Ethiopian TVET System

Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Ethiopian TVET-System

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT
SERVICE
Level I

Learning Guide # 1
Unit of Competence: Access and Use Internet
Module Title:
LG Code: ICT ITS1 M06 LO1
TTLM Code: ICT ITS1 TTLM06 1011

LO1: Introduction to Internet

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 1

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development
Instruction LO1 – Introduction to Internet

This learning guide is developed to provide you the necessary information regarding the following
content coverage and topics –

 Introduction to Internet
 Internet Browsers Review
 Basic Internet Settings and Configuration

This guide will also assist you to attain the learning outcome stated in the cover page.
Specifically, upon completion of this Learning Guide, you will be able to –

Learning Activities

1. Read the specific objectives of this Learning Guide.

2. Read the information written in the “Information Sheet 1”.
3. Accomplish the “Self-check 1” in page .
4. Submit your accomplished Self-check 1. This will form part of your training portfolio.
5. Read the information written in the “Information Sheet 2”.
6. Accomplish the “Self-check 2” in page .
7. Submit your accomplished Self-check 2. This will form part of your training portfolio.
8. Read the information written in the “Information Sheet 3”.
9. Accomplish the “Self-check 3” in page .
10. Submit your accomplished Self-check 3. This will form part of your training portfolio.
11. Read and perform the “Operation Sheet 1” in page .
12. Read and perform the “Operation Sheet 2” in page .
13. If you earned a satisfactory evaluation proceed to LAP Test.
14. However, if your rating is unsatisfactory, see your teacher for further instructions.
15. Do the “LAP test” in page (if you are ready) and show your output to your teacher.

*Your teacher will evaluate your output either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. If unsatisfactory, your
teacher shall advice you on additional work. But if satisfactory you can proceed to the next topic.

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 2

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Information Sheet – 1 Introduction to Internet

INTERNET

Definition, use, and basic terminologies of Internet

The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks -
a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get
information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly to users at other computers).

The internet is computer based global information system. It is composed of many

interconnected computer networks. Each network may link thousands of computers
enabling them to share information. The internet has brought a transformation in many aspects of life.
It is one of the biggest contributors in making the world into a global village. Use of internet has grown
tremendously since it was introduced. It is mostly because of its flexibility. Nowadays one can access
the internet easily. Most people have computers in their homes but even the ones who don’t they can
always go to cyber cafes where this service is provided.

The internet developed from software called the ARPANET which the U.S military had
developed. It was only restrict to military personnel and the people who developed it. Only after it was
privatized was it allowed to be used commercially.

The internet has developed to give many benefits to mankind. The access to information is one
of the most important. Students can now have access to libraries around the world. Some charge a
fee but most provide free services. Before students had to spend hours and hours in the libraries but
now at the touch of a button students have a huge database in front of them

Basic Internet Terms and Terminology

Here is a look at the buzzwords of the world of Internet.

ARPANET: The acronym stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. ARPA of
the United States Department of Defense developed ARPANET, which became the world’s first
packet switching network. Internet is the successor of ARPANET.

Internet Service Provider (ISP): A company, which provides users with an access to the
Internet, is known as an Internet service provider or Internet access provider. ISP, as it is called,
offers email accounts and other services like remote storage of files for its customers. Here is a word
about choosing a cheap ISP.

IP Address: It is a way of numerically identifying an entity on a computer network. The original

addressing system known as IPv4, used 32 bit addresses. With the growth of the Internet, IPv6 came
to be used wherein the addresses are composed of 128 bits.

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 3

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Cyberspace: This term coined by William Gibson, is used to refer to the computer networks
connected to each other and the content they host. It is often used to refer to the Internet.

WWW (World Wide Web): It is a collection of interlinked documents that are accessible over
the Internet. It consists of millions of web pages that contain text, images, voice and videos. Sir Tim
Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at CERN, created the World Wide Web.

Website: A website is a set of web pages consisting of text, audio and video. Web servers
host websites.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator): It specifies the location of a resource on the Internet. It
consists of the basic address and path.

Web Page: Web pages are resources of information. They are generally created in the HTML
format and provide the web users with navigational abilities through hyperlinks to other web pages on
the web.

Home Page: The term home page is used to refer to the page that is the default page of any
website. It is the main page of a complex website.

Web Browser: A web browser is a software application that facilitates user interaction with the
text, audio, video and other information that is located on the web.

Cache: Web browsers maintain a cache of recently visited web pages. Some of them use an
external proxy web cache, which is a server program through which web requests pass. This enables
the browsers to cache frequently visited pages. Even search engines make available already indexed
web pages through their caches.

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, abbreviated as HTTP, is a communications protocol used

for the transfer of information over the Internet. A client makes an HTTP request using a web browser
to which an HTTP response is sent from the server.

Web Cookie: Also known as an HTTP cookie, it is piece of text that is exchanged between the
web client and the web server. It is sent by the web server to the web client and returned unchanged
by the client each time it accesses the server.

Session: It is an exchange of information between a computer and its user. It is established for
a certain period of time after which it ends.

Hyperlink: A reference in a document to another section of the document or to another

document is termed as a hyperlink. Hyperlinks are used to redirect the user from one section of a
page content to another.

Internet Security: It is one of the major concerns today. As the Internet acts as a
communication platform that can be accessed by millions of users around the world, it becomes

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 4

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development
necessary that proper measures be implemented. Issues like Internet Safetythat deal with the content
that is made accessible over the Internet are equally important. Internet Privacyrelates to
safeguarding the privacy of the web users and the sensitive information on the web from hackers and
stalkers.

Internet – A Communication Platform: Internet serves as one of the most efficient means of
communication. Computers from different parts of the world can be connected to each other to
exchange information, thanks to the Internet. Emails and chats are excellent means of
communication over the Internet. Blogs and online forums give the Internet users a platform to reach
out to the masses. Here is a list of the basic Internet terms associated with the Internet as a
communication platform. Also look at some Internet terms related to the security threats to network
communication.

Email: It is a store-and-forward method of writing, sending and receiving written messages.

Electronic mail is an Internet e-mail system that uses network-based protocols to exchange
messages between network subsystems.

Email Address: It identifies the network location to which an email can be delivered. An email
address is a combination of the username of the mail user and the host name of the mailing system.
It is of the form, ‘username@domain-name’. An email alias is a forwarding email address. It simply
forwards emails to specific email addresses.

Spamming: The act of sending unsolicited bulk messages over an email system is known as
spamming. It is an undesirable use of the electronic messaging systems.

Phishing: It is a fraudulent activity of acquiring the sensitive information by the use of a fake
identity during electronic communication. It is implemented by means of emails and instant messages
wherein a user is lured to enter his/her details, which are actually captured by a fraudulent website.

Hacking: Hacking is the activity of programmatically gaining access to a computer application

that is otherwise inaccessible. The act of gaining an unauthorized access to a computer is known as
hacking. Hacking of passwords that leads to breach of email privacy is a threat to communication
over the Internet. Internet crimes refer to all the criminal activities that are carried over the Internet.

Email Scams: With the increase in the use of email systems, its security needs also rose.
Fraudulent users started tampering with the email systems to breach security.

Email Virus: It is a computer code that is transmitted through an email in the form of an
attachment. The email attachment causes the destruction of some of the files on the receiver
computer’s hard disk and is programmatically emailed to the contacts in the address book of the
receiver.

Internet Bookmark: The Internet browsers of the modern times aim at enabling the users to
organize the web pages they access. Links once visited can be saved in the favorites or preferences
categories. Bookmarks are usually integrated into browsers. Social bookmarkingis a method used by
the Internet users to store and manage web pages.

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 5

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Web Directories: It is a directory, which links to other websites and organizes those links. They
should not be mistaken as being search engines.

Makeup and structure of web addresses

Web Sites and URLs

A Web site is simply data that is stored on a WWW server and which can be freely accessed
by people 'surfing the Net'. For instance Microsoft has their own Web site from which you can
download information and software. The trouble is that you have to know the address of the Web
site; in much the same way as if you want to phone someone you have to know his or her phone
number. The address of a Web site is given by something called its URL (Uniform Resource
Locator). The structure of the URL is very precise. For instance, if you wish to use your Web
browser to visit the Microsoft Web site you would have to use the URL below.

http://www.microsoft.com

Thus if you wish to visit the Web site of the company that produced this training material you
would use the URL:

http://www.cctglobal.com

Due to the very large number of organizations who now have Web sites, you can also use a
search engine, in which you can enter a word or phrase connected with what you wish to find and it
will then display sites that match the information that you have entered. The results can be
overwhelming however. A recent search using the search words "PC courseware" displayed a list of
4.5 million sites containing these words!

What is a hyperlink?

A hyperlink is simply part of the text (or graphic) on a Web page, that when clicked on will
automatically:
 Take you to a different part of the same page
 Take you to a different page within the Web site
 Take you to a page in a different Web site
 Enable you to download a file
 Launch an application, video or sound

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 6

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Information Sheet – 2 Internet Browsers Review

Assignment
1. What is Browsers?
2. Write Examples of Browsers with their definition?

Home page

The term home page is used to refer to the page that is the default page of any website. It is
the main page of a complex website.

Setting-up your home page means that when you open your web browser, the web page that
you have set will be immediately launched by your browser. The most common site that you often
use will be your consideration for setting-up your home page. So every time you will open your
browser, it will automatically go to your favorite site.

Location of Temporary Files

Web pages are stored in a temporary Internet files folder the first time you view them in your
web browser. This speeds up the display of pages you frequently visit or have already seen, because
Internet Explorer can open them from your hard disk instead of from the Internet.

Security Level

Why are security settings for web browsers important?

Your web browser is your primary connection to the rest of the internet, and multiple
applications may rely on your browser, or elements within your browser, to function. This makes the
security settings within your browser even more important. Many web applications try to enhance
TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 7
of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development
your browsing experience by enabling different types of functionality, but this functionality might be
unnecessary and may leave you susceptible to being attacked. The safest policy is to disable the
majority of those features unless you decide they are necessary. If you determine that a site is
trustworthy, you can choose to enable the functionality temporarily and then disable it once you are
finished visiting the site.

Setting Browsing History

As you browse the Internet, each of the items you view was saved locally on your hard disk
drive. This helps web pages you visit frequently load faster by loading the files from youhard disk
drive instead of having to downloading the web page again. To conserve hard disk drive space or to
help keep their Internet browsing private, users may find it necessary to delete their Internet History,
below is how to do this.

Assessing and Retrieving Site Data

What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small files which are stored on a user's computer. They are designed to hold a
modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website, and can be accessed either by the
web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular
user, or the page itself can contain some script which is aware of the data in the cookie and so is able
to carry information from one visit to the website (or related site) to the next.

What's in a Cookie?

Each cookie is effectively a small lookup table containing pairs of (key, data) values - for
example (firstname, John) (lastname, Smith). Once the cookie has been read by the code on the
server or client computer, the data can be retrieved and used to customise the web page
appropriately.

When are Cookies Created?

Writing data to a cookie is usually done when a new webpage is loaded - for example after a
'submit' button is pressed the data handling page would be responsible for storing the values in a
cookie. If the user has elected to disable cookies then the write operation will fail, and subsequent
sites which rely on the cookie will either have to take a default action, or prompt the user to re-enter
the information that would have been stored in the cookie.

Why are Cookies Used?

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 8
of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Cookies are a convenient way to carry information from one session on a website to another,
or between sessions on related websites, without having to burden a server machine with massive
amounts of data storage. Storing the data on the server without using cookies would also be
problematic because it would be difficult to retrieve a particular user's information without requiring a
login on each visit to the website.

Loading Images

Images on a web page often make the page load more slowly, especially if you have a
relatively slow connection (e.g., a dial-up connection). To decrease the time it takes to load a page by
preventing images from loading you would need to disable loading of images. But for many
instances, you would need to load images to your browser.

Opening URL

Each time that you type a URL in the address bar or click on a link in Internet Explorer
browser, the URL address is automatically added to the history index file. When you type a sequence
of characters in the address bar, Internet Explorer automatically suggests you all URLs that begin
with characters sequence that you typed (unless AutoComplete feature for Web addresses is turned
off). However, Internet Explorer doesn’t allow you to view and edit the entire URL list that it stores
inside the history file.

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page 9

of 10
Author: WTVETC
Ethiopian TVET System
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

TTLM Development Manual Date: 10-2011 Page

10 of 10
Author: WTVETC