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Techniques for Saving Internet Information

Print Internet Resources

You can print resources from the Internet to make hard copies for the classroom. You can print out web pages, graphics, data, or email letters. Photocopy these printouts or transfer them to an overhead transparency. CAUTION: A web page may be much larger than you think. You can end up with one "page" that prints out to 10 sheets of paper. So when you print, you may want to print a page at a time. Also remember that just like information from any other source, information from the web may be copyrighted. It is important to observe copyright laws.

Save Internet Resources on a Disk, Hard Drive, or Zip Drive

You can save individual web pages simply by using the "save as" feature on your net browser. You have a choice of saving "text" or "HTML." Selecting "text" allows you to later open the document in a word processor. Depending on the word processor that you use, some or all of the formatting will be retained. If you select "HTML" you get all of the colors and formatting. This saves it as an HTML document which can be opened with a web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer without being connected to the Internet.

Example: Practice saving this update on the Sakura-Jima volcano on the desktop of your computer and then opening it in a word processor. What's missing from the document?

When you save web pages, the graphics are not automatically saved with the page. You must save each of the images separately. With a PC you do that by placing the mouse arrow over the graphic and pressing the right mouse button. A dialogue box appears. For a MAC, click and hold for a few seconds until the dialogue box appears. You can select the option "Save this image as..." You can now open these documents in the web browser or another appropriate program without being connected to the Internet.

Example: Practice saving a weather image on the hard drive of your computer.

Even if you have an Internet connection in the classroom, there are advantages to saving pages to be used with a disk, hard drive or Zip disk:

Web pages can be accessed much faster from the hard drive than from a distant server.
You avoid getting a "Server Down" message when you are trying to access a page, since it will always be there on your disk, hard drive or Zip disk. (However it will be the version that you saved, not the latest version available on the web.)
Students are limited to only the pages that you have saved on the hard drive and can't get into forbidden areas.
If you save pages or graphics on a disk, you can easily load the files on a number of computers for many students to view (such as in a computer lab).

Web Whacker Software or Other Web Collection Utility

Downloading text and graphics of various pages can be tedious. An easier way is to use a web collection utility that collects, organizes, converts, and saves all the information you find on the web. While browsing the page you want to save, simply click on the web saving utility, and it will automatically download the entire page and all of its associated graphics. In addition, you can specify how many levels you want it to download. That is, if you specify this page and one more level, it downloads the specified page and all the pages that are linked to it. Selecting two more levels downloads this page, all pages linked to it, and all pages linked to those pages. CAUTION: You must be very careful about downloading more than one level. Some sites have so many links that there is insufficient time or space on your hard drive to do this. Once you have saved the sites that you want, you can access those sites right from your computer without being connected to the Internet. Web Whacker Software is available for about $50.