Complete List of Assignments

Printed below is a list of the published Internet Literacy course assignments. Depending on the options chosen by your course instructor, some of these assignments may not actually be required. Your instructor may also require you to complete other assignments, which are not listed here. Use your course management system's assignment option to list the assignments you must complete for sure.

1. State your goals for taking this course, and give two examples of how you hope the Internet services and applications discussed in Chapters 1 and 2 will help you meet these goals.
2. Who is the primary ISP in your area, and how much does that ISP charge per month for Internet service? Chapter 3 provides you with strategies for answering this assignment.
3. Go to the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities site by following the links in the Netiquette section of the Interlit Web site. Read carefully the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for Electronic Learners that you will find there. Do you agree with all of the items covered in this Bill of Rights? What do you disagree with? Do you plan to abide by these guidelines? Do you think they leave out anything important? What is not covered that should be?
4. Go to one or more of the smiley sites you will find in the smiley section of the Interlit Web site, and browse the list of emoticons you find there. What are your favorite emoticons? Type your favorite emoticons into your answer, and explain what they mean. Which emoticons do you find too esoteric (that is, too hard to understand) for general use on the Internet? Type the overly esoteric emoticons into your answer, and explain what they are supposed to mean.
5. Follow the Interlit Web site link to the Glossary of E-mail and Online Chat Acronyms, and study the acronyms you will find there. Which acronyms do you think an Internet Literate person should know? Type these acronyms into your answer, and tell what they stand for. Which acronyms are too esoteric for general use on the Internet? Type the overly esoteric acronyms into your answer, and tell what they are supposed to mean.
6. Chapter 6 of the Internet Literacy textbook describes several e-mail clients that you can use to do electronic mail. Which e-mail client are you planning to use primarily in this course?
7. Part of your grade in this course is determined by the quality and effectiveness of your e-mail. Please note that quality is more important than quantity; there is no need to overdo the amount of messages you send. To demonstrate that you can send e-mail effectively, address a message to your course instructor. Make the subject of the message be "My term paper topic." In the body of the message, tell your instructor the topic that you are planning to write about in the term paper that you will submit later in the course when you complete the term paper assignment.
8. Using one of the listserv search tools listed in Table 7-2, find an unmoderated listserv mailing list that interests you, and subscribe to it. Lurk for a while until you get used to the conversation, then try sending your own message to the listserv. Make sure your message fits the stated purpose of the listserv. If it makes sense in the context of the conversation, ask a question in your message, and see whether anyone responds with the information you are seeking. Which listserv did you join? Describe briefly the conversation you joined and tell how you contributed.
9. Every student in this class is required to participate in the course newsgroup. The name of the newsgroup for this course is udel.internet.literacy. You can go there by pointing your browser at news://news.udel.edu/udel.internet.literacy. Please join in the conversations you will find in progress there, and initiate new topics as you wish. Chapter 8 provides detailed instructions that will help you learn how to use the newsgroup.
10. A major part of your grade in this course is determined by a term paper that you will write and submit on a topic of your choosing. You may elaborate on one of the topics discussed in the text, or you can choose an original topic that is related to an educational or communications issue on the Internet. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 provide you with strategies and techniques that you can use to find and retrieve scholarly resources that you can use to investigate your topic. When you write your paper later in the course, you will be required to cite at least six of these resources and document your citations in one of the bibliographic styles (APA, MLA, or CMS) described in Chapter 14. What is the topic about which you are planning to write your paper, and what are some of the resources you plan to cite as references in your bibliography? Note: If you are having a hard time deciding on a topic, skip to the end of the book and read about the societal issues discussed in Chapter 25; one of these issues will surely peak your interest.
11. As illustrated in Chapter 16, there is a knack to writing a hypertext in such a way that the wording makes it clear what will happen when the user triggers the link. Provide three examples of how you could write a hypertext that the user clicks to do something on the Internet, such as move to a different page at a Web site. Each example should be a line of hypertext that will appear on the user's screen, containing one or more hot words that the user clicks. For each of your three examples, indicate what the hot words are, and tell what will happen when the user clicks the hot words.
12. Chapters 18 through 21 step you through the process of creating a Web page résumé and a home page, and Chapter 22 shows you how to publish them to the Web. After you work through these chapters and publish your pages to the Web, browse to your home page to make sure that it looks good onscreen, contains no spelling mistakes, and links properly to your résumé. Remember that your résumé should contain a table of contents with links to targets that make it easy for the user to find the different sections of your résumé and return to the contents, as described in Chapter 18. After you have your home page and your résumé working this way on the Web, you should submit them for a grade by submitting to your course instructor the Web address of your home page.
13. In Chapter 23, you learned that the most popular plug-in on the Internet is the Shockwave Player, which is the Macromedia product that enables multimedia content created with Director, Authorware, and Flash to play in Web pages. To install the Shockwave Player plug-in, follow the Interlit Web site link to Macromedia Shockwave, and follow the onscreen instructions to download and install the Shockwave player. After you have installed the Shockwave plug-in, use your browser to experience the Shockwave demos you will find linked to http://www.shockwave.com. Make a list of the features you find Shockwave supporting that you do not find on Web pages without it. What is your favorite Shockwave feature?
14. Complete exercises 1 through 3 at the end of chapter 24, which has you put audio onto your home page. After you have tested the audio on your Web page to make sure it plays back properly from the Web, submit the URL of your home page so your instructor can assign you a grade for your waveform audio recording.
15. Since 1995, Discreet Data Research has operated a Web site where people can find out information about you that is normally considered to be private or confidential. Follow the Interlit Web site link to Discreet Data Research and check it out. While there, peruse the different sleuthing services and investigative links. What is the most shocking service that you found at the Discreet Data Research site? That is, which service is the most disturbing to you with regard to information that anyone could find out about you through Discreet Data Research?
16. A major part of your grade in this course is determined by a term paper that you write on a topic of your choosing related to an educational or communications issue on the Internet. You may elaborate on one of the topics discussed in the text, or you can choose an original topic. Your paper must contain at least six bibliographic references. Make sure the title of your paper, your name, and the date you completed it appear at the top. Please visit the sample term papers, which demonstrate how to do this. Follow precisely the bibliographic style guidelines for the style you use (APA, MLA, or CMS--see chapter 14 for details). After you have transferred your paper to your Web site and tested all of the links in it to make sure they work properly, submit it for a grade by submitting to your instructor the http Web address of your term paper.