EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Maria Gonzalez
10/27/09
Chapman University
EDUU 451
Chapter One Notes
Technology and School Framework
1994, Congress passed goals 200, or Educate America Act. Its purpose was to improve learning and
teaching by providing a national framework for education reform. It also promotes research, consensus
building and systemic changes needed to ensure quitable, educational opportunities and high levels of
educational achievement for all students.
Year 2000, was selected as target date for national schools to be systematically reformed to address
landmark report entitled A Nation at Risk.
This report argued that large numbers of were passing through the educational system without gaining
the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute in a modern technological society.
This was also seen as an economic threat to the nation.
National Educational Technology Plan, 2003 and recommendations offered b The Partnership for Twenty
First Century Skills, 2003:
Schools must change to prepare students to emerging challenges and technology tools may be of unique
value in meeting these challenges.
One source claims that “today’s” education system faces irreverence unless we bridge the between how
students live and how they learn.
Key Elements for Twenty First Century Learning:
1. Emphasize on core subjects:
Continue to build on core subjects we teach today such as: reading, writing, history, math and science.
The change that will occur is what we learn about the subjects and how we learn to apply basic
knowledge will change.
2. Emphasize Learning Skills:
We must move away from the training of specialists whose skills are soon obsolete, due to development
of generalists who can adapt. Efforts are described as more instigative and often affluent families to
prepare young learners as “shape-shifting portfolio people”. Implying that jobs of the future may
presently be undefined, or quickly change in the skills required. People will likely be able to draw on a
collective portfolio of general purpose, academic skills and life experiences demonstrating their abilities
to adopt.
Learning skills to develop: Information literacy, effective communication critical thinking and problem
solving, interpersonal skills along with, self directed learning.
3. Use of twenty first century tools to develop learning skills:
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Students need to learn to use the tools that are essential in everyday life and the workplace. Digital tools
used to access, organize, integrate, evaluate, and construct new knowledge.
To communicate outside of school are also appropriate to the work tasks within school.
4. Touch and learn in twenty first century context:
Learning will be more successful if learning tasks take advantage of real world examples, applications
and experiences provided inside, or outside of school.
Experiences will be more relevant/ encouraging and increase likelihood that students will be able to
apply what they have learned.
5. Recognize the need for twenty first century content:
Changes in technology partially responsible for the world changing, as core curriculum have not.
These changes include the internet that is responsible for global connections and easier access to
information. Skills such as the critical evaluation of information sources and investigation of information
in ways that encourage meaningful decisions become important.
6. Use assessment methods that insure twenty first century skills:
Standardized tests have known limitations and often non sufficient to evaluate the capacity of students
to apply knowledge of skills.
Self Summary so far:
This change in the ducations system will revolve around more technology based learning with real world
sills and combined with core curriculum in order to better prepare students for future employment. This
of course, not based on so much standardized testing. Standardized testing only narrows our
perspective on a student’s understanding of core curriculum. This is also why we are moving forward to
create approaches such as the portfolio based approach.
Students should experience a wider range of learning tasks that invve real life scenarios and current
technology to access the desired information.
Cooperative learning requires a higher level of thinking and results in a generation of student’s whose
presentation shows what have been learned.
Restructuring Schools
Often times observed in a summary table. They help identify critical detentions hat include Restructured
School Settings, as opposed to Conventional Settings.
Restructured School: Active learning, a multidisciplinary approach. Student collaboration along with a
facilitative or guiding role for the teacher.
These are the same themes that have to do with the use of technology in the classroom.
It can help students by:
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Learning to Think
Learning to Learn
Promote ways to cope with information exposure.
Encourage meaningful and effective learning.
National Standards: Goals for learning and expansion of Technology.
Intended to focus on classroom learning and assessment of student competence on essential knowledge
and skills.
Atte Standards: Seek to define what students should learn and what teachers should teach.
Teachers are likely to be aware of standards and other concepts such as benchmarks, or framework
when putting together their curriculum.
In efforts to reform schools, Standards propose what students should learn about technology and with
technology. It also refers to reviewing standards that propose what a teacher should know and be able
to do to help students use technology efficiently.
The word standard is also used in several ways:
Content Standards: What every student should know and be able to do.
Performance Standards: Explain how students will demonstrate their proficiency to establish that a
student has been achieved.
On a national level, organizations establish General Educational Goals: This means that general concepts
and skills that students should acquire.
Benchmarks: Define a general standard according to a system describing what should be accomplished
by the end of several grade level standards. These grades referring, or for example K-2, 6-8 and 9-12.
In other words, for each set of grade levels there are benchmarks that must be met in each core subject
that must be met by students.
Curriculum Framework refers to specifying and organizing knowledge and skills to be acquired. This
relating to goals to general instructional processes and techniques.
Standards and Reform
Alignment is used to promote the benefits of bringing many partners in this case classroom teachers,
those who prepare teachers, companies responsible for developing instructional materials and
organizations responsible for the creation of evaluation instruments. (These entities’ together and
around a common vision.)
Alignment and reform are best understood as operation on a more general level, rather than demanding
the same curriculum for all students.
Standards for Learning with Technology
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
International Society for Technology in Education has established standards and benchmarks that define
general expectations for what students should know about, or be able to do with technology. These
standards or benchmarks for technology are referred to as: ISTE Technology Standards.
Reflect on these questions and see how they apply to your teaching: What are the purposes of
education: What should educated citizens know and be able to do?
Standards and Educational Equity
Standards applied to students K-12 emphasize on what students should know, or be able to do.
Standards also imply that educators are to have similar expectations of students without regard for
gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or religion of the country.
Equity is also emphasized in NCATE/ISTE standards that apply to teacher preparation.
These are some examples of these types of standards:
1. Design, manage and facilitate learning experiences using technology that affirm diversity and
provide equitable access to resources.
2. Create and implement a well organized plan to manage available technology resources, provide
equitable access for all students, and enhance learning outcomes.
3. Design and facilitate learning experiences that use assistive technologies to meet the special
physical needs of students. (Meet the needs of any or all special education students by providing
assistive technology that help them with classroom activities and work.)
Changing The Way Technology is used in Schools
Classroom access to technology is not yet universal, although it can significantly contribute to school
reform. This is after computers and the internet were introduced into the school system, but not yet
available in every classroom in the nation.
Teacher Preparation
Technology use in schools will be slow to improve until teachers:
1. Are aware of full range of benefits they can gain from technology.
2. Are fully prepared to use the technological resources at their disposal.
This also brings us to the question ho how teachers are prepared for the job they are being asked to do.
Teacher Training
The general assumption of teacher training is that teachers jus complete all of their under graduate
coursework and that would lead to better preparation on using new tool, or model new instructional
approaches. In fact, new practicing teachers have said that this is not the case.
There are actually three important reasons for the lack of preparation and as follows:
1. Educational colleges frequently do not have better equipment than what is offered at the K-12
levels, along with a limited inventory of instructional software used in these classrooms.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
2. A large number of college faculty members are unable to make appropriate use of technology in
their own classrooms or are unwilling to try because of their own lack of preparation, anxiety, or
disinterest
3. Teacher preparation curriculum typically confined experiences with technology to a single
course. Technology that concentrates on learning to use the technology rather than how to
facilitate learning with technology.
Change at all levels of education, which does not come easily, starts with each of us.
Changing how teachers are trained will not have an immediate impact on school practice. It will be many
years before extensive college-based technology training into the workforce. This is due to many
technological advances being made each year and teachers only being exposed to some software, or
exposure to internet that may quickly change.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Chapter Three, Reading Notes
Productivity Tools in the Work of Teachers and Students
An assumption was made in regards to educators recognizing the general benefits of productivity tools
and then considerations were made on how they might provide similar benefits to students.
Reconsidering the logic of this approach and have noted that teachers are often proficient in their use of
technology, or may frequently use technology to support their own work as teachers, but often times
create few assignments that require students to use technology. In fact, newer teachers, who are more
confident in their technological capabilities will involve their students less with technology even less
than teachers who have been in the teaching profession for six to ten years. This can be the case due to
limited amounts of computers being furnished in a classroom. We can then see it is not an issue directly
related to the teacher, but the availability of technology, or in this case computer, in a school setting.
Example: Four students to one computer when trying to complete school assignments.
First year teachers also face challenges and learning how they will work more effectively with students.
This factor would also explain a lower student use of technology integration due to it being perceived as
an instructional goal, rather than a core approach to teaching and learning. Another way of
understanding this fact is that understanding how to use technology is not the same as understanding
how to teach using technology.
The Tools Approach
Tool: Is an object that allows the user to perform tasks with greater efficiency or quality. One good
example of a tool is a calculator, which allows a student to add series of numbers quickly and accurately,
compared to adding the same series of numbers, but with use of pencil and paper.
In a larger and broader sense, a computer along with a combination of different types of software can
function as if it were many tools. A computer’s tool function can be used to improve the efficiency and
quality of the user’s information. Computer applications such as graphics programs and computer tools
are used to explore and communicate using the internet.
Working with computer tools may benefit students on several levels by:
1. Learning to use the computer tools.
2. Performing certain academic tasks more effectively and efficiently because of the tools.
3. Learning domains skills such as writing and problem solving or acquiring content area
knowledge through the application of computer tools to content appropriate tasks.
Mind tool: Technology as an intellectual partner. This is apposed o the term tool, which we encountered
at the beginning of this section.
Word Processing
Definition: An application allowing the entry, manipulation, and storage of text and one of the most
popular uses of computer technology in schools.
Reasons for word processing popularity within schools:
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
1. Most widely used computer application in work and home environments.
(Educators are sensitive to the development of skills valued in these setting.)
2. Writing is one of the most fundamental skills taught in school
Word processing program features may help students write more effectively and develop
writing skills quickly.
3. Writing is a skill that may contribute to the generation and integration of personal knowledge in
content areas.
Writing forces students to internalize what they know as they attempt to put ideas on a
computer screen and requires an active use of knowledge.
Characteristics of Word Processing Programs
Most word processing programs allow users to accomplish the same set of basic functions such as: text
input, storage and retrieval, formatting, editing, and printing. Many word processing programs also
allow integration of graphics, audio and video.
Text Input
These word processing programs have special features that optimize a writer’s ability to input text. One
of these features that most computer users often take for granted is word wrap. Word wrap is when the
computer automatically moves the beginning of the next line when the word being entered would
extend to the right margin.
Storage and Retrieval
Definition: Involves the process of saving a copy of a document to disk and loading a saved document
from the disk back to computer memory.
This is ideal for students learning to write using a word processing program, because they may submit a
first copy of their saved work and be able to go back a second time and make corrections according to
comments made by teacher.
Formatting
Definition: Physical appearance of a document created with a word processor.
A writer may apply these features at the level of the character, paragraph, or entire document.
Font: Design of the character and the alignment of text on the screen, or printed page
Style: Alters a particular font in terms of slant or thickness.
Setting tabs, Margins, text justification, and line spacing: These are formatting settings at the paragraph
level and control.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Chapter Four Reading Notes
Sniffy The Virtual Rat
Sniffy, or otherwise known as ‘the virtual rat’ lives in a virtual Skimmer box, named after the famous
psychologist B. B. Skimmer. Remember, B. F. Skimmer was famous for his discovery basic principles of
conditioning by placing animals in controlled environments in order to better evaluate the influence of
reward and punishment. Now, Sniffy was programmed to show normal behaviors of a live rat. This rat
like any other rat, moves around in its cage and is able to sniff objects, have food available, or reacts to
sounds and light. Along with these tasks that sniffy was programmed to carry about these programmers
have found a way to program this rat to act upon the basis of fundamental rules, along with classical
conditioning. By putting all of these factors into the hands of researchers their understanding of
fundamental learning principals can be tested in order to train this virtual mouse. Shaping and
reinforcement techniques are also used, as if working with a real laboratory rat, but without the use of
real animals.
This virtual method of creating such a realistic creature helps us understand human and animal behavior
through the study of Psychology, but without the constant questioning of whether or not using live
animals for these types of studies is indeed considered to be animal cruelty. The purpose behind these
types of studies remains the same and with the help of such advanced technological advancements we
can move away from basic paper and pencil evaluations and move into more digitally constructed pieces
of data.
What are Multimedia, Hypermedia and Hypertext?
As far as multimedia or hypermedia are concerned, there are different definitions used as to industry
standards, or how different people may use both of these terms. In the field of education these terms
are often interchangeable, but indeed describe different combinations of media and communication
methods. For present purposes, our text defines these different types of communication methods based
on product characteristics as follows:
Multimedia: Is when a product uses more than one visual or auditory modality with at least two symbol
systems that include words and pictures, or at least two genres within a symbol system such as, prose,
poetry, still image and video. Of course, this complicated meaning referring to the product including
multiple media, or multimedia.
A much simpler and easy to comprehend definition would simple be that multimedia is any formats
having to do with a series of slides accompanied by music.
Multimedia Found In the Classroom
Talking Books: These types of books are made possibly by CD ROM technology and based on popular
children’s literature that is characterized by colorful artwork, narrators who read the story,
pronunciation or definitions to words being used by simply clicking on a word. This type of CD ROM
technology also provides the necessary capacity that provides high quality sound, graphics, and simple
animations related to art work. Tools such as this can help teachers when trying to engage students as
they can work together to find hidden treasures within artwork found in a given talking book and tech
books that can interact with individuals that may function at different levels. Series of books have now
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
been created from this approach as libraries grow with materials such as: Wiggle Works, National
Geographic Library and many others. This approach is ideal for any type of learner, but can benefit
students that are English learn and most of all those students that have trouble accessing printed
materials due to any type of disability.
Multimedia References
Reference materials refer to those materials often found in school libraries and individual classrooms
through the use of encyclopedias, almanacs, globes, atlases and subscriptions to magazines such as
National Geographic. Multimedia book alternatives to these examples are available on CD Rom, but are
emerging onto DVD formats. Technology based multimedia also provides students with reference
materials that offer several advantages that include: CD ROM versions of materials are less expensive,
multiple volumes of National Geographic on compact disk are bundled in smaller packages and sold at
one price along with volumes of important encyclopedias, and information can also be made available in
multiple formats. Examples of these formats are standard text format, hearing the words being read
from a book, or hearing John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address with his actual voice being heard.
Hypermedia: Units of individual words, segments of audio, segments of text, pictures, animations and
video clips are connected to each other in various ways, or as the text describes it ‘in m along with other
multiple ways.’ These types of environments are also described as interactive, because the user must
direct the software and hardware to present the next unit of information (previously mentioned) to be
experienced. This type of multimedia is also said to be experienced in a non linear fashion as well.
How Hypermedia Works: An example is presented comparing two types of books; the first is a
traditional novel type book with a more linear reading presentation. The ideas in this first book are also
presented according to what the author has set to be his or her personal way of organizing ideas
presented within the text. A second book or a science book was compared to this first book. This book
presents scientific information, a segment of text describing scientific discoveries, definitions of terms,
view pictures read brief biographical sketches and review scientific principles that appear in a
hypermedia type format, rather than the first linear format described.
Hypertext: This type of information is made up of entirely of text and the term hypermedia refers to the
first form of hypermedia, but now is not as seen within an educational setting.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Multimedia and Hypermedia
Instructional resources presented in multimedia formats are able to present information in various
formats. Hypermedia allows these resources to be explored with more flexibility. Both multimedia and
hypermedia provide a cost effective and effecticiant way to deliver learning experiences where students
normally would not have access by providing direct support, verbal instruction, and active exploration of
new information.
What are CD ROM and DVD?
Since multimedia and hypermedia require large amounts of information, connection between
applications and necessary storage media CD ROMS and DVD’s should help understand how
These storage methods work and are of value within the classroom setting.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
CD Rom: Is a shortened version of its name, or compact disk ready only memory. This simply
means that information stored onto a CD ROM can be read from that disk and then into the
memory of the computer. This information cannot be erased, or modified once the information
reaches the computer’s memory. CD ROM’s also hold up to six hundred megabytes of
information and this type of disk can cost about twenty five cents, or less.
CD ROM Technology: Computers now come with a built in CD ROM burner player and in some
cases can be r the only storage device other than the hard drive. CD ROM’s compared to
technology used ten years ago deferrer because video and audio files were stored on tape in an
analog type format. A format that would not be able to be read by a computer unless it were to
be ‘digitized’ in order for audio and video formats to be able to combine with other media
types.
At this day in age people are using camcorders or video cameras more often as information is
being stored on videotapes in a digital format and other people are also purchasing music cd’s,
as appose to buying old fashion tapes and records. This is a perfect example as how we as a
society have moved away from analog type technology to more digital formats such as a format
that is normally encountered when reading it through a CD ROM device. The advantage to using
this type of digital format is that a computer user can bring in data such as video, audio and
images into the memory of the computer to then work directly on it. If you were to compare
A CD ROM to a DVD, the CD ROM does not offer enough capacity for some applications such as
high quality images, or digital video applications.
DVD Technology: Otherwise known as a digital video disk, looks like a standard compact disk,
but its DVD player, or reader uses a more sophisticated laser system allowing this type of disk
to contain more tracks and densely packed pits that make it spin faster. A DVD also allows two
layers of information to be stored on both sides of the disk, which allows a lot more
information to be stored on this type of disk, as opposed to a regular compact disk. The lowest
end DVD disk can hold up to a capacity of 17 gigabytes, compared to six hundred megabytes on
a CD ROM.
Educational applications of DVD’s has not emerged as quickly as some people have hoped,
because the version of DVD ROM holds computer data has had less attention in comparison to
commercial videos that have been distributed and offered through a CD/DVD combination
drive. Some exceptions may include combinations of encyclopedias, atlases’, or other reference
materials.
DVD RAM: Has a storage capacity of at least 4.7 gigabytes and costs at least two dollars per
disk. Low cost, or a lower backup capacity is useful in an educational setting and encourages
more use of a DVD format such as when a student is storing projects that might take up to two
megabytes of memory, as the DVD disk would offer more free space in order to store more
information onto it. Such documents can include video editing projects when putting together
documentaries upon the completion of a history project. Benefits of this type of technology
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
also extend to the student teacher population when videotaping any classroom presentations
or activities to make collections of best work examples, placing them onto a DVD and then
distributing them among possible employers. In other words, this DVD can be used as a
different approach when compared to a conventional portfolio or resume. This tool can also be
quick, convenient and inexpensive when copying important contents from a computer’s hard
drive.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Chapter Five Reading Notes
What is the Internet?
Definition of Internet: An international collection of computer networks with more than eight
hundred million worldwide users, as this number grows on a daily basis.
The internet is described as a Meta network meaning that the internet is a network of
networks, where large networks provide a high speed regional backbone. The smaller networks
come from networks within office buildings. One good example of these types of networks is a
network that may be running at a local school district, or university, made possible by running
special software that connects all computers to a single network. A commitment has been
made among members of the internet to share with resources, or transfer information over this
type of network.
Note: When thinking about a spider running its sticky threads in order to create a single we.
That can be a good description of how a network runs. One main computer and its branching
computers hooked up to a single network.
Parents and students can connect to the internet at home, libraries and other public locations.
This proves that internet use is significant due to several reasons that include: communicating
with parents and be able to provide information about academic assignments, keep parents
informed about important school events, keep parents informed about important school issues,
students use the internet to complete school assignments, and for those reasons educators to
know how the internet is extensively used by these two groups of people. Educators must also
be aware of how the internet is also extensively used among average citizens as well. The only
unfortunate aspect to the internet and its use by parents and students is family income. For
that same reason educators teaching in a high poverty school have to take into account how
much students will be able to access the internet outside of a school environment.
Statistical Information related to the internet:
 An estimated number of 500 million users in the year of 2002.
 Thirty percent of our nation’s population took thirty eight years in order to acquire
access to telephone.
 Thirty percent of our nation’s population took seventeen years to acquire access to
television.
 According to the UCLA Center for Communication in the year 2000 states that it took the
nation the same commitment to be acquired in seven years.
 The communication indicator for schools with internet access in the year of 1996 was
fifty at percent.
 The current number of schools with internet access is at ninety eight percent.
 By 2004, the nationwide ratio of students to computers with internet access was 4.3 to
1.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes






The nationwide ratio of students to classroom computers was 8.4 to 1.
Only twenty seven percent of schools have invested in installing a wireless internet
network.
The internet is accessed from home by sixty five percent of our nation’s citizens.
Twenty four percent of these users have high speed internet connections.
An average internet user spends twelve point five hours online a week.
Seventy five percent of our nation’s population claimed that they accessed the internet
from work or community locations.
Change to this process is anticipated and contacting the National Center for Education Statistics
has been suggested to keep track with these changes. The National Center for Education
Statistics can be found on the web at: http://nces.ed.gov.
Definition of TCP/IP: Transition Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol, or the method of
transferring information from one computer to another and establish how small amounts of
digital information or packets are sent from one place to another. It also establishes how the
system should respond when a packet does not arrive. It works the same for web pages, e-mail
and when streaming videos.
IP’s: Establishes a system for addressing and forwarding packets and each computer on the
internet also has an IP number, or unique address. The same computer also contains something
called a domain name, or a series of abbreviated words. IP numbers are also responsible for
messages and files ending up in a specific computer.
DNS: A Domain Name Server is in charge of keeping track of domain names corresponding to
various IP members and its unique designation for each computer is important to ensure that
the internet gets to the correct place.
What roles can internet play in education?
There are many ways of going about organizing information related to the educational uses of
the internet, as some authors have created schemes based upon content areas, grade levels,
and software categories, but this text has widely used the term of technology as more of a tool.
This tool related metaphor helps by creating a rather different perspective of internet when
presented to educators, because when a tool is being used to accomplish a meaningful task,
proficiency with that tool is made even more valuable. Internet applications and other types of
technology become available to the student population when they are used to learn skills that
are appropriate to content areas being taught.
The internet can provide: tools for communication, tools for inquiry and tools for construction.
Tools for communication include efficient methods for exchange of information and
communicating with other people. Examples of these types of tools are: e-mail, mailing lists,
chatting and videoconferencing. Tools for inquiry refer to methods when solving information
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
problems and shows how learners can make efficient use of internet tools. Examples of student
inquiry include web browsers, and searchable information on the World Wide Web. Tools for
construction means that the internet is a vehicle for presenting student created products in
order to summarize a particular learning activity. Student projects under this category can
include multimedia such as: images, sound or video.
Learning by Communicating
The most powerful use for technology is putting people in touch with others, such as teachers
and students conveying ideas, or receiving information instantaneously allowing conversations
to begin. The use of technology is also important when individuals that share common interests
can interact from great distances in various ways that include the following:
E-mail: Otherwise known as electronic mail, is an internet based access system used for
sending, receiving and storing written messages. This was one of the first internet applications
created, as it remains to be more frequently used and has eventually begun to replace regular
mail to a certain extent. An estimated ninety percent of our nation’s internet users use an email account, while sixty two percent check their e-mail accounts at least once a day.
Exchanging these types of messages is a simple task, but when teachers and students use this
method of communication, many creative projects demonstrating educational potential,
learning about different cultures and practicing foreign languages can be accomplished, as
correspondence can be exchanged among other populations that include: parents, scientist,
politicians, and everyone else in the world.
Definition of Client-server model: E-mail functions that individuals have on their computer and
are otherwise known as servers.
Definition for a server: May be maintained by a school, local ISP, or a commercial entity such
as AOL and in some instances Yahoo!.
Definition for e-mail address: This address includes a personal identifier followed by the
domain name for whatever server and individual may use to access their e-mail. These two
items are divided by and @ symbol and can look like this:
Example: Maria Gonzalez, or my name and the server’s name without any spacing in between.
This is what an e-mail address would look like: Maria_Gonzalez123@aol.com.
Definition for an e-mail client: Software on a computer that interacts with an e-mail server in
order to send and receive e-mail messages. These interactions can also take either of two
forms:
1. Client software can do all of the work and the server accumulates mail until it can be
downloaded to the client. The server also sends a message to the recipient and downloaded
messages are stored on the computer running client software.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
2 Client Software only functions to upload and download e-mail messages to and from a server.
Messages are displayed and entered within the fields of a webpage and work is actually done
by the e-mail server that generates necessary interpreting data entered by the user.
Mailing Lists
There are online applications in which a group, rather than individuals are targets of
communication. These types of applications are often called mailing lists, or list serves, but the
list servers are a site in which the list originates from. Within these types of applications users
may send open messages to a defined group of readers and the user sends an e-mail message
to a particular address in which it then is relayed to an entire list of readers. Joining this type of
list may cause an individual to receive dozens of messages packed with information on a daily
basis. Mailing lists often address general, or specific topics related to teachers. Such topics ma
include some of these examples: school internet administrator may send a message for
information about what other schools have done in the past in order to keep students from
accessing inappropriate content when surfing the web, or each institution on that list would
receive the same message and someone may reply. Each reader would also read and be able to
view each response to these questions, or topics being covered.
Definition for a Thread: The sequence of messages on a particular topic that occur when a
topic has been exhausted and the information moves on to another subject. A thread is then
created when a user replies to previous messages. The reply option on most e-mail systems can
be found in the header of a previous message.
Conferences
Is a different approach to exchanging messages within a group and does not result in many
messages being sent to you such as in the case of mailing lists. Messages are simply posted to a
network location in which users can go to review electronic material. This is similar to
departmental bulletin boards used in a high school setting used to tell students about events
and school related news. So, the type of idea has been adopted, but in an electronic format re
naming this concept to a conference forum, where hundreds of messages can be saved and
read by people worldwide. Users that participate in these types of conferences are encouraged
to begin relevant, but new discussions with questions, comments or responses to comments
already posted.
Chat and Instant Messaging
Due to the fact that there is a time gap between sending and receiving messages this form of
communication, or otherwise known as, asynchronous in which real time exchanges or
synchronomous exchanges are possible. The actual form of interaction is referred to keyboard
interaction, or chatting by entering text. Necessary software in order for chat to be affective
includes a standard web browser running a java applet, meaning that a small piece of software
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
allowing interactivity within the browser window and the browser to automatically download,
or a stand alone chat client such as messenger. If chatting will be used in a learning activity you
must be assured that the method being used allows private discussions to be made for security
reasons among your student population.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Chapter Six Reading Notes
The World Wide Web and Web Exploration Tools
As a result of efforts of many institutions and individuals operating separately, or contributing
content that they think would be useful information has lead to much disorganization among
resources available on the internet, along with the fact that the internet lacks a central
directory. This is what leads to time consuming searches, even for the more expeienced users
who already have a clear idea about what type of resources are needed in order topull
together information relating a particular topic.The web, otherwise known as the World Wide
Web is simply an inporovement to the original type of intenet, as it can now allows many
information sources to connect through hyperlinks, or special types of hypertext. Some of
these types of information sources may be linked to text documents, graphics, sound, or other
websites. Online directories and search engines are practical Web tools used to conduct
searches on a particular subject you are trying to reaseach, as they provide users with lists of
helpful links related to that topic.
Web Browsers
Provides a graphic interface and allows interactive involvement with a full range of hypermedia
and follow links with the click of a mouse, as this special client software is required to begin
any one of these tasks. They also assemble multimedia displays encountered when surfing the
web, because these displays are being sent to you in pieces. One of these pieces being simple
files composed of plain text that is considered to be essential within the assortment process.
One might simply describe this type of process being the glue that puts all of the pieces
together to form a complete picture, or your multimedia display.
Note: Simple text is composed of a file that does not contain any large headings, centered text,
nor do they have any paragraph breaks, as they do have only one unique characteristic and
that is the embedded tags that make up hypertext markup language.
Examples of Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML’s: A <BR> tag is what tells the browswer to
break and start a new line of text. A tag set, or <I></I> surrounds the text and causes text to
appear in italics. An IMG tag, transfers and image in order for it to be displayed, while a
<IMGSRG=”mark.gif”> tag provides the location of an image. Other examples of HTML, can be
found by asking the browser to show source codes for web pages, or by looking for the source
option under a browser menu.
HTML”s: Constantly evolve and there are differences in opinion over which functions to
include. If a web browser happens to be out of date, or not designed to implement a newer
function, web page features can not be displayed. Web browsers try interrate HTML tags by
building a webpage before your eyes. The appearance of a webpage may vary depending on
the browser being used, because browswers work in different ways.
EDUU 451: Applied Computers Reading Notes
Formats Available on the Web




VRML: Virtual Reality Modeling Language, is a three dementional and virtual experience
based on a format known as Quick Time VR.
Macromedia Flash, for streaming video, audio and animations.
PDF, or Portable Document Format, is used for preserving a format made up of complex
documents.
Applets, are small programs that transferr to your computer and run within your
brower. An example of an applet is Java applets.
Streaming