Lab 00 - Introduction and resources

This series of labs is a little bit like traditional labs, where you perform experiments and record the results. This series is also different from other labs because for most of these exercises there are no ˇ°rightˇ± answers. The answers will depend on you - who you are, your life experiences, and what is important to you. These labs are meant to help you understand other perspectives on technology, to get hands-on experience with some tools, and to think about what it means to live in a world where more and more of what you do on a daily basis involves using technology.

All the labs in this series are set up the same way, so once you have gone through one, you'll know what to expect in the others. The pages are kept simple, so you can focus on the tasks you need to accomplish and not the interface. They are written in simple HTML with CSS, so you can look at the source and easily see what is happening behind the scenes.

Each lab will have an introduction, like this one. After that, a section called ˇ°To consider:ˇ± will give you some things to think about before you begin. Next are the exercises, which start with an introduction followed by a section called ˇ°Learning moreˇ± that has the exercises themselves. Finally, the section called ˇ°Moving onˇ± gives a summary of some of the concepts covered in the lab.

To consider:

Before you begin: your lab toolbox

Many of these labs won't need anything but you and a computer that has access to the internet, but some will need additional tools. Trying out other web browsers, writing with a text editor, even editing sound are possible with no cost to you. The list of links below will point you to these resources. Some require downloading and installation, and others are entirely browser-based. Where it applies, the operating system or web browser an application is built for is noted. Finally, if you are a tablet user, you may find that you can work through many of these labs with a combination of apps you have already installed or are freely available, browser-based tools, and a physiical keyboard for more easily writing code.

Learning more

  1. Text editors, in comparison to document composers like Microsoft Word, Open Office Writer, or Google Documents, can be thought of as stripping the processing of text down to its most necessary elements. This is not to say that text editors are simple applications. Many text editors can do very complex tasks and have features like syntax highlighting or tag completion. However, the text they work with is only text. You can't create a drawing, change to a different font, or make the font change color. One job of text editors is to use only text to create markup or code that is able to be interpreted by applications. As you progress through the labs (and through Fluency With Information Technology), you'll learn more about text editors. Your operating system probably has a very basic text editor installed by default. You will want to have more advanced functionality for these labs and the exercises from the book, so downloading an additional text editor is recommended. Here are links to download a variety of text editors:

  2. Editing images is an important part of creating web pages. Like text editors, there are freely available image editors. Your operating system probably has a very basic image editor installed by default. You may want to have more advanced functionality for these labs and the exercises from the book, so downloading or using an additional image editor is recommended.

    Having trouble seeing an image or reading a file? Freely available viewer IrfanView can process a large number of file formats, including video and audio files.

  3. Editing sound can be done with freely available tools as well.

    • Browser-based (more focus on music creation than editing existing work) - Audiotool
    • Linux/Unix/Windows/Mac - Audacity

  4. Web browsers offer users different experiences and support different functionality. It's a good idea to have more than one web browser to see the differences in rendering HTML as well as to try out different web-based tools. Most browsers are available for different operating systems. Here are the top five, in alphabetical order:

  5. Browser plugins(or add-ons or extensions) can support your work too. Firefox and Chrome have large development communities working on everything from changing the look of the browser to JavaScript debugging tools. Do you use a different browser? You can use a search engine to help you see if there are tools available for the browser you use. Here are a few useful plugins for Chrome and Firefox to consider:

Moving on

These free tools are just some of the useful resources you can use not only to complete labs and exercises for Fluency with Information Technology, but also to complete tasks in other areas of your life. These tools and related ones are easy to find on the Web using search strategies that help pinpoint what you are looking for. Are you looking for a tool or reseource you are having trouble finding? Search, search engines, and search strategies are covered in greater detail elsewhere in the book, labs, and exercises. Finally, whether it is information you get, a tool you download and use, or skills you develop, the things you learn and discover throughout this course can be used wherever they come in handy. Now, let's get started!