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Technology has affected all aspects of our society, and schools are no exception to this rule. When preparing to go back to school as an adult, you may feel as if you aren't ready because you lack an understanding of computers and technology in general. This article will serve as a basic introduction to computers and the Internet, in the hopes that you will be brought to a level of technological par that is expected of you while you are in school.

First off, for those of you that have I'd like to discuss computers in general and get you setup with some basic vocabulary. The screen is called a monitor. The keys are called a keyboard. That clicky thing is a mouse. Microsoft's Windows XP and Apple's Mac OS X are operating systems, meaning they are the software that tells the computer hardware what to do with itself. The computer hardware include the processor (the brains), the CD or DVD drive (used to read CDs or DVDs), memory (used to temporarily store information while the computer is on), and the hard drive (used to permanently store information, even when the computer is off).

Now that you have your basic vocabulary, I'd like to discuss the other elephant in the room: the Internet. Wow, what a loaded word. Think about it for a second what images or ideas pop into your head? What is the Internet, and who makes it run? Maybe it's something like the Wizard of Oz, with a old man standing behind a curtain manipulating controls in a vain effort to confuse little Dorothy. Well I'm here to tell you it's nothing so nebulous in fact once you understand just how the Internet is put together, you'll wonder why you didn't think of it first and become fabulously wealthy! (Or maybe that's just me)

One common misconception is to consider the Internet and the World Wide Web as the same thing. That's wrong the Internet is the worldwide network of computers, the World Wide Web is a collection of documents, images, and sounds that are stored on the network of computers, and can be easily accessed by anyone using a web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Safari), as well as the associated protocols required for two computers to communicate these documents and images between each other. An example of a site on the Web is http://www.cnn.com, where you can peruse the latest news, as decided by CNN. Now as you might guess, there are quite a few web pages out there. So how do you find what you're looking for? Why with a search engine, of course! Everybody's favorite is Google (http://www.google.com)

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