Instructions for Internet Searching and Creating Links

Creating a page of links while practicing searching techniques and finding relevant resources

Instructions for small groups working with instructors

Concepts to cover:

*How to copy a url and paste it into the links page and make it a link. (Remove link, under Edit, to make selected text not linked.)

*New Pagemill concepts to try out on links page:

Set some color preferences for your page. (View, Show Inspector, page panel (second from left). Choose custom colors from the grid (opens in black or white--move marker along bar to lighten or darken your options.) Click anywhere on the circle to choose a color. Notice it comes up so you can see it in a box in the upper right. Click on OK to choose this for the one item you chose to change. You can change the background color, or the colors of the text or links (before or after they've been clicked on.) Choose colors that are easy on the eye, and provide good contrast. You can override the color of any item by later selecting it by itself and changing the color in the Inspector menu, including individual cells in a table!)

Tables to organize your page. (Click on the tables button (grid). Specify the number of rows and columns, the border, spacing and padding. Caption is an option to check or not. (Caption allows you to type a title for the table). To alter the table specifications later, choose Show Inspector from the View menu. Click on the tab to get you to the Object panel (far right.) Then make your changes. You can also resize the table or parts of it by dragging. Often the whole table will be selected and you have to click outside the table to unselect it, and then go back and click on the line you want to move (or any part inside the table you want to select.)

Clip art. Go through your bookmarks or the CHPI homepage to the Resources page, and find the Web Publishing Resources. Look around the clip art sites to find something you might like to use. Hold mouse button down, choose Save Image As, and save it to the CHPI folder. Then place it as an object somewhere on your page (inside a table?), the same way you placed graphics yesterday.

*Concepts to cover while practicing searching: (just a sample of highlights for improving searching skills)

Notice the different search tools on the Web Searching Resources page. Notice that Hotbot lets you search the text of lots of web pages, just about everything out there on the web. Notice that you can also search for an exact phrase--either in quotes, or by choosing "exact phrase." Use "and" to get a group of words, "or" to get only one or the other. Use "not" to tell it what to skip. Use multiple keywords to narrow your search. Don't use "stop words": prepositions, etc. Use meaty words. Use an asterisk to truncate the word to search any version with the same first part. Use Hotbot or Altavista when you have some specifics in mind.

Notice how many hits you get. You should look at each entry to evaluate its use to you before you go there, so you don't waste your time loading a page that won't be useful. Look at the url--is it a source you trust? Is it a personal page or something an organization sponsors? A shorter url is a higher level page. Will the information there be biased?

Try searching using Yahoo. What's the difference? Notice that Hotbot might give you more hits, and find an obscure page, but that Yahoo's links are chosen by humans, and so are generally screened somewhat for the quality of the page's content. Use Yahoo when you have a general idea of what you want, and want to see what else is out there on that subject.

Now go to a site of indexed links. Examples of this are the Internet Public Library (off the Web Searching resources page) and the Index of Native American Resources on the Internet (off the Educ./Kids/Native resources page).

Notice the link to Dogpile among the searching tools. A search engine like this uses multiple other engines at the same time. Try this if you want to find all the links related to a subject.

Be creative with your links page! Find a group of links to things you are interested in, and make the page reflect your set of links. Use clipart and color to make the page look nice and use tables to organize information you would like displayed a certain way. Practice your new searching skills to find specific sites and to find bunches of sites on subjects you're interested in!

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Last updated September 21, 1998