Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Vocational/Internet - Advanced

Internet - Advanced
Vocational North American Division	Skill Level 3
Vocational North American Division	Year of Introduction: 2006

The Internet - Advanced Honor is a component of the Technician Master Award .

Contents

The Internet-Advanced Honor is a component of the Modern Technology Master Award.

1. Have the Internet Honor

Instructions and tips for earning the Internet honor can be found in the Vocational chapter.

2. Have the Basic Computer Honor

Instructions and tips for earning the Computer honor can be found in the Vocational chapter.

3. Define the following terms (or their equivalents) and tell when and how they are used

a. HTTP

Hyper-text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the set of rules for exchanging files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web. It is the actual communications protocol that enables Web browsing.

b. Hyperlink

A hyperlink, more commonly called a link, is an electronic connection between one web page to either (1) other web pages on the same web site, or (2) web pages located on another web site. More specifically, a hyperlink is a connection between one page of a hypertext document to another.

c. HTML

HyperText Markup Language, the coding language used to create hypertext documents for the World Wide Web. In HTML, a block of text can be surrounded with tags that indicate how it should appear (for example, in bold face or italics). Also, in HTML a word, a block of text, or an image can be linked to another file on the Web. HTML files are viewed with a World Wide Web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, or Opera (among others).

d. Browser safe colors and hex codes

Browser safe colors – Many monitors/graphics cards (especially those sold before 2002) were set to display only 256 of the millions of colors that are viewable to the human eye. The browser safe colors are those 216 defined colors that both PC and Macintosh monitors ALWAYS have in common. If those 216 colors are chosen to be used when creating or publishing a website, a user will always see the same colors that you do on your monitor (colors that aren’t part of this 216 color palette are known to sometimes dither, which means they may appear “purple” on one monitor, red on another, and orange on yet another. Photos are not usually grossly affected by this coding).

Hex codes are the 6-alphanumeric digits that define the 216 websafe colors, as well as millions of other colors. This six digit format is the way that HTML tells the browser what colors to display. For example, #000000 is black, #FFFFFF is white, and #FF0000 is fire engine red. For a complete list of browser safe colors visit http://www.lynda.com/hex.html

e. URL

Uniform Resource Locater – The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks like this: http://www.pathfindersonline.org.

f. Gif

Graphic Interchange Format – this format was developed by Compuserve in the early days of the internet. It is an 8-bit image format (256 colors) that optimized for internet usage. Images stored in this format are usually of a low-resolution quality, they may be animated, and they may have transparent parts. Photographs usually do not look good if saved in this format.

g. JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group. A compression technique used for saving images and photographs. This compression method reduced the file size of the images without reducing its quality. Widely used on the World Wide Web.

4. Learn and demonstrate the use of these HTML tags OR demonstrate equivalent website construction commands in one of the current website development languages (PHP, XML, etc.)

<html>

This tells the web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape) that this document should be viewed as a web page (instead of as a Word document, PDF file, etc.)

<head>

This comment allows for additional parts such as Meta tags (for search engines), and other “overall” information. Most of this information is NOT viewed by the user, but is instead “directions” to the browser.

<title>Title of Page</title>

</head>

This tag, and all other tags with a backslash (/) show that this part of the command is DONE! All opening tags have a matching closing tag, kind of like parenthesis always both open ( and end). Notice that (1) each formatting tag appears between "less than" (<) and "greater than" (>) signs, and (2) the tags always appear in pairs, with the second tag in the pair beginning with a "slash" (/).

<body>

This is the part of the website text viewable to the audience. It can include tables, images, links, and information all about you or your club. All of the commands demonstrated below “happen” between the <body> tag and the </body> tag.

<h1>...</h1>

Header, level 1 (the largest size type for a header, usually used at the beginning of a page or the start of a new section). Smaller headers are tagged with <h2>...</h2>, <h3>...</h3>, etc.

<b>...</b>

boldface text

<i>...</i>

italic text

<center>...</center>

centered text

<p>

paragraph return (inserts an extra line space between paragraphs) Note: Any paragraph returns that you insert in your document by simply hitting the Return key on your keyboard will be ignored by a Web browser. You must use the tag.

to create a paragraph break on the screen.

<br>

line break (no extra space)

<hr>

horizontal rule (a line running left-to-right across the page, to separate one section from the next)

<ol>...</ol>

ordered, or numbered, list. Each list item begins with the tag <li> and falls somewhere between the <ol>...</ol> tags.

<ul>...</ul>

unordered, or bulleted, list. Again, each list item begins with the tag <li>.

<a href>

<a href="filename.html">...</a>

a hotlink to another file in the same folder

<a href="http://URL">...</a>

a hotlink to another site. You will have to know the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or Web address, of any site to which you want to link your page.

<img>

<img src="image.gif">

This tag would insert an image with the filename "image.gif" on the far left side of your page.

5. Make a simple table – include text, a graphic, a horizontal rule, and a link. Use hex Codes to color your text. Make your title larger then the main document text.

6. Learn about

a. Web graphics and be able to explain the process used to make them download quickly.

i. Three web graphics are supported by the majority of web browsers (gif, jpg, and png). JPG are great for photographs, and gifs work well for clipart, navigation buttons, anything that has transparent areas, and just about anything else. PNG graphics are still not widely accepted, but when they are they will be great, offering lossless compression and displaying images on the web. The advantages of PNG is that it supports images with millions of colors and produces background transparency without jagged edges. These files are 3-15% smaller than gifs, the format they were created to replace. They’re also open source, meaning that its free to create them, manipulate them, and use the png codex to create them.
ii. Many programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw offer a “save to web” feature that lowers the actual number of colors SAVED in the graphic. While millions of colors may be saved in a large digital photograph, by reducing its size and color-depth, it is possible to shrink many pictures to less than 5% of their original size.

b. Web safe colors and know when to use them.

From the definitions section you already know what web safe colors are. You should use them whenever you are creating banners, headers, text colors, navigation buttons, or other features of a standard website. Use this knowledge to create a jpg and a gif that are both under 15k, but that are still easily viewable on a website, and to create at least five graphical navigation buttons and a title header for your website.

7. Individually or as a family, unit, or other group, develop a functioning website. All the pages of the website should be “linked” together so that someone visiting your “Homepage” may click to each of the other pages on your website. The website should be composed of no less than 4 pages. The website should include

a. A welcome page that states the reason for the website & includes at least one image or photograph.
b. A photos page that shows activities/events you, your family, or group have enjoyed
c. A guest book or contact page where people can “sign in” that they have visited OR where a contact email address is listed where people can email you when they visit your website.
d. A links page to other websites that you enjoy. This page should contain at least 8 links.
e. If your page is for Pathfinders/Youth group/Church or similar organization, create a calendar page that contains upcoming events.
f. Maintain the above website for at least 3 months. Keep the website information current by changing and editing the content often (Add pictures, update the calendar, etc.).

Equipment / Resources for fulfilling the Advanced Internet Honor

Computer (either Macintosh or PC) with an HTML editing program or WYSIWYG web design program and an image editing program on it. Suggestions for an HTML or WYSIWYG editor and image editing software: Microsoft Front Page Express or go to www.tucows.com and download shareware or freeware programs.
A scanner, a digital camera or another means of getting photos on the computer.
Web space can be obtained for free almost anywhere, just do a search for “free web hosting.” Some common ones are Yahoo’s geocities.com, www.tripod.com and www.angelfire.com. You might have to sign up for a free email address and there will be some advertising on your site. If you would rather have an ad free site, www.tagnet.org (A Seventh-day Adventist web host) has space for churches, schools, and organizations for a small fee per year. Contact them for more information. You can also contact your local Internet Service Provider for their services.

About the Author

Mark O'Ffill is a member of the NAD Honors Committee and submitted the 2006 requirements for the Computer and Advanced Computer Honors. He also is the author of the Internet and Internet Advanced NAD AY Honors.

Mark was the webmaster for the 1999 and 2004 NAD International Pathfinder Camporees, serving for over seven years in that capacity, providing the Camporee community with an online informational resource.

At the writing of this biography, Mark is the Religion and Computer Teacher at Pacific Union College Preparatory School in Angwin, CA. He also serves as Registrar and Information Technology Services guy for this institution. He has been a staff member at PUC Prep since 2003.

"Pastor Mark" is an ordained minister, and served for almost five years as a youth pastor in Florida. He is a 6th generation Seventh-day Adventist pastor, and loves studying Adventist history.

Mark is an avid Pathfinder, serving as a Pathfinder staff member since the age of fifteen, when he was the youngest Director in the North America Division. Since 2004, he has been the Area 9 Area Coordinator for the Northern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He loves earning Pathfinder honors and mentoring staff members in creative teaching methods they can use in teaching Pathfinders.