History of the Internet
Visit each of the following
histories of the Internet, then read one in depth:
A Web browser is the software that transforms the WWW into a user-friendly, graphical environment for us. It allows us to point and click, and to move easily from one area to another.
There are several Browsers available that will allow you to surf the Net (access the Internet). A Browser is a computer program or application. It is a piece of software that is loaded onto your computer that allows you view Web sites. Two frequently used browsers are Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Although there are differences between them, they are quite similar, and are available for free both on disk, and by downloading them from the Internet. You can visit their home pages and see which one you prefer. You probably have one or the other or both already installed on your computer Sometimes people get confused about what is needed to access the Internet. To "surf the Net" you need:
Take time to look at the following Web sites which will give you more information about Browsers. Choose the one that best fits your needs to explore in depth.
Have you ever wished you could find a particular Web site again? Would you like to easily access frequently used Web sites? Would you like to share "gems" that you find on the Web with friends, colleagues, and family. It takes a little discipline to do this, but it is fast and easy. Both Netscape Communicator and Microsoft's Internet Explore allow you to bookmark Web sites on your computer. Netscape calls this Bookmarks and Explore calls this Favorites. Both allow you to easily capture and save a Web address for future use. Your bookmarks or favorites can be saved to floppy or zip disk and used on multiple computers.
To learn how to save and file you favorite URLs read these Web sites:
CNET: Set and Manage Bookmarks in Communicator
CNET: Set and Manage Bookmarks in Explorer
In addition there are Web sites that provide free space for you to save your bookmarks and files on remote servers. The space is free because it is paid for by advertisers, so you need to be aware that the sites will contain advertisements. These storage sites can be extremely useful if you use multiple computers. These are also good places to back up your files and work.
Review the link below that provides free file storage and sign on with it or another similar site you locate. Upload your bookmark file. Use this space to continue to file your bookmarks and work during this course.
FreeDrive: allows you to upload, store, retrieve, and distribute 20 MB of your data for free.
Educational Portals and
Online Resources for Educators Portals
are excellent starting points for your research. Explore some of the sites
on this list of education portals and resources and bookmark the ones you
find interesting for later use. Hopefully you will find information on
many of these that will be useful to you and your students. As you explore
these portals and resources be thinking about something you are going to
be teaching soon, or research that you are currently doing or plan to do
soon that you can use for your project for this course. In
the Student Dialog Chamber in the Student Lounge post your proposed project
topic.Bookmark the Web sites that you think will help you with your
project.
American
Memories Collection– National Digital Library of the Library of Congress
- Provides access to the
resources in the Library of Congress
Bibliocat Web Page - Resources for Librarians, School librarians, Library/Media Specialists, Teachers, Parents
B.J. Pinchbeck's Homework Helper - Resources for teachers, students and parents
Blue Web 'N - A searchable database of Internet learning sites categorized by subject area, audience, and type (lessons, activities, projects, resources, references, & tools).
Busy Educators Guide to the World Wide Web - Marjan Glavac's site for educators
Classroom Connect - Innovative thought-provoking, interactive media and services for teachers including teaching resources, and online classes
Cool Links - The Santa Clara County Office of Education's Internet Institute list of Web sites for educators
Discovery Channel School - Outstanding teaching materials and ideas.
Digital High School Resources - Resources compiled by the Santa Clara County of Education specifically targeted for high schools
Ed's Oasis - Provides help teachers use the Internet as an integral tool for teaching and learning including outstanding Internet lessons created by teachers.
Education Index - A guide to some of the best and most useful education-related sites on the Web.
Education World - Complete resource guide to the Internet for educators to integrating the Internet into the classroom.
Forefront Curriculum - Resources for teachers who want to effectively integrate the Internet into their classroom.
Homework Central - Study collections on the Internet
Homework Help - Lesson plans, test preparation, ideas, links, lessons
JITT - Information on using and integrating technology
K-12 Weblinks - IBM's resources for educators
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators - A list of sites on the Internet found to be useful for enhancing curriculum and teacher professional growth.
Math Forum Resources - Swarthmore University's resources for teaching mathematics
Online Class - K-12 teaching units delivered in collaborative Internet classrooms.
Online Educator Hot List Archive - Check this archive for educational sites. The sites are categorized to make it easy to find topics in your areas of interest.
PacBell’s Filamentality - Pac Bell's resources for educators
Performance Assessment Links in Science - SRI International's science resources
S.C.O.R.E. - Schools of California Online Resources for Educators contains teacher created units and lessons that are based on the CA Content Standards, links to resources, and CA Content Standards for mathematics, language arts, history/social studies, and science.
Squirrel Hunt Teachers' Resources - Visit the Squirrel Hunt Community! Information for educators teaching Internet topics is available, including lesson plans.
Scholastic - Ready-to-use Reproducible and more.
SFMOMA's school - Modern art lessons and resources for K-12 educators and students
StudyWeb - Over 100,000 Research Quality URLs.
Tapped In -Online Community for Educators
Teacher Created Materials - Free lessons and Activities for classrooms
Tech Topics - WebLearning's 4th -8th grade science units on earthquakes, electricity, the cardiovascular system, matter and genetics.
TheTech - The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA
Web Sites and Resources for Teachers - Educational sites and resources compiled by Dr. Vicki F. Sharp and Dr. Richard M. Sharp, Professors of Education at California State University, Northridge. It is organized in nine categories which include lesson plans, instructional materials, online activities and projects, and virtual trips to museums and countries around the world.
WebQuests -Bernie Dodge's, (San Diego State University) list of WebQuests- This site is designed to serve as a resource to those who are using the WebQuest model to teach with the web.
Web Resources for K-8 Teachers - The Santa Clara County Office of Education Educational Technology Consortium's list of Web resources of K-8 teachers.
Where Learning Takes You - 500.000 activities for classrooms.
WNet School - Educational resource for k-12 teachers requiring online registration.
Yahooligans - Educational portal for students. Provides searchable database of safe educational resources designed specifically for kids.
Yahooligans Teaching Guide - Has great ideas for planning, implementing, and assessing integrated Internet units.
Assessing your Technology Literacy
California's Commission on Teacher Credentialling has developed a set of Technology Standards that will be required for all new and beginning teachers to get and renew their credentials. You can find out what those standards are by visiting the CA Technology Proficiency Standards for Certification Web site. If you are interested in knowing how your current technology profeciency matches these standards you can take the CTAP (California Technology Assistance Project Technology Proficiency Standards Assessment. This can help you better plan what skills you need to learn to effectively integrate technology, including use of the Internet into your classroom. If you want more information on how you can do this visit the Santa Clara County Office of Education's Internet Institute Web site.or the Leadership for Learning with Technology Web site.
Framing Essential Questions and Key Words for Searches
Essential questions are useful tools for conducting your own research or engaging students in learning. Your project for this course will be to create a WebQuest or Internet Scavenger Hunt that you will be able to use in your classroom with your students. If you are not a classroom teacher instead of Scavenger Hunt or WebQuest you can create a bookmark list of sites that are useful to you.
Before we tackle Advanced Searching Tips and Techniques it is important to know how to ask the right questions and choose the right keywords for your searches. Explore the following resources from Jamie McKenzie's From Now On Web site. You will use this information to frame your essential questions and select the key words for your searches for your project.
Some Commonly Used Search Engines
The following Web sites will help you narrow your searches so that you will acheive more useable results. Read through each and choose the one you like best to help you narrow your searches. Then, use the above search engines to try your key words and the techniques you've learned from the following searching tutorials and searching guides. If necessary adjust or change your key words as you search. In the Dialog Chamber in the Student Lounge post which search engines you used and which techniques gave the most useable search results. Which search engines gave you the best results? If you decided to change your key words explain why you did this and what changes you made. Don't forget to bookmark any Web resources you find that you might use for your project.
Evaluating Web Resources Just because something is published does not mean that it is a valid resource. How can you be sure the information you and your students find represents factual information? How can you find sites that will hold your students' atttention long enough for them to gather the information they need? The following Web sites offer guidelines, rubrics and check lists for evaluating Web resources. Explore these resources, then choose the one you like the best. In the Dialog Chamber in the Student Lounge post the Web evaluation site you liked best and explain why you liked this site. How will you use this with your students to help them evaluate Web resources?
The American Library Association has identified nine important Information Literacy Standards. The standards are grouped into three categories. Visit the American Library Association's Information Literacy Standards Web site and read these standards. Book mark them for later reference. Then visit Jamie McKenzie's Web site, Beyond Technology to Information Literacy (From Now On–Jamie McKenzie, click on the Subject Index and then on Information Literacy, and find out what he has to say about Information Literacy.
There are also many wonderful educator listservs that provide answers to curriclum questions, support groups for subject and grade levels, and excellent resources. Some listservs are very active and other are not. Some , like the Reading Teacher listserv are wonderful places to ask for help and share resources with other teachers. Some educator listservs include:
WebQuests WebQuests are powerfully motivating inquiry oriented learning opportunity for students. Some are commercially available to be joined either free or for a fee such as GreeceQuest. Others are teacher created. The basic WebQuest structure is:
The Internet in the Classroom
Now that we've explored several ways to exploit the Internet more effectively both for your personal use and for your students, several important questions remain to be answered. Why integrate the Internet into the curriculum? To what extent is the Internet important for education? What is the balance between using the Internet and more traditional approaches to teaching and learning? How do we justify the need for connected computers in our classrooms to others? What does research tell us about integrating Internet technologies into the classroom? What are the most educationally effective uses of the Internet in the classroom?
We'll begin with PacBell's Knowledge Network's Around the Web in 80 Minutes. This site will provide you with a variety of tutorials and information on using the World Wide Web, ideas and technology for managing technology, theory and examples for educational technology, ways to tame the Internet, ideas and tools for Web publishing, and a variety of professional resources. Take time to explore this site.
Next we'll explore Susan Hixon's Integrating the Internet. This site will provide you with excellent primary sources, projects, units of study and a tutorial.
Of course, you will be asked to what extent is integrating the Internet into your curriculum an effective instructional strategy? One of the more exciting studies was conducted bySRI International on the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project. This project was determined to be one of two exemplary projects by the U.S. Dept. of Education. Nguyen Van Tuyet has written an interesting article on Education into the 21st Century--The effectiveness of the Internet as an aid to classroom learning. He maintains that communications technologies make it necessary for educational institutions to rethink their role in the learning process.
Penn State University's College of Education maintains an excellent online bibliography of online resources on Internet -Based Distance Education. You may find some of the articles linked from this site useful and interesting. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning also has several interesting online articles about Distance Education and the effects of the Internet on Education.
Acceptable Use Policies Does your school or district have an Acceptable Use Policy? Acceptable Use Policies are the rules and regulations governing use of technology and the Internet. Before allowing your students to use the Internet in your classroom you should be aware of what your district's Acceptable Use Policy is. Some excellent samples of Acceptable Use Policies are:
Legal, Ethics and Copyright IssuesAs we move into the CyberAge it is increasingly important that we understand the legal, ethical, and copyright issues involved in Internet use both for ourselves and for our students. Read 10 Big Myths of Copyright Explained. This may help you understand current copyright law as it applies to the Internet. You might enjoy exploring Fair Use Harbor. This is a great site to use with your students to help them understand the legal, ethical and copyright issues involved in using the Internet.
Other good resources on copyright are: