Random Surfing

A Not-So-Magic Carpet Ride
Organized Chaos - Random Links
In this lesson, though our discussions, directed activity, and independent exploration we will learn the answers to the burning questions:
  • What is a hyperlink?
  • What is a URL?
  • What is a home page?
  • What is a web page?
  • What is a web site?
  • What is a random Link generator?
  • What is a bookmark?
  • How do you make a bookmark?
  • What is the status line and how can it help?
  • What does Netscape's BACK button do?
  • What does Netscape's RELOAD button do?
  • To load or not to load. That is the question!
    • Sorry, Sheakespeare...

By now you and I have gone over the first five or six questions and it's time to your feet wet. I want you to begin to get a feel for what sort of things you are going to  encounter on the World Wide Web. Below are a few places on web that offer you magic carpet rides to other parts of the web. Click on one of the random link generators located on these sites and you will be whisked away to some random web page.

You will also encounter exciting and interesting people, places and things. You will encounter much more than simply web pages. You will encounter waits, error messages, frustration, confusion and a dozen other annoyances that are a normal  part of web life. Learning what is normal and what to do when things go wrong will save you many hours of frustration. Pay close attention when the status line is discussed. It could be an important key to your survival.

Well, we're almost ready to start, but STOP! Don't click on any of those links yet! When you click on a link you may end up in Oshkosh or Kalamazoo. Do you know how to get back here? The BACK button should work, but a  BOOKMARK is much better. Just a few more gems of wisdom from the teacher any you will be off to a period of random links.

One final word of caution... Since these are random links, there is no telling where  you might end up.  You may end up with gems or garbage. If you are using some sort of filtering software it may be activated from time to time. If you are not using filtering software you may end up in a place that isn't very savory.

URouLette is the first and most famous of the random link generators.

Random URLS from the WebCrawler Use the RELOAD button to get 10 new random links

Clicking right here will send you to a random page from Yahoo.

[ Previous ] [ Next ]

[ OII Home Page ]
[Index] [Net Basics] [Web Basics] [Search] [Glossary]