2.0

Users can download it at no extra cost by ftp at ftp://ftp2O.netscape.com/ or by Web through http://home.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/index.html

One can buy the commercial version and its reference guide on-line for $69.OOUS from a Netscape secure transaction site: http://merchant.netscape.com/netstore/soft/nav/items/bud/2002.html

NCSA Mosaic 2.0

Users can download it at no additional cost by ftp at ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/mosaic or from http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/mosaic/NCSAMosaicHome.html

There are several other browser available including AIR Mosaic (Spry), Spyglass Enhanced Mosaic, Web Explorer (OS/2), (Windows) WinWeb (Windows), MacWeb, , Mosaic, and Chimera.

NOTES

Special Acknowledgment must be made to my husband Miles Fidelman who provided information and editorial assistance in some of the detailed technical sections of this article.

The interactive version of this article is available at http://agoralang.com/calico/ webarticle.html

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 139 1 Survey of Internet Users on FL Discussion Lists LLTI (language lab), FLTEACH (language teachers), TECHEVAL (MLA technology evaluation), TESOL (ESL), conducted from Sept 14 -30, 1994. To obtain a copy please write the author, preferably by e-mail.

2 "Downloading,” in fact, means copying the data to the user's personal computer from a remote location.

3 Having control over font display options is an advantage to the end user, particularly if s/he has poor eyesight and would like to use a larger font or type size. But this may seem like a disadvantage for the designer of publicly available Web sites whose efforts to plan the placement of graphics or text may be thwarted. One can reasonably assume the defaults that come with the (Times font at 12 points) or include directions at the top of the first home page in a site stating “This screen is best viewed in Times 12.' There exist new software products such as Acrobat Reader that give the author more control over how a page is viewed by users. But all users will have to have the Acrobat Reader to do so thereby reducing the number of users possible.

AUTHOR'S BIODATA

Ms. Fidelman has degrees in French and Foreign Language Education from the University of Georgia and a Masters in Education from Harvard's Interactive Technology program. While continuing to teach college French, Professor Fidelman spent six years developing interactive videodisc courseware as an independent producer for IBM, and others. Her longtime interests in teaching French culture, nonverbal communication, and promoting the use of multimedia in foreign language education, have led to two three-year FIPSE grants to promote a method and videodisc- based materials called In The French Body and In The German Body. Her first brush with electronic communications occurred while she worked as assistant to Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT Media Laboratory in the early '80s. As Editor-In-Chief of the Agora Language Marketplace, Ms. Fidelman helps other authors seeking to distribute their work efficiently and inexpensively via Internet, Web, and Gopher.

AUTHOR'S ADDRESS

Agora Language Marketplace 91 Baldwin Street Charlestown, MA 02129-1423

Phone (617) 241-9610 Fax (617) 241-5064 E-mail: [email protected]

CALICO Journal, Volume 13 Numbers 2 & 3 140