1 – The Internet, The Web, Browsers and Search Engines

📖 Learning Objectives

Develop the Network and Communications learning strand:

  • Understand what the World Wide Web (WWW) and the internet are and the differences between them.
  • To investigate what a web browser and search engine are and the differences between them.
💬 Key Vocabulary
  • world wide web (WWW)
  • communication
  • internet
  • web browser
  • search engine
  • web crawler

📝 Starter Activity – Ready, Steady, Start your notes

  • Throughout this unit, you’re going to occasionally make notes and answer questions.
  • Use a text editor such as Notepad, WordPad or Word to record your progress as you go along.
  • In your Year 7 Computer Science folder, create a new directory called The Internet.
  • Create a new file and save it as Lesson 1 Notes.
  • Title your new document How The Internet Works
  • Under a subtitle Introduction, complete the following sentences without asking for help or looking up answers. Just answer according to what you currently know.
    • I think that the Internet is….
    • I think that the World Wide Web is…
    • I think that a Web Browser is…
    • I think that a Search Engine is…

🌐 The Internet

In this unit you will need to scan and skim lots of text from articles online. To start you will play Find the Word, go to this Wikipedia article about the internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

Your teacher will say or write a keyword on the board, when they do you need to scan the page until you find the word, then stand up. When everyone has found the word and stood up, the first person to stand will be asked where the word first appears. You will do this with a few different words.

  • Most people don’t know what the internet is or how it works, even though they use it every day.
  • In reality, the internet is a global network of computers, connected by fibre optic and copper cables or wireless and satellite signals. Add this to your notes.
  • On it’s own, the internet is nothing more than a lot of very expensive equipment.

Research It

  • Use online resources to find out a little bit about what Fibre Optic cables are.
  • Find out where the world’s longest fibre optic cables can be found.

Present It

  • Add into your notes your new understanding of what The Internet is.
  • Add into your notes what Fibre Optic cables are.
  • Try and find some images that illustrate your findings.

Save It

  • Save your work

🕸️ The World Wide Web (from now on just called the web)

  • Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web back in 1989.
  • To understand how the Web works, we’re going to investigate how a web page is made.

Try It:

  • With this page open on your Firefox web browser, press the CTRL key and U at the same time.
  • You will see something similar to this:

Tim Berners-Lee
Photo by Paul Clarke

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
<head>	
	<meta charset="UTF-8">
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1">
	<link rel="profile" href="https://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
		<title>1 &#8211; The Internet, The Web, Browsers and Search Engines &#8211; Bourne to Code</title>
<meta name='robots' content='max-image-preview:large' />
<link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//fonts.googleapis.com' />
<link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//s.w.org' />
<link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//i0.wp.com' />
<link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//i1.wp.com' />
<link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//i2.wp.com' />
.
.
.
  • Try CTRL+U on a different webpage, such as www.bbc.co.uk
  • You should see something similar to the above output on your screen.
  • Pay attention to this line:
<!DOCTYPE html>
  • The line tells the browser the webpage is a html document.
  • All webpages are made of html documents
  • Search online on how to make a hyper link in a html document
  • Add the line of code you find to your notes.

Key Points to Remember

  • The world wide web is a collection of html documents, like those that you have seen.
  • They all link to each other using hyper links.
  • The html documents are stored on different computers all over the world.
  • These computers are called Web Servers.
The web servers in the National Archives
Courtesy of The National Archives

Research It

  • Try to find out the following information
    • What was the worlds first web page?
    • How many web pages currently make up the World Wide Web?

Present It

  • Write up your findings. Be sure to include a description of what the web is.

Save It

  • Save your work

🕸️ Web Browsers

  • A web browser is a piece of software that nearly all modern computers have installed on them.

Research It

  • For each of the web browser logos shown below, find out the name of the browser and the company that makes it.
A selection of modern web browser logos

Present It

  • Present your findings on different web browsers in your notes.
  • Which of the web browsers is currently the most popular in the world?

Research It

  • Find out what a web browser actually does?
  • What are the major differences between the different web browsers?

Present It

  • Add your findings to your notes.

Save It

  • Don’t forget to save your notes.

🔍 Search Engines

Research It

  • Watch the following video about Google search. Most search engines like Bing, Duck Duck Go and Yahoo work in much the same way.

Present It

  • Write up what you learned in your notes. You should be able to do it in a paragraph or two.

Save It

  • Save your work.

🧪 Assess Your Understanding

  • Try to assess your understanding by taking this quiz here
  • If you have scored 80% or higher, well done.
  • If you did not sore as high, can you re-read the notes to see what you have missed?
  • Take a screenshot of your quiz result and add it to your notes

In this lesson, you…

  • Researched and wrote about the four main concepts in this topic, the Internet, the World Wide Web, Search Engines and Web Browsers.

Next lesson, you will…

  • Explore the technical side of the internet by looking at Domain Names, IP addresses and DNS.

🏅 Badge it

To get your badges for this section, you’re going to need to upload your notes that you have been taking.

🥈 Silver Badge
  • Your notes show some basic understanding of the 4 concepts.
🥇 Gold Badge
  • Your notes show a clear understanding of the 4 concepts.
🥉 Platinum Badge
  • Your notes show excellent understanding of the 4 concepts with appropriate examples and good spelling and grammar.