Community: A community is a group of people who share common interests, ideas, or experiences.
Example: When explaining the term 'community' to students in young grades, one could explain that there are many
different types of communities and explain the students are part of several communities such including their school community and their neighborhood.
Learning Environment: A learning environment is the space in which students take part in educational
activities by interacting with teachers and other students. Learning environments can be formal,
traditional spaces such as classrooms or can exist in virtual spaces on the Internet.
Example: When explaining this term to students, the first thing to do would be to ask the students to describe the
learning environment that they are currently in. Then there could be more discussion about the different types of
learning environments that exist.
Learning Styles: Students have different traits affecting how they learn information, and different types of
learning activities will impact learners in different ways. The main types of learning styles are visual
learners, auditory learners, and tactile-kinesthetic learners.
(I took this quiz mentioned in the text book, and it identified me as a visual learner.)
Example: In a very simple example, one could explain to students that visual
learners would enjoy reading a story, auditory learners would enjoy listening to a story being
read to them by another person or listening to a recording, and tactile-kinesthetic learners would enjoy acting out a story as a play.
E-learning: E-learning involves the use of electronic media and informational technology within an educational setting.
Example: There are numerous ways in which e-learning is being incorporated in today's classrooms.
Some examples include computer programs, educational web sites, teacher blogs, and virtual classrooms.
Internet: The Internet is a complex network of computer networks in which people around the world are able to connect and share information.
Example: Accessing e-mail and accessing web pages are just two of the numerous types of activities that are possible because of the Internet.
ARPANET: The ARPANET was an early computer network system that was created in the late 1960s with funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency,
which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense. The Internet that exists today has its origins in this system.
Example: One way to explain the concept of networking would be to say that with the development of ARPANET, some computers were able to 'talk'
to each other and emphasize the point that computers were not able to do this before this time.
TCP/IP: TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. It is the default network protocol around the world.
Example: By having a common set of rules for transferring information across the Internet, it makes it possible for many different people to communicate with each other.
Infrastructure: In relation to the Internet, the infrastructure includes all of the components necessary in order for it to function.
Example: Routers, servers, and local internet service providers are examples of things that make up the infrastructure of the Internet.
World Wide Web: Developed by Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web (WWW) is a network of different pages and documents that are connected by
hyperlinks and accessed through the Internet and viewed through web browsers.
Example: When accessing web pages on Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, you are viewing information that is on the World Wide Web.
HTTP: HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and it is an application protocol used by the World Wide Web.
Example: HTTP is the protocol for hyperlinks, making it possible to link different parts of a web page or link different pages to each other.
Protocol: A protocol is a set of rules for sharing information between computers.
Example: I would try to explain this concept by using language as an analogy. I would say something about how there are many different languages spoke around the world,
and people are able to communicate with each other when they are speaking the same language.
They are not able to communicate to each other when they are not speaking the same language.
For example, a person speaking English would not be able to speak to someone who was speaking Chinese.
Likewise, computers need to be able to 'speak' to each other in a common language, and they are able to do this because of the rules established by a protocol.
Domain: A domain is a hierarchical set of network addresses.
Example: Top-level domains include domains such as .com, .net, and .org. Second-level domain names are the words that precede the top-level domains such as www.google.com.
URL: URL stands for Universal Resource Locator and will enable a person to get to a specific file, usually displayed in the address bar of a web browser.
Example: https://classes.lt.unt.edu/courses.html?semester=21 is the URL for the Learning Technologies classes page.
Intranet: An intranet is similar to the Internet, but it is a private network in which a limited number of people have access.
Example: A company sets up an intranet for its employees to share information with each other.
DNS: DNS stands for Domain Name System. This system enables people locate a web
site by entering in the text name of the site rather than the IP address which is a unique number.
Example: If you want to go to the Google web site, you can type in www.google.com instead of typing in a number which might look like this 216.27.22.162.
FTP: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is used to transfer files over the Internet between different computers.
Example: When creating a file for a web page, a file is created on a local computer. The file then has to be
transferred to a server so that it is available to be viewed by people who are using the Internet.
Host: A "host" is any computer that connects other computers on the Internet, and other computers are able to connect to it as well.
The host has a unique IP address which is made up by a combination of the specific "local or host number" and the network number.
Example: The UNT Learning Technologies server serves as the host for the class pages for CECS 5030.
Transfer: In order to get a computer file from one computer to another, it is necessary to use a computer program to transer the file.
Example: To get assignments onto the classes server, one must FTP files from a personal computer to the UNT server.
WebDAV: WebDAV stands for World Wide Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning. It is part of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and it is used to manage and collaborate on documents.
WAIS: WAIS stands for Wide Area Information System. It was a system for connecting multiple databases related to a particular subject.
Example: According to http://whatis.techtarget.com, "Because of the abundance of content and search engines now available on the Web,
few if any WAIS servers remain in operation."
So, I don't have any examples of a current WAIS.
Spam: Spam is the term used to describe junk e-mails or other
electronic messages that have been sent to masses of people who have not opted-in to receive such messages.
Example: Spam is typically used as a way to advertise products such as fake Rolex watches, Canadian prescription drugs,
dating sites, porn sites, and various other sites which may or may not be legitimate. Spam is also used by people in order to commit fraud, such as
the Nigerian scam in which you would receive money for helping someone transfer money out of the country after handing over your bank account information.
I haven't received one of those emails in while.
POP: POP stands for Post Office Protocol. It is an Internet protocol that enables people to read e-mail messages. With this protocol, e-mails are sent to
an Internet Service Provider and are stored there until the user retrieves the messages.
Example: An e-mail sent to my Yahoo! account goes to the Yahoo! server, not directly to my computer,
and I can receive this message on any computer on which I can log into my account.
Header: In an e-mail, the header contains information pertaining to the message and will appear at the top of the message.
Example: Information includes TO:, FROM:, SUBJECT:, the date and time it was sent, and the priority level of the message.
SMTP: SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Like POP, SMTP is related to e-mail messages.
Example: SMTP is a protocol for e-mail, making it possible to deliver messages.
Netiquette: Netiquette is being polite to others while on the on the Internet.
Example: Not sending spam messages and not posting personal attacks on the web are two examples ways people can practice netiquette.
Boolean: The term Boolean is named after a 19th century English mathematician named George Boole.
When conducting searches on the Internet, using words AND, OR, or NOT will allow the user to conduct searches with more precision.
Example: A search for "French restaurants AND Dallas" would limit results to French restaurants in the Dallas vicinity,
whereas a search for "French restaurants" might show French restaurants in other parts of the country or world.
Search Engine: People use search engines to find specific pieces of information on the Internet or within a specific web site. People type in a term or terms, and the search engine gives a list of relevant results.
Example: Google is the currently the most popular search engine. Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask are other examples of search engines that are available.
Spider: A spider is a computer program used by search engines to gather information from Web sites to create indexes.
Example: Google uses a spider to automate the process of getting information from Web sites instead of having people do it by hand,
which would be an impossible task.
SEO: SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of adding keywords, meta data and other information to a web site with the intention of improving a page's search results.
Tag: Markup languages utilize numerous types of tags to define how something looks or functions on a web page.
Example: Within HTML, some commonly used tags include <p> for paragraph, <b> to bold text, and <br /> for a line break.
Body: When using HTML, the content that is entered between <body> and </body> is what will be visible to people as they view the web page.
Example: Basically, everything that makes up a page is found within the body tags.
Text, images, tables, videos, and hyperlinks are all examples of types of content found within the body of a page.
Head: The <head> tag is at the beginning of an HTML file and contains information that
is needed for browsers to display the page properly and additional information related to the page.
Example: Links to stylesheets, the <title> tag, and <meta> tags that can include a description of the page and keywords
(helpful stuff for SEO) are examples of information that is contained within the <head> tag.
CSS: CSS stands for cascading style sheets. The visual design of a web page relies heavily on the coding done in CSS.
Example: Fonts, colors, and layout are just a few of the elements of a web page that can be designated within CSS.