On this page you will find useful links on the WWW. Point the mouse and click the left-hand button to follow up a link.
If you think a link is particularly useful to you, you can bookmark it for easy retrieval later. To do this just click on the bookmarks button in your browser. A pop-up menu will open. Click on Add bookmark and it's added to the list you will see in the same pop-up window. You can later save the list on a floppy disk and keep it on your computer.
If you want one, click here to find a page on the WWW where you can sign on free-of-charge and use email on any computer that is connected to the Internet. This company is called Hotmail. Anyone can register, and it is particularly useful for teachers and students worldwide.
Alternatively, you can also use a company called Rocketmail, who offer similar services, also free of charge. However, their service seems to have been somewhat slower recently.
You can find all sorts of helpful sites by clicking on Search or Netsearch in your menu bar at the top of the your Netscape (or Internet Explorer) window. Alternatively, you can go to some specific 'search engines' by clicking the names below:
To email people you need their email addresses. If you have an idea of who their ISP (Internet Service Provider) is, it is easy to find their email addresses as most providers offer facilities to find email addresses. For example, try to find some at K.F.University Graz.
Alternatively, you can find people on WhoWhere, on Usenet Addresses Services; for the US, try Switchboard.
Of course, there's also a host of business directories and telephone directories attached to the common search engines (Yahoo UK, Yahoo Germany) as well as the well-known Yellow Pages USA and Four11.
There are many resources, some of which charge monthly fees for downloads. Freebies are available at WWW Virtual Library, Internet Public Library and Search Eric.
Most newspapers nowadays also offer electronic sites. Most require that you register for free, and then you can use their resources. Try the Electronic Telegraph, the Times, the Economist, the Financial Times. Reference data are supplied e.g. by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
US publications often use push technologies. You can subscribe to the most famous ones when registering your hotmail account. They will then send you news and texts by email in a never-ending stream.
For multimedia materials, see below.
Often email, mailing lists, USENET news, discussion boards, chat rooms and MOOs can offer help.
Emailing students is a great way to communicate. Getting students to communicate with students from other classrooms is even greater. For email co-operations, try to find partners for email classroom exchanges or intercultural email classroom connections
Mailing lists swamp you with email messages. To begin with, you subscribe to a list. You can unsubscribe to stop the flow of messages at the same address. There are lists for teachers, as well as students. A useful mailing list is Cobuild's weekly Wordwatch.
Usenet offers hundreds of newsgroups you can choose from. Your net browsers (Netscape or Internet Explorer) have specific newsreader functions, which you can find in the menu bars. Unfortunately, USENET categories also open up links to the infamous ALT(ernative) subject categories with porn and other filth galore, so schools are understandably wary of allowing the installation of newsreaders. However, there are some useful newsgroups such as alt.usage.english and others.
For teachers, discussion boards that have been very successful are ESL Discussion Center and ESL Message Exchange. There is also a help centre, where an international team of teachers of English answer questions about language issues.
Chatting is very popular, but difficult to control in a classroom. mIRC is probably the most commonly used chat program in Austria. Special software is required which can be found on one of Norbi's CD-ROMs. Chatting is also possible with Netmeeting. For details, see below.
MOOs are chat-rooms. For language learning purposes, try schMOOze University.
Internet telephony needs a good sound-card and some software. The best on the market is currently Netmeeting. Installation files can be downloaded from the Microsoft home-page.
Video-conferencing requires a specific card to connect a video-camera to your computer. Netmeeting and other programs will then send small pictures or videos. For more details, contact Norbert.