What is the internet?
The internet is the world’s largest library, shopping centre, information centre and social meeting point, all rolled into one. You can connect with friends and family, find information, sell and buy goods, pay bills, play games, watch movies and much more over the internet.
In this course you'll learn the basics of getting online and navigating the internet.
Watch this short video before you begin the activities.
Transcript
Welcome to "What is the Internet?" The internet is a great way to find information, pay bills, shop, keep in touch with others and more. In this video, we'll look at how the internet works and what you need to explore it.
Before you can visit the internet, you must first connect to it. There are two main ways of connecting. You can connect your home to the internet via a cable or connect wirelessly over the mobile phone network.
Once connected, you need a web browser program or simply a browser. This lets you view and interact with information on the internet.
Next, you need a search engine to help find what you're looking for on the internet. It's called a search engine because it lets you search for things you want to know more about. The web browser and search engine are usually already installed on your computer, smartphone, or tablet.
Together, the web browser and search engine help you visit websites on the internet. Websites are places where you can find information, and each website can be made up of many pages. There are billions of websites and trillions of web pages on the internet.
Every website has a unique address. You type a website address into the Address bar to go to that website.
When you don't know the website address, just type the subject you are looking for into the search engine and wait for a list of options about the topic to appear on the screen.
Each option on the screen is a hyperlink or a link to a web page with information about the topic. You can use a mouse to click on a hyperlink and go to that page.
It's not difficult to explore the internet safely.
Sign in to save your progress and earn a certificate
1
So, what is the internet?
5 min
2
What is a web browser?
4 min
3
Web addresses and links
6 min
4
Search engines
5 min
5
Internet safety tips
9 min
6
Online forms
8 min