Home | Information | Multicultural | Media | Visual

Lesson: Understanding URLs

Description

This lesson is designed to help students become aware of the different domain suffixes in a web site address ( URL or Universal/Uniform Resource Locator ), and more specifically, the type of organizations that each domain suffix represents. Knowing about the types of organizations associated with domain suffixes can help students become more discerning web users.

Learning Outcomes   I   Suggested Procedure   I   Assessment    for this Lesson

Learning Outcomes

Students will learn the different domain suffixes (org., edu., mil., gov., com., and k12.ca.us) in a web site address
Students will learn the different types of organizations represented by each domain suffix
Students will determine information in a web site by reading the web site address
Students will evaluate web sites using the information in a web site address for relevancy, authority and accuracy, and point of view.

Set up

• Have projection screen set up
• Have computer set up and internet connectivity established
• On one side of the board write "relevant, authority, current"
  
• On the other side of the board write: org, gov, mil, com, edu, k12.ca.us
  
• Have definitions for both of these sets of words covered up with a sentence strip

Suggested Procedure

Tell students that they are going to learn to become web page detectives so that they can better understand who creates web pages. This can help them determine whether these pages are relevant, accurate and current for what they need to find out.

• Go over the fact that every web site is associated with some type of organization. These different types of web-based organizations are represented by different domain suffixes (org, com, mil, gov, edu, k12.ca.us).
  Ask students if they know what type of organization each of these domain suffixes stand for. Uncover definitions.
  
• Discuss that you are going to be looking at the URL, or universal resource locator, for several web pages. The URL is another name for web address.
• Ask students if they know where on the web page to find the web address. The URL contains a lot of very important information. Good detectives can figure out a great deal about the web page by looking at the URL. Tell students: "All of the web pages we will be looking at today have to do with (fill in the topic you are currently working on in class) I chose web pages about (topic) because I knew you were studying about (topic)."
  

com - commercial organization
USA Today - organization that created web site: DISCUSS AUTHORITY HERE
www - World Wide Web
html - hypertext markup language
Date - date web site was created or last updated: DISCUSS CURRENCY HERE

gov. - government organization (city, state, country)
fema - organization that created the web site
kids - written specifically for kids
tornado - topic of the web site
Date - date the web site was created or last updated

fi - organization that created the web site
edu. - government organization (city, state, country)
lightning - specific topic about weather the web site is addressing
weather - general science topic
science - curricular category under which weather belongs
date - date the web site was created or last updated

nssl - organization that provides support through funding to the organization that created the web site. NOTE: as with the web site above, you must go back several web pages to find what NSSL stands for.
noaa - organization that created the web site. NOTE: you must go back several pages to find out what NOAA stands for
gov - government organization
hurricane - topic of the web site
edu - department within NOAA responsible for the information
date - date the web site was created or last updated

onr - major office within the navy department responsible for hosting the web site
navy - branch of the military responsible for the information
mil - military organization
focus - focus for this specific web site
ocean - general topic under which the specific topic would normally be found
motion - specific topic of the web site
waves3 - sub topic of the specific topic
Date - date the web site was created or last updated

com - commercial site
azstarnet - the website for the Arizona Daily Star (a newspaper)
~anubis - personal webpage. Anubis is the name of the website production company
zaphome - ????
date - date web site was created or last updated
WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE AUTHORITY OF THIS INDIVIDUAL

Student Assignment

Introduce page with web site addresses. Students need to read the URLs and choose initial web sites based on the information in the URL. By looking at the URLs students should be able to tell what that web site is about and the organization sponsoring it.

Introduce student worksheet. Tell students they must:

1. Together with a partner decide which web sites to explore to find information to help answer their research question.
2. Skim the title and sub titles for their key words (link).
3. If their key words appear often, then read the page more carefully to determine whether the web page will provide information to help answer their research question.
4. If the web page has RELEVANT information (information that answers the question) that will help them answer their question, then they are to print out the web page.
5. Next students are to get a worksheet from the teacher and complete it.
6. If some students finish early, have them explore other web sites listed on the paper.

Assessment: Final Discussion

Reassemble students. Ask how many found a web site that provided them with some information to answer their research question.

• Ask if someone would like to share the information they found.
• Ask students what org, com, mil, gov, edu mean.
• Ask students what relevant, accuracy, currency mean.
• Ask students why they think it is important to know these things about web pages.

Last Lesson   I   Home   I   Next Lesson

This page was last updated March 5, 2002 This lesson was created to support the AT&T/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies. Understanding URLs was created by Sharon Sutton Links for this page are maintained by Mary Schrader Lasica, AT&T.