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| EDUC 632, Summer 2001
Robert Cerf |
Reflection on Uses
of the Internet in the Classroom
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I have been an
ELA teacher for five years as of this writing. Coming into this field late
in life, most of my colleagues with five years of teaching experience are,
at best, in their late twenties. As such, most secondary ELA teachers --
and virtually all of my students -- are considerably more computer
literate than I have been until now. For me, the Internet was always a
giant cyber vacuum to become lost in as I futilely searched for lesson
plans or sports scores. Now, thanks to this class, I am on my way to using
the Internet as an integral part of teaching, communicating, and negotiating
the overall business of twenty-first century education. After completing
the course readings, assignments, and working on my Web project, I believe
I understand how to best use the Internet in my high school English classroom.
Mainly,
this involves utilizing student interest and skills to maximize learning,
exposing and guiding students to teacher directed information, communicating
with students, parents, and fellow teachers, and providing students with
a necessary model for "doing business" once they leave high school.
First of all,
kids today know so much more about computers and technology than do most
adults. Since student minds are already open to the familiarity of computers,
why not capitalize on this by creating as many educational tie-ins as possible?
I already know how effective computer based learning can be from my experiences
last year with the Accelerated Reader program. Almost every one
of my students increased his or her reading level and comprehension by
the end of each semester. For some, it also raised the "fun factor" of
learning as well.
Having fun while
learning is very important to me as a teacher. So, I now realize that technology
is an instructional tool much like a chalkboard or a book. This medium,
however, is perceived as "friendly" and "fun" by most kids and therefore
minimizes resistance to learning. It is only logical that, starting with
the upcoming year, I extend my "meager" technological applications to date
one step further by putting the Internet to use in my classroom. With respect
to the Loti
framework, I started this class at a level 2 (exploration), feel competent
now that I am approaching a level 3 (infusion), but hope to achieve the
competency of level 4B (routine integration of technology) shortly. In
short, I owe it to my kids to bring myself up to their technological level
so that overall instructional effectiveness increases in my classroom.
It is easy to
see where and how the Internet will increase this instructional effectiveness
in my classroom since my curriculum involves writing fundamentals, reading
comprehension, accessing and applying information, understanding the differences
between various types of writing, working individually and in a group,
and presenting evaluated information to myself and the class via written
and oral mediums. These tasks, which until now have been completed by my
students largely without the use of the Internet, can only become
more student accessible and be better learning experiences by incorporating
the Web into my curriculum. Plus, my vision of how this technology tool
will be used in my classroom fits in quite naturally with Delaware's ELA
Standards!
Secondly, I
believe that the Internet can help me to focus my students on accessing
almost unlimited amounts of information. This, of course, is a double edged
sword: the resources are plentiful but the accuracy can be questionable.
Turning kids loose on the Web to "find some expository writing examples"
would be as much of a classroom management faux pas as carting them all
to the library and telling the students to "go and find examples of expository
writing." The Internet, like use of any learning tool, must be kept
in perspective by the teacher and supplemented by "nuts and bolts" lessons
prior
to student access. It's just like the VCR: you can use it to highlight
and emphasize specific learning goals or use it merely as a baby-sitter.
To this end the Internet is no different than any other instructional resource.
In keeping with
this, students must be both supervised in their overall use of the Internet
(high schoolers love to "abuse" resources by going outside the lesson's
scope) as well as guided in developing their own evaluatory skills. With
respect to the first item, this is simply sound classroom management. As
far as student evaluation of Internet materials goes, two "filters" need
to be "installed" into students' minds: having specific teacher created
tasks and preselected URLs means that they cannot be turned loose on the
Web for unsupervised browsing, and students need a "template" or resource
for the important process of evaluating information. I have created an
evaluation
form based on the examples found in The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Why It’s a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources.
Students will print this form out by accessing my Web page (discussed below).
To this end I can hopefully "frame" the Internet use in my classroom.
In addition
to managing and focusing the virtually unlimited Internet information and
its learning potential, a very practical -- and personal -- outgrowth of
this class for me will be to use the Internet for communicating with students,
parents, and other educators both locally as well as globally. This September
I will create a discussion area on my
Web site for posting
assignments and publishing a weekly
"newsletter." Both parents and
students alike will be able to access this site and it should help to
streamline and deepen the communication
process. So, when open house rolls around this year, I'll be
writing my Web address on the board
and asking all parents to provide me with their e-mail address.
Through my Web page and list servs
I can also communicate with other teachers everywhere and
incorporate other resources and
suggestions into my teaching. Likewise, my students will also be able to
communicate with other students
and teachers everywhere to broaden their own experiences and
knowledge bases.
Finally, and
perhaps most importantly, integrating the Internet into my classroom via
the
aforementioned ways will help prepare
students for life after high school. This goal is easily as important
-- if not more so -- as subject
mastery is for me. Before using the Internet, I always maintained that
behavior was equally as important
to me as ELA subject matter. In other words, manners and conduct
count! Why? Because high school
is an opportunity to provide students with the necessary academic and
social skills needed to survive
and succeed in the real world. Computers are not an "end" in and of
themselves. As discussed in class,
practicing with them and the Internet helps to fill in "gaps" in student
schemata. This is no different
than coaching kids to raise their hands when asking a question instead
of
shouting it out rudely. Just like
instruction in the pre computer era, students learn about the world by
breaking higher order thinking
tasks into more manageable steps and eventually expanding outward and
upward. Computer and Internet use
helps to continue this process by balancing between solving a
particular problem and then building
up an overall conceptual framework. In other words, "learning."
Since my students' future employers
will ask them to do this with technology, it would be an injustice for
me not to prepare these kids while
still in school. Perhaps the Harris article we read in class for telecollaboration
sums it up the best: "(p)roblem solving is one of the best learning
opportunities we can offer students of any age. The Internet can be used
to support problem based learning around the world through information
searches, peer feedback activities, parallel problem solving, sequential
creations, telepresent problem solving, simulations, and social action
projects" (Harris
7). These ideas are right on target for me.
In conclusion,
managing any new technology is a balancing act. There is nothing magical
about the Internet. It is up to me to regulate the classroom environment
and to allocate computer use fairly and equitably. Since I won't have a
machine for every student, Internet projects will grow out of group work.
Students will work on other aspects of particular tasks while their peers
use the computer. This will free me up to circulate around the classroom,
answer questions, and to help those students who are struggling one-on-one.
As with any class, some students will be less advanced than others. Even
in today's world some students still have little or no computer experience.
Just like any other learning deficit, it will be up to me to bring these
children up to speed. Remember, technology is a tool; if a teacher abuses
it or overuses it in the face of neglecting other important instructional
protocols, then he or she becomes the tool!
SOURCES
Beck, Susan. The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly or Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web
Sources (1997).
Accessed July 17, 2001 at
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html
Delaware Department of Education.
ELA
Standards (1995).
Accessed July 17, 2001 at
http://www.doe.state.de.us/englangarts/elastandards.htm
Harris, Judi. Curriculum-Based
Telecollaboration. Using Activity Structures to Design
Student Projects (1998).
Accessed July 17, 2001 at
http://www.udel.edu/sine/course/syllabus01/readings/telecollaboration.pdf
Learning Quest. LoTi Framework.
Assessing Teacher's Use of Technology (1999).
Accessed July 17, 2001 at
http://www.udel.edu/sine/course/syllabus01/readings/loti_handouts.pdf
(loti)