Introduction

Begin by asking What is the Internet? and see how they get on explaining this big question.

Explain that it is possible to connect computers up to each other so you can pass information between them, like the computers at school. The school computers are all connected up to each other (‘networked’) as well as a master computer called a server, so you can log on to any of the computers and get the same programs and when you save your work, it doesn’t save it on the actual computer you work on, it saves it onto the server so you can get to it from any of the computers.

Here’s a very simple diagram of a basic network:

 

 

Explain that the Internet is a bit like this but on a much bigger scale! Computers, and big groups of computers all around the world connect to each other with cables and sometime wirelessly, where the information is sent through the air, but this is how we can do things like look at websites (that live on a server somewhere in the world) or send emails or video chats to people anywhere in the world.

The terms ‘Internet’, ‘Net’, ‘Web’ or ‘World Wide Web’ are often used interchangeably these days, but the Internet (or Net) is the actual network of cables, computers, servers, routers etc, the World Wide Web (or Web) is a service that uses the Internet to display and share websites.

What are your favourite websites to visit? What sort of things can we find on websites? Try to steer this to types of media rather than specific topic content.

• Writing
• Pictures
• Videos
• Live video feeds
• Music or sound clips
• Games
• Maps

Why do we also need to be careful when we go on the Internet? Collect their thoughts and explain at a level appropriate for the age of your students, that there are lots of things on the Internet for lots of different ages and types of people, and not all of it is nice and suitable for them to look at.

Explain that at school there are filters that should stop a lot of that, but those filters aren’t perfect and they might not have filters like that at home so it’s important to know what to do if they see something that they didn’t like or think was wrong for them to be looking at.

What would you do if that happened? Collect their answers and reinforce that the best thing to do is not to worry or panic, turn the screen off and tell an adult straight away so they can decide what to do next. If they don’t know how to turn the screen off, click the back button and tell an adult. Check your own school’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for more guidance specific to your school.

 

Your web browser

Explain that today we are going to be searching some websites for information about mini-beasts and learning how to move around a website to find what you need.

To see the Web we need to use a web browser, this is a piece of software or program that lets us search and view websites. There are lots of different kinds of web browsers that all work in a similar way, they might be able to name a few:

 

Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge:

 

But it is important to use a modern and up to date web browser as websites are more likely to work with these. Most school should have Google Chrome installed, it is suggested that you use this as your default browser.

Open Chrome, what can you see on the screen? Have a look around the screen and discuss some of the key features of the browser window:

 

 

Open up the BBC Bitesize page about animals (or something similar).

 

 

Explain that websites are like big books, made up of lots of pages, these buttons we click on are called ‘hyperlinks’ or just ‘links’ for short, they let us jump around from page to page, we don’t need to start at page 1 and go through them all in order.

Demonstrate that not everything on the page is a link, you can usually recognise links that you will be able to click on as they sometimes have a line under them, but pictures can also be links sometimes. In Chrome when you hover your mouse cursor over a link, a small box with the link address pops up in the bottom left of the screen. Demonstrate this:

 

 

 

Main task

Introduce their task sheet (more able / less able). Explain that they need to use the websites to find out the information about the different mini-beasts. There are some empty spaces on the sheet to add some more mini-beasts of their choice if they get the chance.

To find the information, they can use any of the websites from this link (or any others you prefer)

 

 

They can get to these links by typing in this one shortened URL (goo.gl/9SAvos) into their browser (note it is case sensitive), pressing enter and then just clicking on the links, show how each one opens in a new tab.

 

Plenary

At the end of the lesson, review the table and the information they should have found. What other mini-beasts did you find out about? How did you get from one website to another? If a page wasn’t useful what did you do? What should you do if you find a website you think was wrong for you to be looking at?