NEKESC - Using the Internet as a Teaching
Tool
Improve your use of the Internet to
enhance students’ learning, discover new educational web sites,
explore virtual experiences (such as field trips and museums) and learn
teaching strategies.
Are you undecided about how to integrate
the Internet into your teaching?
You are not alone. While more and more teachers are using
the Internet in their teaching, there are still many who have not yet found
a relationship with technology that works for them. With computers, the
Internet, email, web sites, educational software programs, projectors,
scanners, digital this and digital that, it is more than some teachers
can handle all at once.
Here are some statistics:
- Internet usage double every 100 days in the US!
- It is estimated that by the year 2005, one billion
people will be connected to the Internet.
- Almost two-thirds of all schools report that the majority
of their teachers use the Internet for instructional purposes (up from
54% last year).
Instructional technologies used in today’s educational
environments represent either a threat or an opportunity for teachers,
depending on how we view them. As a public school educator for 19 years,
and as a university professor for 5 years, it is my belief that the emerging
interactive technologies represent an opportunity for educators to reestablish
themselves as 21st Century technology proficient teachers.
-Steven Smith, Ed.D
What is the Internet?
It has been more than 20 years now since the first instructional computers
appeared in classrooms. The first computers were relatively simple machines
(by today’s standards) with limited use, memory, and available software.
Early computers were primarily used for drill and practice routines and entertainment.
Some early adopters (teachers) of this technology learned to program them and
write their own educational software. Still others discovered the power of
these machines to organize and store information.
The history of computers in education is an interesting read. You can learn
more by following the links below:
Why use the Internet?
Consider the possibilities. The time you spend taking resources off of the
Internet is often less than the same time you would use to plan and prepare
resources for everyday lessons. The Internet is many things, but to educators
it can be seen as a megasource of curricular material as well as an opportunity
to network with other teachers nationwide (and worldwide) (Mandel, 1998).
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