GNED 136 Assignment Information

For the sections taught by Tim Richardson


What you have to do for this course on The Internet and the Impact on Society

It is NOT acceptable to submit these assignments by email.

Late assignments will be penalized.
Assignments can be handed in late only for severe medical reasons and a Doctor's note must be provided promptly.
All assignments in this course must be typed and written clearly with college level spelling and grammar.

Assignment 1 10%

Discussing the integration of WWW site advertising  with mainstream advertising and commercials.

Identify 3 companies, and their respective TV commercials they use for a product. Each commercial used (TV commercial or billboard) should have the company's web site clearly identified. (Example: Ford TV commercial, and at the end of the commercial it shows www.ford.com)

Go to the 3 web sites and view them.

Print out the first page of each www site and include it with your notes. You might want to use a colour printer to better show the graphics, although black and white printer will be OK.
OR Considering the Internet's Impact on Your Daily Activities with discussion of things you do now, which are different than before.

This assignment would be particulary suited to anybody who has begun Internet banking, or uses the Internet for a regularly scheduled activity (entertainment or educational).

Consider the internet's impact on your daily activities. Find three things that you used to do manually and in person and now can do over the internet. If you don't use the internet to do anything different now, find three things that, to your great surprise, you could possibly do at home on your own schedule.

Discuss, in essay format, making references to any URLs, the following
  • Name and describe the activities
  • How did you first find out about this particular activity?
  • What are your reasons for doing this via the Internet?
    • Save money
    • Save time
    • Its just kewl !
    • Allows me more options, benefits, greater satisfaction etc.
  • Does the Internet time take time away from the social aspect of the activity?
  • Are you concerned that you might lose some abilities in inter-personal communication by doing these activities via the Internet?
  • Has your writing ability increased in order to be more expressive over the Internet? - taking into account the abscence of video allowing you to read body langauge and facial expressions of the people you correspond with ;-)
  • if you want to get a good mark on this assignment you should have at least three or four  full pages of comments
  • you should type this assignment and check for spelling mistakes and grammar
 In conclusion, comment if you have any concerns about young people spending too much time on the Internet, and not enough time learning social and verbal communication skills in a multi-cultural world.

Assignment 2 10%
 
 

Web Rings - find a web ring and;
  1. describe the theme of the member sites (eg. are they all related to sports, celtic jewellery, music CDs - whatever)
  2. what are some of the various payment methods used
  3. how are the different products described - are there similar methods, or different methods
  4. how does the web ring advertise itself in the WWW
  5. what suggestions would you have to improve the web ring (content, structure, marketing)
In submitting this report you may print it out on paper, with one page attached of some of the member sites, or send it as an email message to the professor, with the URLs for some of the member sites. An example of a web ring can be found at www.by-the-sword.com/index.html (do not do the example)
Online
Communities

Webrings
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Online
Communities

Webrings
http://www.thevillagelane.com/cccring.htm This is an example of a Web Ring.

This particular example comes from the Christmas Cooking & Crafts WebRing

All the sites in the Ring are interconnected so that "enthusiasts" can find out information on the same topic easily without having to use a search engine for each site.
http://www.thevillagelane.com/cccring.htm As you can see from the screen capture to the left, all webrings have a navigation section at the bottom so people can easily see other sites in the ring, or a list of all the sites - this is a fundamental principle of webrings.
. 
. 
. Part of building your Online Community can include having your page, or part of your page linked within a Webring which is themed to things you do. If you cannot find one which matches - you can make one - there is no cost to starting your own webring; all you have to do is get people to join!

WTGR
.
.

OR Special Interest Groups and the Net - identify a special interest group operating in Canada, and;
  1. describe the purpose of the group -
    1. what are they trying to draw attention to - why do they have a web site?
  2. why is the group interesting
    1. why did you pick this group
  3. what are some of the things they do to attract interest on their web site
  4. how are their activities described, text, pics, banners, links
  5. how does the site advertise itself in the WWW, banners, meta tags, - is the URL listed with their regular promo literature
  6. what suggestions would you have to improve their site (content, graphics, message)
Examples of some SIGs (do not do the example)


Special Interest groups ARE NOT

make sure you do a real Special Interest Group