It has been interesting reading and listening about the differences between what internet actually is compared to the World Wide Web. The Web uses the internet to carry out its function as a method of linking hypertext and thus allowing us to access unlimited information.
It isn't very old in the scheme of things, even newer than Australia! With Vannevar Bush's vision to create a system by which information could be sourced easily by mechanical methods. The use of hypertext, which is the system that allows us to jump from one area to another by mouse click, with no apparent order.
Part 2 took us on a tour of HTML and the Web, explaining URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), as actual 'addresses', where the inform exists within the Web. The Domain Name Server will then convert this to the IP address, and thus successfully finding the sought after information.
It was interesting investigating how HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and having an experiment (Activity One) to test it out. We called them macros in WordPerfect back in the 80s and early 90s, where effectively HTML language was used to produce a memorised sequence of keys. A huge timer saver for those of us who produced a lot of similar documents, and in hindsight was in fact HTML.
I found reading the excerpts almost disturbing, in that I want to quickly finish one page to continue to the next. Consequently I did not read what was there adequately - I kept thinking about where I was going at the end of the page. This happens to me regularly on the Web, so I often miss basic instructions. It's almost like reading the last page first in a novel - I need to know where I am going so I can enjoy the journey. Often the Web is more of a maze than an orderly sequence of events.
Activity Two - Going Way Back.
This was fun! It is interesting to see the progression of web pages over the last couple of decades. How similar they all were in the 80s and 90s, with basic white backgrounds and lots of boxes. The graphics were sharp, square, basic and not very exciting. Today's web pages are far more fluid, with much more exciting use of colour, often with light text against a dark background - something not feasible in hard copy, the ink is too expensive. Also easier to navigate - with side panels, pretty indices, almost like a family tree arrangement. This is most probably a perception rather than a reality, I am now far more familiar with how to use websites than I was 20 years ago.
I have forgotten how to reference the course notes, so I will need to go check and come back to correctly finish this entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment