WSG Newsletter: Learn the Net Tutorials

Issue: January 21, 2002

Many readers of the TIG newsletter have asked if we can recommend any alternatives to The Internet Guide for learning about the Internet. Indeed, we can. We present in this newsletter the sources we have used and courses we have found that looked quite good. We have never come upon a course as comprehensive as TIG, but it should be possible to piece together smaller courses and articles that will cover the essentials.

We are pleased to announce the new WebSearchGuide.ca will be among these. This will be the home of some of the material in TIG covering web searching, communication, and use of the browser. There will also be a weblog for news about Canadian sites and Internet use. Please be patient – this is a work in progress and will take a couple of months to build. Get on the WebSearchGuide mailing list to receive notices about changes to the site.

In General

You may have wondered how we kept TIG up to date. Apart from spending hours online trying sites and tools, the very best sources were Smart Computing, PC Magazine and PC World, Zdnet and Cnet.

Smart Computing publishes a monthly magazine of that name and special editions in the Learning Series and the Reference Series. Prices are around $7 to $8 Canadian – more for Reference. Previously known as PC Novice, these are excellent for solid, short articles about personal computing and use of the Internet. To see the range of topics check the table of contents for the current issue at http://www.smartcomputing.com.

Smart Computing does not show the table of contents for past issues, but one can use the search facility to pick out articles on a topic. The SmartComputing category for Internet/Web/Online is a mini-directory to articles on e-mail, chat, modems, spam, browsers, search engine tools, cookies and much else. In fact, there is an article in the February 2002 Smart Computing on how to customize the toolbars for Internet Explorer 6.

PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com) and PC World (http://www.pcworld.com) have been often referenced in TIG for their survey articles on web searching, chat and instant messaging, new browsers, and many other topics. Browse these magazines on the newsstands or set up an alert at their websites to be notified of new issues. Both have free newsletters to announce new articles and PC World will send alerts based on search terms.

Learn the Net

Learn The Net (http://www.learnthenet.com) is likely the best general-purpose online course for beginners to learn about using the Internet. It began roughly when TIG did but as a free, and now, advertising supported site. It is a very pleasing site, easy to navigate with well written and nicely illustrated articles on how-to do things on the Web. It is unique in having versions in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German. Organizations may license Learn the Net for their own training. See the About Us page.

Internet for Beginners (http://netforbeginners.about.com) has also been a good general source of guides to Net topics. Unfortunately, it is one of the about.com guides that is is leaderless. Instead of a guide’s name and photo in the top left corner, there is a link to Apply Now.

For gradual learning about the Internet there is still the hugely successful InternetTourbus, a bi-weekly newsletter done by longtime Net pros, Bob Rankin and Patrick Crispin. (http://www.tourbus.com). Still in text format, well written, and very topical, this newsletter will appeal to novice and expert alike.

Lycos’ Webmonkey Guides provide “Internet Basics” for people completely new to the Internet and “Use the Web” guides for those with a little more experience. The basics include a very useful glossary of Internet terms. http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/guides/

Web Search

There is no shortage of web search tutorials. The problem is that many haven’t been maintained. Ask Scott is on many lists as a recommended service but it hasn’t been updated since 1999. Lookoff.com offers to be a search guide but is stuck in year 2000. Search tutorials or search lists that still refer to Infoseek, Snap, or even NBCi are best avoided.

Pandia (http://www.pandia.com) is one of the better starting points for learning about Web searching. There is the Pandia goalgetter Search Tutorial, a very compact and informative guide to types of tools and use of syntax. (http://www.pandia.com/goalgetter).

Pandia also recommends a few tutorials. Among these is “Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial” done by the Teaching Library at the University of California at Berkeley. This is likely the most linked search tutorial on the Web with 4,300 pages pointing to it. (Determined from a link search at AltaVista.) There is a lot here: Web browser guides, search strategies, syntax, search tools, pointers for evaluating sites, and a glossary. It was completely updated in the summer of 2001 and looks well maintained. It has some interactive aspects, but the “tutorials” are better printed than used online.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/
TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

The University of Albany Internet Tutorials are also well regarded but not as well known. There are several short and very clear tutorials about Basic Internet, Browsers, and Research. These tutorials are a bit easier to read and have more examples for the learner to follow. http://library.albany.edu/internet/

Bright Planet offers a very detailed “Guide to Effective Searching of the Internet” that covers the basics in web searching and advanced techniques. Examples and explanations are excellent, though sections that compare search engines are now out of date.
http://www.brightplanet.com/
deepcontent/tutorials/search/index.asp

Browser and Computer Use

Microsoft has its own guide – The Complete Internet Guide and Web Tutorial “from the basics of browsing the World Wide Web to the details of banking online”. The tutorial includes two pages on browser basics and two about Internet Explorer 6.0 (though not truly a guide to use). http://www.microsoft.com/insider/internet/

IE6 is also taught through a set of multimedia courses done in Shockwave. Be guided through the parts of the browser by voice and visuals. Microsoft and Element K have created many such courses to teach Microsoft software. http://www.microsoft.com/insider/learning/lessons.asp

Sympatico also has some basics about browsers and the Net (http://www1.sympatico.ca/help/local/bell/tips.bell.html). There are audio-visual tutorials done using Flash for Internet Explorer 5.0 and Netscape 4.0.

There is more at Sympatico under Computers – Editor’s Picks for Help and How -Tos with various sites for tips, online learning, and guides.

For those interested in trying out an alternative to the IE and Netscape browsers, Search Engine World offers a vast amount of information about Opera. Their guides offer tops and tricks to work through the many features of Opera as well as offering news and reviews about beta versions and current releases. http://www.searchengineworld.com/opera/

Mini Lessons

Learn2.com (http://www.learn2.com) offers courses you can purchase on all manner of subjects for business and everyday. There are a few free courses as well. This month one can learn to save money on the Internet for one month free. The introductory Discover-the-Internet course costs $19.95 US for six months. It has the basics of using the Internet Explorer for browsing and email with a few pointers on protocols and searching online. There are many other courses on using office software.

One could learn a lot through e-How as well. (http://www.ehow.com) It offers more than 15,000 mini-tutorials and how to do things – just about anything. The category for Computers and Home Electronics has a section for World Wide Web with tips for Designing Web Pages, Finding Stuff Online, and Surfing the Web. Registration is required.

FindTutorials is recognized by Internet Scout as a top resource. It has over 300 free tutorials on IT related topics and another 300 for-fee online IT training courses. For $99 US a year, a subscribers have full access to any of the over 300 online training courses covering use of the Internet, networks, programming, software, soft skills. The free tutorials are really short articles provided by people in the training business. The category for the Internet has a handful of basic guides. http://tutorials.findtutorials.com/index/category/10

Find More

Canada’s Schoolnet (http://www.schoolnet.ca) has a directory to learning resources. The category for Computer and Information Technology lists 126 sites many of which are tutorials or guides on some aspect of the Internet or computer technology. http://www.schoolnet.ca/home/e/resources/index.asp

The big directories such as Yahoo will have a category for How-to-Tutorials about the Internet. Google and DirectHit can help in identifying the more popular ones. Google ranks the sites listed in the Open Project Directory according to how well linked they are from other sites on the Web, and Direct Hit will indicate how much used they are with a star system.

Google Directory: http://directory.google.com - browse Computers > Education > Internet. Google ranks the best known sites first.

Direct Hit: http://www.directhit.com - search for Internet tutorials. Note the scoring for each site.

Upcoming CE Courses

While self-study courses can be handy and valuable, the instructor-led course is better for more in-depth learning . The Continuing Education program at the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto has a growing selection of online courses. See the choice at http://ce.fis.utoronto.ca/courses/webbased.htm

Conclusion

Often there are tutorials and guides right at our fingertips. This may be as part of the online documentation of the software we are using. It could be a search tutorial at the website of a local library. Very often the web site for an Internet print magazine will have a very good article. When those fail a search at Google for tutorials, "how to", or "tips on" may produce good leads.

What do you think?

What tutorials and how-to sites have you found and would like to recommend? If you know of some Canadian tutorials, please let us know. We’ll promote them.

Newsletter by Gwen Harris and Kirsten McKnight