An Innovation Grant funded by the Georgia Department of Education

Bill Jordan, Instructor
Thomasville City Schools
Thomasville, Georgia

Online Shopping: The Cure for "Mall-itis"


Objective: In this assignment you will investigate the potential of on-line shopping. .
Vocabulary: You have seen much of the vocabulary in this lesson previously.
clickable URL Chain Link selection list security check

Background Information: How many TV commercials have you seen lately that include a company's URL. During the early years, the Internet was mostly used for government and education purposes. Commercial activities (buying and selling things) were prohibited, or at least strongly discouraged. One of the major changes that has taken place with the growth of the World Wide Web is the use of the Internet to conduct business. Today, on-line advertising and sales are common for all types of businesses ranging from billion dollar corporations to individuals doing business from a spare room in their home.

With thousands of things for sale on the World Wide Web, it is also possible to do comparison shopping from the comfort of your own home. Pets, cars, vacation homes, clothes, specialty foods--you name it, and you can probably find it for sale on-line. Companies are happy to charge any purchase you want to make to your credit card.

Online Assignment: Do you like to shop? First you have to find a place to park. Then you have to fight the crowds. There are so many sales, you often have to go from store to store looking for the best deal. And sales clerks...they always seem to mess up my credit card. My wife is convinced I have "mall-itis"...a fear of malls. I don't know if that is true, but with the World Wide Web I can do most of my shopping completely on-line.

Have you ever daydreamed about owning something really fancy--like a Jagaur? I don't even know how much one costs. Let's do some comparison shopping to find out!

If you are a student, you may be looking for your first car. If you are a parent, you may be driving a car that is older than your children! In either case, in this assignment you will do some cost comparison for a couple of cars (or trucks) and send me the results via e-mail.

In this assignment, you may run into several features that you have not seen before. You might want to print this page so you can follow the instructions more easily. The web site you are going to visit will ask you to make several choices in order to identify the types of cars you want to compare. If you carefully follow the instructions, you can't go too far wrong.

1. Please remember that the examples shown below are just to illustrate what you will encounter when you actually access the web site that lets you compare car costs. Nothing will happen if you click on the images shown in these instructions. You must go to the web site for these instructions to work.
2. In order to pick the manufacturer, you must click on the down arrow when you are at the web site. When you do this, you will see a list that you can scroll through. When you find the manufacturer you want, click on it and it will be highlighted in the box.

A selection box is also provided for the second car in your comparison.

3. After you have selected the manufacturer of both cars, you will be asked to go on to step two in the process. At that point you get a warning screen like this example. You are not submitting anything that you need to keep private at this point, so just click on the Continue button.
4. Step 2Next you are presented with two selection boxes to pick a model. Click on the down arrow, make your selections, and go on to the next step. The security warning will appear again, but don't worry about it.
5. Step 3The last step is to choose the body style of the two cars. After you do that, you will see a side-by-side comparison of the two cars you have chosen.
6. You can compare any number of cars you want. When you are happy with your choices, send me an e-mail message and tell me the two cars you chose and the cost of each one.
Homework Assignment: Your assignment is to compare two cars (or trucks) of your choice, and e-mail me the results. The diagram below is a link to the site I want you to visit--so just click on it and you are off! When you enter the web site make the following choices to get to the comparison page. Happy shopping!

    New Cars | Compare Vehicles


Competencies: This assignment gave you some experience with the possibilities of on-line comparison shopping. If you ever decide to purchase anything online, use common sense. Only deal with reputable, established businesses that offer secure exchange of credit card information.

Note: No endorsement of this site, or any products referenced through or at this site, is implied by its inclusion in this lesson. This is an educational exercise only. Please don't buy a car or a truck without checking with your parents first!


Previous Button

Main Menu Button

Copyright 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Send comments to Bill Jordan
Thomasville City Schools
915 East Jackson Street
Thomasville, GA 31792


Rose.Net, the network of the Greater Thomasville area, hosts this project.


Created: 10/26/97 00:00:00