Significance of the Internet for Education:
Notes for talk to C.A.P.E. planning group
October 9, 1999
by Craig A. Cunningham
To improve student learning, schools must improve CURRICULUM and INSTRUCTION
NOTE: The Internet itself will do NOTHING to improve student learning. Without changes in Curriculum and Instruction, the Internet will be nothing but a FAD, a "money pit," and a diversion from truly important educational issues. Indeed, simply having students "browse" the Internet to look for information actually DECREASES thinking.
How can the Internet help schools to improve curriculum and instruction?
- By providing the opportunity to restructure educational ACTIVITIES (to increase relevance, individualization, engagement, and academic challenge)
Example activities
- By providing improved/increased RESOURCES (including information, images, data, multimedia)
- By providing improved/increased COMMUNICATION (among teachers and students, and with parents, subject-matter experts, and the community)
- By encouraging the teaching of CRITICAL THINKING and MEDIA LITERACY (the Internet is full of false and misleading information and requires these skills)
Textbooks are one of the greatest expenses of schools and school districts. They are easily damaged and lost, and become obsolete before being published. The Internet contains (or will contain) much more compelling information resources than textbooks, as well as real-world data which should become the primary "raw material" of teaching and learning. The biggest problem with the "factory model of schooling" is that it assumes all learners in a classroom are the same. This is obviously false. (This is not to say that there aren't deep similarities among students; there are. But we need become better at acknowledging and dealing with both the differences and the similarities). The Internet offers the possibility of individualizing the activities of learning, providing learning on a "just-in-time" and "as needed" basis. This allows students with special needs (all learning needs are special) the potential to pursue learning that is "OUT OF SEQUENCE" yet relevant and engaging. Education is communication. Communication is education. The Internet is the most useful medium of communication since writing. (This will be more true as the Internet is increasingly used for voice and video in addition to data.) The medium is inherently educative. One cannot venture into a new virtual space without learning something. The new world of information requires the massification of a new skill. That is, the masses in advanced societies need to learn a skill that heretofore had been only learned by the elites. That skill is "critical thinking," also known as "media literacy." This involves the ability to judge whether a given piece of information is credible. Before now, most students learned to "believe what you read," because we taught them that textbooks and encyclopedias are infallible. The Internet is inherently fallible (as is all perception); this realization will cause schools to place much more emphasis in the future on teaching people how to think, instead of what to think. The Internet is multimedial. In the age of television, schools cannot create compelling learning situations using just chalk, worksheets, texts, and speech. Educating the "savvy media consumer" that is our current student requires the use of sound, images, video, animation, interactivity, and hypertextuality. Hypertextuality is the key feature of the World Wide Web. This medium CAN be used for linear learning activities (witness this activity), but it also supports "serendipitous learning," following curiosity or inquiry where it leads, rather than following a previously-learned script. (The key to utilizing hypertextuality educationally is curriculum planning: "In order to effectively target technology to support teaching and learning it is necessary to engage in planning at the state, school district, school, and classroom level," http://www.fwl.org/techpolicy/recapproach.html) The technology creates the necessity for intensive involvement in curriculum planning on the part of teachers. True, localized, individualized, engaged, problem-based, multimedial, hypertextual learning requires that teachers plan the activities of their students. This is a major shift in the functioning of K-12 public schools, where teachers have primarily been in the role of curriculum delivery rather than curriculum planning.
Until recently, most schools did not have adequate access to the Internet. But that is changing, through the national effort to wire schools. But teachers also need access from home. To really learn how to use the Internet, you need to get access from home and use it regularly.
Because the WWW is so huge, and is rapidly expanding, it is easy to get lost or overwhelmed at the variety of sites and information available. However, many people have made it easier to explore the WWW by providing "home pages" or lists of WWW sites, often grouped according to subject matter. There are some very good sites, for example, which list educational sites. Here is a small list of these sites:
Here are some Internet sites which contain educational materials of all kinds:
Many groups, both non-profit and for profit, are designing education experiences that welcome participation from students around the world. While most of these projects are not specifically targeted at language arts instruction, each allows for many opportunities to read text and other information, and to disseminate information in written and oral form.
For a comprehensive list of such projects, see Global SchoolNet Foundation's Internet Projects Registry. Some specific up-coming educational projects about which I've heard good things are:
Innovative teachers who want to engage their students in exciting educational experiences can use the Internet to dramatically increase the breadth and depth of what is possible. There are resources on the Internet pertaining to almost any topic imaginable. Teachers who know how to use the Internet can design projects which are relevant to the interests of their students, resulting in much more engagement in educational activities. (See Organizing and Facilitating Telecommunications Projects).
One form of educational project which utilizes the internet is a "Webquest." "A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing." (See "Some Thoughts About Webquests", by Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University). These can be short or long term, and help to make the students' internet experience focused and related to specific outcomes.
The Web Institute for Teachers at the University of Chicago is a major resource for Chicago-area teachers who wish to become more proficient with use of the Internet in education. Participants work in teams to develop comprehensive curriculum modules. For examples of these modules, see the database of WIT projects available here.
Every school needs a teacher who knows not only how to use the Internet in her classroom, but also knows how to help other teachers to "go online" and get their students using the Internet. Practice using the Internet, and utilizing it in classes, is the most important qualification of these "Internet Gurus." It is also possible to expand one's knowledge of the Internet by browsing the Internet itself, paying special attention to organizations that are promoting the Internet, and becoming a participant in efforts to expand access and skills among teachers and students.
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