The Internet

This unit goes over some basic ways to use the internet and navigate websites. This can serve as a step-by-step tutorial as well as reference documentation for mentees. This unit is focused primarily on navigating the internet rather than how the internet works. Depending on your mentee’s level of digital literacy, you can either pair on each of the below actions during a session together (except connecting to the internet if you’re not in person), or your mentee can study this guide and come to your meeting with questions to dicuss about how to do anything on this list.

Connecting Your Computer to the Internet via WiFi

  1. From your home screen, click on the icon that looks like a striped triangle on the top of the screen near the clock.
  2. There should be a list of networks that pop up in a list. If the WiFi is off, click turn WiFi on. Select the network you want to join from the list.
  3. If the network requires a password, enter the password into the text box and click “Join”
  4. The wifi icon will blink while connecting to wifi, then stop once the connection is established.

Finding & Opening Websites

  1. Open the browser application that you’re using to access the internet
  2. If you know the website you want to visit, type the web address into the address bar/text box you see at the top of the browser window and hit enter
  3. The web page should load after you hit enter.
  4. If you’re not sure what website you need to visit, you can use a search engine to look up additional information or websites
  1. When you load a website, they’ll typically have a menu at the top of the webpage.
  • Sometimes on mobile, you’ll see an icon with three stacked horizontal lines, if you tap this icon, the menu will expand
  1. Click on the menu item to get to the page you want to view within the website
  2. There are often links within websites that connect to other pages (or other websites). Links to other pages listed within the content of a website are usually bolded or underlined. If you click on the link, it will take you to the next page or website.
  • Note: you can have multiple tabs open in a browser, which means you can have multiple web pages open at one time. Sometimes when you click on a link, it will open in a new tab, instead of loading the page in the same window. If it opens in a new tab, you’ll see the page title in a tab at the top of your browser window.
  1. Footers at the bottom of the page usually have longer lists of all the pages on their websites. If you don’t see the page you need listed in the menu, you can always check the footer to see if the page you want to look at is listed there.
  2. Some websites have a search function built in. Usually the search option is a text field that says “Search” or a magnifying glass icon. Type in a few words that are related to what you want to find – try to be specific. For example, searching for “How to code a webpage in HTML” will give you better results than “How to code” if you want to look up resources about HTML.

Downloading Files & Information from the Internet

There are lots of ways to save files and information from the internet. Here are a few options to try.

  1. Using the Download button if it’s present on a page
  • Sometimes web pages or blog posts will have a download button included on the page. If the button doesn’t say “Download”, it might be represented as a down arrow icon. Click the button and the file will be saved to your computer, so you can access it when you’re offline. It will most likely be saved to the “Downloads” file on your computer.
  1. Downloading information from the menu options
    a. If you’re on a page you want to save, you can go to File in the menu bar at the top of your screen. When you click on “File” a list of options should be listed below it.
    b. Click on “Print…”
    c. A preview window will pop up with an image of the webpage with a few drop down menus on the side. Under the “Destination” option select “Save as PDF”
    d. Click “Save” and the file will be saved to your Downloads folder.
  2. Using “Right Click”
    a. If using a mouse, use the right click option, or if using a trackpad, tap on the trackpad with two fingers
    b. A menu should pop up with a list of options. Select “Print…” from the list
    c. Follow steps c & d from the above process to save your file
  3. Copy/Paste
    a. If there’s a section of a page you want to save, but you don’t necessarily need to save the whole page, you can copy/paste the content into a text document. If using your mouse, click then drag your mouse over the text to highlight it or if using a trackpad press down with one finger, then drag your finger to highlight the text you want.
    b. Once the text is highlighted, doubleclick on the text. A menu should pop up
    c. Select “Copy” from the list of options
    d. Open the text document where you want to save the information
    e. Right click on the blank page. A menu should pop up again with a list of options
    f. Select “Paste” from the list of options & you should see the highlighted text from the website copied to your page.
    g. Save the file to keep the information. It’s always a good idea to copy the website URL into the document so you can remember where it came from!

ACTIVITIES

Go over the above sections using the Emergent Works website https://emergentworks.org/

  • Can your mentee identify the header, footer, and menu? When you resize the browser, can they identify the hamburger menu?

To practice search on a website, you can look up instructions on how to do things on WikiHow: https://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page

Have your mentee download a photo from Google image search and set it as their desktop background

Play the “How Many Degrees” Game on WikiPedia (for groups)

  1. Go to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
  2. Have one person in the group pick a word/person/place that’s on Wikipedia (e.g. Mexico City)
  3. Have another person pick a different word (e.g. the Colosseum)
  4. Have everyone start on the first page (Mexico City), and when you say go, have the players click through any of the related page links on Wikipedia until they get to the second page (the Colosseum)
  • Whoever gets to the second page in the fewest clicks/the fastest wins that round