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Using The Internet In The Classroom


The Internet is a perfect way to incorporate new elements into a lesson plan, and teachers are taking advantage of this growing trend by welcoming technology into their classrooms to assist with lesson plans, compliment thematic units, create learning activities, and to access reference materials faster than before. Technology allows educators to take their classes to ancient worlds, see long-forgotten monuments, and dissect animals online with the help of detailed Internet tutorials.

 

Using The Internet To Enrich Classroom Activities

The Internet can be used to enrich thematic units and classroom lesson plans. If the class is studying about a particular artist, art websites can compliment the lesson by giving children an in-depth look at the life and works of the artist. They can see paintings that are in far-away museums or countries, and get a behind-the-scenes look at how the artist conceptualized the painting. Having several laptops with wireless Internet access can make the classroom a much more visual experience.

There are also a variety of websites that provide fun alternatives to teaching standard materials. The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project, conducted by a group of Rice University students, can help students understand the scientific method in a way that's entertaining and interactive. Math games like Carl's Cookie Capers and Car Wash encourage students to quickly utilize their multiplication skills in order to play a fun game. The Internet provides an interactive element that traditional textbook learning simply cannot. No matter what topics kids are studying, technology can be used to integrate web-based activities into the curriculum.

 

Using The Internet To Access Online Tutorials For The Classroom

Online tutorials are wonderful tools that can give educators the chance to be more hands-on with students, and provide them with the one-on-one attention they deserve. So instead of standing in front of the class demonstrating the technicalities of dissecting a frog , teachers can let the online frog dissection tutorial to do the technical part while they circle the classroom and offer help to those who are struggling. It's also a great alternative for those students who might get a little queasy.

Online tutorials can be used in the classroom over and over again, and kids can also access the tutorials at home to complete their homework assignments, and other class projects. They also provide a controlled environment where all students can be trusted to be doing the same activities with the same variables.

 

Online Tools For Teachers

In the past, teachers may have used calculators or word processors to help them with their lesson plans. Nowadays, technology has introduced a variety of new tools for educators. Simple but time-consuming things like creating quizzes can now be done instantly online with a quiz generator. There are also a variety of ways that teachers can organize their plans and lessons online. Tools like assignment checkers, research paper organizers, and lesson plan toolboxes can be found at 4Teachers, a wonderful online site that is chock-full of helpful teaching tools.

 

Using The Internet To Create Classroom Lesson Plans

Traditional lesson planning is time consuming, and requires hours, if not days of thumbing through resource books to pull enough materials to cover a unit. And due to classroom time constraints, most teachers do their lesson planning during non-compensated, off-the-clock hours. But through modern technology, the WWW has made it possible for educators to create quality lesson plans in a fraction of the time with just click of the mouse.

There are a number of teacher-centered websites that offer lesson plans for educators to use free of charge. Teachers can also create customized lesson plans by combining the ideas they find on the Internet with activities they gather from print material.

 

How To Find Reputable Reference Sites

Teachers can help kids find the online resources they need to do research papers, biographies, or simply to learn more about a given subject. In addition to traditional print versions, reputable resource books such as Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus offer their materials online for anyone to use. Having Internet service in the classroom allows students to access all of these helpful reference sites with the click of a mouse.

There are also a variety of subject-specific websites online. The best place to look for these are government, college and elementary school websites. Government sites end with “.gov”, college sites end with “.edu”, and elementary or high school websites generally have “k12” in the URL. These sites can be trusted for their educational merit, and often contain helpful material.

For instance, if you're doing a unit on the Civil War, pulling up this collection of Civil War photographs from Syracuse University would be a great compliment to the lesson. The exhibits from the virtual museum from the California Department of Education would be the perfect supplement to textbook learning, as well.

While there will always be room for traditional textbook learning, the Internet provides another portal for educators of all grade levels to enhance kids’ learning experiences inside of the classroom. And there are plenty of online resources that can help bring the not-so-tech savvy educators up-to-date with the times to teach them how to use the Internet effectively inside of the classroom.

 
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