The Value of Internet Resources for Education

The internet is an amazing resource available to us today.  While many students (well, not just students, for sure), spend countless hours online looking things up, playing games, doing social networking, and many other activities, our job as educators is to assist and teach young people how to be responsible.  Kids might start out on harmless sites like Club Penguin and may end up somewhere potentially dangerous.  When my son was four, he was very interested in the human body, so he looked up "human body" on Google, and ended up at a very inappropriate web site.  Luckily, I was right there and quickly redirected him, but if I had just been in the kitchen for that moment, I would have been answering some questions that I was not ready for!  I'm sure this happens all the time at home, but in schools, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to give students the proper tools to make the most of their internet experiences.  I think we need to be honest with children, at the developmentally appropriate levels.   The point is not to scare them, but to educate them about safety.

In general, I think the internet is a wonderful place to learn.   There are countless web sites that are educational in nature.  One of my favorites is Brain Pop.  This is an interactive, animated web site that delves into a variety of topics such as science, music, language arts, social sciences, health, math, and many more.  Kids can pick an area of interest and explore many parts of that topic in a really fun way.  They also have an educator section.  This is a subscription based web site which can be purchased for home use or by schools.  It's worth every penny!   There are endless sites that are free and wonderful.  However, a parent or teacher should really be the person to go through sites to find ones that are not only relevent by age-appropriate.   I know that many teachers provide lists of useful web sites to their students, ranging from general education, to more specific sites that might relate to a particular unit they are studying.  In my school, our Technology Teacher keeps a running list in her school blog with many sites that are helpful to what each classroom is working on.  They can then access this information at home, in the classroom, as well as in the tech lab (way to go, Anne!).  In this situation, she spent time doing research on what sites might be useful to enhance student learning.  

Part of our job is also to teach students how to do research themselves.  I have worked with students on several very basic research projects and they are sorely lacking in basic skills needed to do their assignments.  I think that kids need to start learning these skills very early on, so they can keep building on this each year.  Part of the problem I've noticed is that kids give up too easily; they either go with the first resource they find (wikipedia, usually), or they get frustrated and give up.  We need to help students feel successful in their learning; to provide learning opportunities for using the internet in meaningful ways.