WEB 101: Using the Web in Education and Training / What is the Web, Really?

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CONTENTS:

• Beginning Definitions
• Web Structure
• How The Web Works - Basic Techniques for Users
• Strengths and Weaknesses of The Web for Education and Training
• Advanced Definitions

BEGINNING DEFINITIONS:

• Bookmark. On a Web Browser, a list of favorite sites that you can open easily. You add sites to the list by choosing the menu item Bookmarks and the Addd Bookmark when you have are at a site that you like. The menu choices might be different on your Browser. Your Browser then saves the URL for the site. HINT: go back to the site's top menu before adding the bookmark. A bookmark takes you to the page that you were on when you added it.
• HTML. HyperText Markup Language, the international standard that defines the screen formats, links, and other features that you can use in Web documents.
• Hyperlink. A link embedded in an electronic document, that links to another document. Web hyperlinks can be identified by one or more of the following, depending on your Browser:
  • Different color (defaults to blue or purple, but you or someone else can change these colors).
  • Underlined
  • Cursor changes shape, often to a pointing finger.
  • Text describing the link destination appears on the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
• Information. In the computer field, information is any content that has meaning or significance to a human being. In Web 101 we will specialize this to course content, information about courses, or information entered by students taking courses.
• URL. Universal Resource Locator. The Web address for a document.
• Web Browser. A computer running Web Browser software. Also, the software itself. A Web Browser requests information from a Web Server.
• Web document. A document on a Web server, conforming to the HTML standard, that can be viewed using a Web Browser.
• Web document developer. A person, or a team of people, that originates Web documents.
• Web document element. Web documents can contain text, graphics, sound and video, which we call document elements here. Hyperlinks are links from one document element in the present document to another document element, either in the same document, or in another document on the same Web site, or to a document element on another Web site. In each case, both the "from" and "to" can be any type of element; text, graphic, sound or video.
• Web Server. In general, a computer running Web Server software. The Web Server sends information over the Internet whenever it is requested by a Web Browser. If the information is interactive, the Web Server also receives from and responds to the information entered by the user.
• Web Site. Same as Web Server.

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WEB STRUCTURE:

The Web is information sources called Web Servers communicating with information requesters called Web Browsers. Browsers send information requests in the form of URLs to Servers, and Servers respond with the specified Web document. Web document developers embed hyperlinks within documents. Hyperlinks are links from one document or document element to another.

Basic Web structure showing Users, Browsers, Servers and Developers

Hypertext.

A Web document contains links to other locations in the same document, to other documents on the same Web Site, or to documents on other Web sites. This linking is what is meant by hypertext. A link can lead to related information, to more detail, to a response, to whatever you want. And calling it hypertext doesn't do it justice. A Web document can contain text, pictures, sound and video, although the last two capabilities are not widely implemented on Browsers yet. But any one of these can be linked to any other, so that it is sometimes called hypermedia instead of hypertext.

Structure of a Hyperlink. The "From" and "To"
elements can be text, graphics, sound or video.
"A" and "B" can be the same document.

What can you do with a Web Browser? [For "how to" details, go to How the Web Works]
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• Scroll through a long document.
• Click on a hyperlink.
• Go to a Web Site if you know its Web address.
• Add a favorite Web site to your list of bookmarks.
• Search for a term in the Web page you have open
• Do a Web search by opening a search site such as Yahoo!
• If an e-mail link has been provided, you can e-mail the site developers by clicking on the link.
• If fill-in forms or other means of interacting have been provided, you can get back a customized response.

The popularity of the Web is due in large part to the common information standards shared by all makes of computers -- Macs, PCs, Ataris, Amigas and so on. On the Web they are all compatible. The common information format is the HyperText Markup Language or HTML, which is like a word processor format. Whatever type of computer is used as the Server, the Server software sends out HTML, and whatever type of computer is used as a Browser, the Browser software reads HTML. The system of naming and locating information is the HyperText Transport Protocol or HTTP, which is like the system of street, city and state names that lets the postal carrier deliver your snail mail.

The Web is also because the software is cheap or free and widely available. Consequently many computer users have Web Browsers, and many institutions have set up Web Servers. There are commercial program, but the free software is as often good, and sometimes better.

A further point to bear in mind is that the Web and its capacities are growing rapidly. What is impossible today may be routine next year.

Interactivity.

What we have described so far is sometimes called passive hypertext; passive because there is no input from the user or Browser other than choosing one link or the other. But a Web Browser can request from a Web Site not only a document, but request the Site to run another program with input from the Browser, and pass the program results back. The most popular request these days is a search, where the user types in a phrase to be searched for. The Browser sends the search term back to the Server, with the name of a search program. The search program carries out the search, assembles the results in a Web document, and passes control back to the Server. The Server sends the results back to the Browser, which displays the search results for the user.

The user can send data back to the Server in the following forms:

• Text entered into a text box through the keyboard. The text can be edited with the arrow, backspace and delete keys. There are one-line and multiple-line text entry areas. At this time, the multiple-line text entry areas do not have word wrap, although this can be dependent on the user's Browser.
• Radio buttons -- those round buttons, of which only one can be picked. Adjoining text describes the options.
• Check boxes. These are square boxes, and generally more than one can be chosen simultaneously. Again, adjoining text describes the choices.
• A scrolling list box, similar to a file list, with options specified by the developer.

All of these elements -- text entry boxes, buttons, list boxes and descriptive text -- can be put together in any desired combination. The assembly is called a form. After the user completes the form, s/he clicks a SUBMIT button (the label can be changed as desired), which sends the form results back to the Server, along with the name of the program that is to service the request. The program services the request, assembles the results into an HTML document, and transfers control back to the Server, which transmits the document to the Browser. This passing of information and control between the Server and the servicing program is called the Common Gateway Interface, or CGI. CGI programs are the good news and the bad news of Web interactivity. The good news is that the CGI program can do whatever is desired. The bad news is that the CGI program must be written; as opposed to the HTML standard, there are very few standards for CGI programs.

Here is an inactive example of a form. You can fool around with the buttons and text, but there is no "Submit" button so the data will not go anywhere, in this case. There are active forms elsewhere in Web 101.

If there were a "Submit" button, clicking on it would result in codes for all of the responses showing up at the Web Server for processing by the CGI program. No transferring information from paper and ink forms to computer data. The users enter the information as computer data right at the beginning. This is very efficient for marketing and registration purposes. Surveys and closed-ended tests can be processed efficiently. But if the question is "who was the first American president, the answer could be "G.Wash.", "G. Wash." (notice the extra space!), "Washington", "George Washington", "Washington, George" or many other possibilities. How to recognize them all, even for such a simple question?
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HOW THE WEB WORKS - Basic Techniques for Users:

Click on a hyperlink. You can click on a hyperlink, generally sequence of blue underlined text or a picture, and see where the link takes you. "Click on" means to move the mouse cursor to the link and press the (left) mouse button. Hyperlink example: [Return to Top]

Open a Web site if you know its address (also called its URL -- something like http:// etc.). Click the OPEN button on your Browser, type in the URL in the dialog that opens up, and click on the OPEN button in the dialog.

Add a favorite Web site to your list of bookmarks. Open up the site, click on "Bookmarks" on the menu bar at the top of the Browser window, and choose "Add" or the similar menu sub-item. In the future, you can return to this site more easily by choosing this site in the list displayed when you choose the Bookmark menu item.

Find a term in the Web Page that you have open. Many Browsers, including Netscape, have a "Find" button at the top. Click on this, and a dialog box appears. Click inside the text line in the dialog, move your mouse curosor out of the way so that you can see, type in the term you want to search for, select any other optons that you want, and click on "Find Next". NOTE that this searches only in the Web Page that you have open at the time.

Do a Web search. Open a Web search site such as Yahoo!, type in the words to search for, hit the "Search" button and wait briefly for the results. The search results will be returned in a Web document with hyperlinks to the documents or sites that met your search words. Think of this as how to open a Web site if you don't know its address. NOTE: the URL for the Yahoo! search site is http://www.yahoo.com/

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STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE WEB FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING:

As a medium for education and training, The Web has these aspects going for it:

• It is an established method of communication across all types of computers.
• It has the capacity to handle text, graphics, sound and video, even if not all of these capacities are implemented on all Browsers.
• The software, both for Browsers and for Web document developers, is good, cheap, widely available, and improving rapidly.
• It has an "open and extensible architecture", meaning that its capacities can be extended.
• It can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.
• It has a large and active community moving it forward.

On the other hand, The Web does not have all of the interactive capacity that will be needed. That is, the interactive CGI functions must be defined and then programmed before they can be incorporated in courses. The heart of using The Web for education and training will be deciding what CGI functions are needed. For example, you could say what topics you would like to study, and get back a list of which topics are ready Vs which ones are not yet developed, get a total estimated time for those topics that are prepared, and a suggested study schedule. The sky is the limit here, BUT somebody has to tell the Web Server how to respond by writing a computer program.
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ADVANCED DEFINITIONS:

• CGI. The Common Gateway Interface.
• CGI Program. See Common Gateway Interface.
• Common Gateway Interface. This is a formal computer interface between a Web Server and a computer program (the CGI Program) receiving interactive input from the user and (in the case of full interactivity) responding with a customized document. While a Web Server's functions are completely specified, what a CGI Program does is up to the staff at the particular Web site.
• HTTP. HyperText Transport Protocol. See below.
• Hypertext. A document containing hyperlinks.
• HyperText Transport Protocol. This is the method of communication between Web Browsers and Web Servers. It specifies the form of a URL, how the URL is sent over the Internet from the Web Browser to the Web Server, and how the Web Server responds.
• Interactive. The opposite of passive. Highly interactive documents respond to information entered by the user. Just as education and training are interactive, Web sites must be interactive if they are used in education and training. If Web information is interactive, the User enters information into the Web Browser and clicks on a button to send this information back to the Server. The Browser then sends this information over the Internet to the Web Server. A CGI program on the Server writes a response document in the HTML format. The Server then sends this response document back to the User.
• Passive. This has various meanings in the context of Web 101. In general, it means that the user has limited input aside from choosing one hyperlink or another. A Web document containing only hyperlinks can be called passive hypertext. In totally passive Web documents, there is no input from the user. In other cases, the user may enter information, but the information may be merely recorded without generating a customized response.
• Render. What a Web Browser does to a Web document; i.e. display the document. Specifically includes details of the display such as type face, font size, color, screen resolution, etc. Also incorporates corresponding details for graphics, sound and video.
• Universal Resource Locator. This is the information request sent from a Web Browser to a Web Server. It specifies the Web Server to which the request is made, form of information being requested, the Web document containing the information, and the location within the document. If the information is interactive, the Universal Resource Locator specifies the CGI computer program that receives the information from the Browser, and generates the interactive response.
• User. A person attempting to view your Web site; i.e. the reason you developed the site in the first place.
• Hyperlink (advanced definition). Within The Web, the link is a URL that is sent to the specified Web Server by clicking on the hyperlink. That is, the hyperlink requests Web information from the Web Server contained in the URL. Hyperlinks are specified by the document developer, but the user can choose among the hyperlinks set up by the developer.
• Web Client. Same as Web Browser.
• Web Viewer. Same as Web Browser

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