Internet Exercises
Internet Exercise #1
Using the Internet seems easy enough; type in a word or phrase and wait for the results. However, some searches are harder than others, or else you find the page but have to wade through a morass of information. The purpose of this exercise is to build/reinforce effective Internet researching skills (i.e. creative search terms and efficient page skimming. For this exercise, I want everyone to get into groups of three. Using the Internet and whatever search engine(s) you want to use, each group will answer one of these questions:
group 1 What does the phrase "giant has a posse" mean and what is its purpose?
group 2 What is a theramin and who invented it?
group 3 Who is William Gibson? Tell us about his major contributions, besides creating the term "cyberspace."
group 4 Who is William Burroughs? Tell us about his major contributions
group 5 Who is Praga Khan? Where is he from? What is his real name?
group 6 On what album and from which songs are these lyrics: "please stop loving me I am none of these things" "falling into strangers" "the way the blue could pull me in"
Here are some search engines to try: www.excite.com
www.yahoo.com
www.altavista.digital.com
www.webcrawler.com
www.infoseek.com
www.hotbot.com
www.dogpile.com
Please tell us what search engine(s) you used, and your search terms, as well as any complications that arose.
Internet Exercise #2
You will do this exercise individually. There are a lot of pages on the Internet. Some of these pages are good, and some are not so good. This exercise will help you learn how to tell the difference. Pick a topic you consider yourself knowledgeable about, maybe even a topic completely unrelated to this class. Find a webpage that you would consider to be a good, well-informed page and find a bad, misinformed page, or at least a page that isn't nearly as good as the first page. How did you tell the difference between the two pages and how can you apply these skills to tell the difference between good and pages concerning subjects that you might not know so much about?
Internet Exercise #3
Technically, today's exercise isn't an Internet exercise. Instead, we will share the results of our experiments with each other.
Internet Exercise #4
This exercise will look at the issue of virtual life in an interactive way. Click on the creature below and follow the instructions. We will discuss our preliminary impressions in class.
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Internet Exercise #5
There are experts who tell us about our personality, and there are tests that we can take. How about an on-line test? www.keirsey.com. Take the test and we will share the results in class. How accurate do you think that the test is? In the event that this site is down, we will look online for personality tests and share the results as a class.
Internet Exercise #6
Today, you will begin prewriting for the prospectus. Pick a topic and write about how digital technology has influenced, changed, expanded, or destroyed that topic. You should only discuss the effects digital technology has had on your subject, not the effects you think that digital technology will have on your topic. You may e-mail this to yourself or copy it onto a disk. When your turn in the prospectus, you will provide a printed copy of today's exercise, and it will count for part of your prospectus grade.
Internet Exercise #7
Prewriting for prospectus. Today, we'll do some more writing to warm up for the prospectus. Via disk or e-mail begin typing ideas. Where do you see the world in twenty years as a result of digital technology? Pick as many ideas as interest you and don't concern yourself with neccesarily staying on any specific topic--as long as you are still on the larger topic of where the world will be in twenty years due to digital technology. Keep typing and see where the ideas lead you. If you already have a specific idea to write about, then pursue that idea. When your turn in the prospectus, you will provide a printed copy of today's exercise, and it will count for part of your
prospectus grade.
Internet Exercise #8
Today, I want you to find as least one article relating to exercise number seven. It may be about the larger topic, or it may be about a more specific topic that you have decided to write on for the prospectus. We may briefly share these articles with the class.
Internet Exercise #9
Start researching for the annotated bibliography and research paper. Remember that you can cut and paste web addresses into e-mail so that you can review them later.
Internet Exercise #10
Pick your a band or recording artist that you like. Find and explore a couple of webpages concerning your band or recording artist and tell us some item of current news about your band or recording artist.
Internet Exercise #11
Go the Edward Hopper link on the syllabus and click on it. I want you write about the scene. E-mail it to yourself or put it on disk. Next time, we'll share these stories, so don't delete the e-mail and make sure you bring your disk to class, or print out the e-mail, or can bring up the e-mail next class. Here are some questions that you don't have to answer but can get you thinking. What year is it? Where is this scene at? What brought the two people together in the scene? Are they doing anything? Where did they come from? Where are they going? What's going on with the guy behind the counter? Is anyone talking? Could someone be watching this scene? Who is it? Why is/are he/she/they watching? Include as much detail as possible.
Internet Exercise #11 continued