They are not the same thing
People use "the Internet" and "the Web" as if they mean the same thing. They do not.
📡 The Internet
The Internet is the physical, global network of networks — billions of computers, phones, servers, routers, cables, and satellites connected together and agreeing to speak the same protocols. It was designed to be open, and it has no single owner and no central controller.
📄 The World Wide Web
The Web is one service that runs on top of the Internet: a system of linked pages and documents that you request with a browser using HTTP. Email, video calls, online games, and app updates also run on the Internet — but they are not the Web.
The analogy: the Internet is the road system. The Web is one kind of vehicle driving on it. Delivery trucks, buses, and ambulances use the same roads without being cars.
🧠 Quick check
Your friend says "the Internet went down, so my email won't send, but at least the Web still works." What is wrong with that sentence?
Your message does not travel as one piece. It is chopped into numbered packets that each find their own way across the network and get reassembled at the other end. Click Send and watch.
Click any cable to cut it (and click again to repair it). Then send another message and see what the network does.
🔑 What you just saw
- Packets: data is split into small numbered pieces, each with the sender's and receiver's addresses.
- Routing: each router decides the next hop on its own. Packets from one message can take different paths.
- Redundancy: there is more than one path between any two points.
- Fault tolerance: because of that redundancy, the message still gets through when a cable is cut. That is the whole design goal of the Internet.
- TCP reassembles packets in sequence order and re-requests any that go missing. IP handles the addressing and routing.
A protocol is an agreed-on set of rules for how devices talk. No single protocol does everything — each has one job. Click a protocol, then click its job.
How your browser finds a server
You type www.pltw.org. But computers route to IP addresses, not names. DNS — the Domain Name System — is the Internet's phone book. Step through the lookup:
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of one specific resource on the Web. Every part has a job. Click each colored piece to find out what it does — find all 7.
💡 Why this matters for safety
Attackers rely on people reading URLs carelessly. The domain is the part that actually identifies the owner — and it is the piece immediately before the top-level domain, reading right to left.
Read a URL by finding the last dotted name before the first single slash. That is who you are really talking to.
Investigate a computing innovation
Choose a computing innovation that depends on the Internet — something that could not work without it. It must include a program as part of its function and it must consume, produce, or transform data.
Ideas: GPS navigation, streaming recommendation systems, contactless payment, ride-sharing dispatch, wearable health trackers, translation apps, cloud photo backup, smart thermostats, online multiplayer matchmaking, package tracking.
Your responses
Write in complete sentences. The word counter turns green when a response is developed enough. Nothing is stored — copy your work out at the bottom when you finish.
✅ Completeness check
Show what you know
Answer all 8 questions, then click Grade my exit ticket. One retry allowed.
📝 Computer Science Notebook
- The Internet is the global network of networks. The Web is one service that runs on it, using HTTP.
- Data travels in packets: numbered pieces that each carry addressing information and may take different paths.
- IP addresses and routes packets. TCP numbers them, reassembles them in order, and re-requests what is lost. UDP is faster but does not check.
- DNS translates a domain name into an IP address.
- Redundancy means more than one path exists between two points; it is what makes the Internet fault tolerant.
- HTTPS encrypts data in transit so it cannot be read if intercepted.
- A computing innovation includes a program and consumes, produces, or transforms data. Every one has both beneficial and harmful effects.