Handouts for Integrating Internet Technology and Techniques Into Classroom Instruction

Handouts for Integrating Internet technology and techniques into classroom instruction

By David Warlick

Raleigh, North Carolina USA

919-571-3292

Copyright  2000 by David Warlick

All Rights Reserved

Please contact David Warlick for permission to reproduce any or all of these materials.
Table of Contents

Preparing Students for a “New Age”

Information as Raw Materials

Collaboration

Finding Collaborators on the Net

Collaborative Structures – Project-based Learning (PBL)

Tools for Collaborating

Rich & Interactive Information Resources

Topic Oriented Directories

Search Engines

The Language of Search Engines

Net-Smarts

The S.E.A.R.C.H. Process

Web Pages Worth Bookmarking

Evaluating Internet Resources

Harvesting & Processing Web Resources

Contributive Expression

Instructional Benefits

Web Design

Preparing Students for a “New Age”

Information as Raw Materials

Source of Raw Materials / Raw Materials are Processed / Products are distributed
Agrarian Age
evolved over thousands of years / Cultivated Fields / Processed largely in the home / Consumed in the home
Industrial Age
Evolved over 2 or 3 hundred years / Quarries & Forests / Processed in factories / Distributed through mercantile endeavors
Information/Knowledge age
Evolved over 2 or 3 decades / Networks / Information processing software / Networks

Because these information processing technologies are not smokestack and heavy steel machines, they are very rapidly infiltrating nearly every aspect of our society…and during the past couple of years this has been especially true in our many of our schools.

This gives us, as educators, a unique opportunity to help students develop skills that will be important to their futures by giving them authentic experiences in the classroom. Virtually the same technologies and information conduits are now being placed in our classrooms that the economy outside the classroom uses…effectively breaking down the walls that have isolated our classrooms for so many decades. Using the model from the previous page we can say that students (and teachers) can spend time:

Collaboration

Advantages for Using People as a Source of Information

1. More interactive -- people can explain things in many different ways. By continuing to ask questions of people, we can turn the information around and see it from many perspectives, appreciating it more fully.
2. More dynamic -- Information that is held and communicated by people responds well to changing information environments. Our brains are highly adaptive and so too is the information that they hold.
3. Historically rich -- When you access information from a person, you can also get the history of the information…its roots and how it has evolved.
4. Audience sensitive -- People will usually attempt to share information on your level, in layman's terms or in technical language, depending on the receiver.

Finding Collaborators on the Net

Find an Expert Sites
Service / URL
New Jersey Network Infrastructure in Education's
Ask an Expert Page /
Pitsco's Ask an Expet Page /
The Mad Scientist Network /
The Franklin Institutes' Ask a Scientist Page /

Searching State Governments and Universities

In the USA, all state governments have their own web site. The URLs are always “ plus the two letter postal abbreviation, plus “.us”. Following this convention, the state government web sites for North Carolina and California would be:

and

For other USA government web sites, go to:

For a list of world governments on the web, go to:

Finding Communities on the Internet

What is an Internet Mailing List?

An Internet mailing list is very similar to the postal variety. It is a list of addresses, e-mail addresses, to which messages can be sent in a bulk-mailing fashion. Internet mailing lists have one very important advantage over postal mailing lists. Anyone, who is on the list, can send messages to the entire list of members. Any member of the list can send announcements, solicit help, report successes and less successful projects, and open discussions.

To join an Internet mailing list, you only need two pieces of information:

1. The name of the list, List Name.
2. The e-mail address of the computer that maintains the list, List Address.

Once you have this information, you simply address an e-mail message to the list address, and type in the subject of the message:

Subscribe <list name> <your name>

Then send the message. After a moment you will receive an automatic e-mail message from the computer welcoming you to the list and explaining some of the guidelines for participating in the discussions.

Mailing List

Finding Internet Mailing Lists

Directories of Internet Mailing Lists
Directory Name / URL
Tile.Net /
The Directory of Scholarly E-Lists /
Liszt Directory of Email Discussion Groups /
Publicly Accessible Mailing lists /
Search the List of Lists /

Tips for Using Mailing Lists

1. Read the e-mail message that is sent to you upon joining a mailing list very carefully. This automated message will include very important information about the purpose of the list and the types of discussions that take place there. Follow these guidelines. This message will also include instructions for removing your e-mail address from the list, should you decide to leave it.
2. Consider that Internet mailing lists are forums and therefore imply a sense of place for their users. You are a guest in this place and should respect its customs and wishes.
3. Most people are eager to help you. There is a genuine concern for education, and using the Internet to send valuable information to classrooms is an obvious benefit that most people appreciate. So, do not hesitate to post questions to a mailing list for your class unless it is explicitly prohibited in the guidelines, which will appear in the introductory message.
4. At the same time that most people are eager to help education, they are also busy. They will not appreciate receiving numerous postings that do not contribute to the list's goals. So as you ask for information from experts via the mailing list, consider that this will be your only chance. Carefully word your question(s) so that you will get the most and best information for your classroom. Get your class to help you pose your questions. Learning to ask GOOD questions is an essential information age skill.
5. Monitor the messages that are posted to the list. Very soon you will be able to identify the specific people who would be most valuable as a support for your class. Send an e-mail request for information directly to these few people. This will prevent you from adding e-mail to a multitude of mailboxes of people who would not be of help and may see your requests as an intrusion.
6. When writing your request for information, make it short. Once again, the people to whom you are sending the message are busy and do not have time to read a lengthy letter. Also keep your paragraphs short (no more than three sentences) with a blank line between. People are more likely to read many short paragraphs than a few long ones.
7. Do not write a lengthy introduction and do attach a signature to your e-mail message. Explain very briefly what your class is doing and rely on the signature to tell the reader who and where you are. If you are soliciting information from a mailing list used by K-12 educators, then promise something in return. If you are developing a new unit on butterflies, then offer to send your teacher friends a copy of the unit. If you are asking teachers to survey their students for information that your class will be compiling and analyzing, then offer to send the results of your survey to all contributing classes.

Internet Mailing List
That have Formed Professional Collaborative Communities
Net-Happenings / Send the message "sub NET-HAPPENINGS your name" to


Media-L / Send the message "sub MEDIA-L your name" to

Use of media in the classroom and in education
Vocnet / Send the message "sub VOCNET your name" to
listserv%

Edpolyan / Send the message "sub EDPOLYAN your name" to

Education policy analysis in the U.S.
WWWEDU / Send the message "sub WWWEDU your name" to


Hilites / Send the message "sub HILITES your name" to


K12Admin / Send the message "sub K12ADMIN your name" to

A mailing list for K-12 administrators
LM-Net / Send the message "sub LM-NET your name" to

A popular and valuable mailing list for school media specialists

Finding Other Classes for Collaboration

Perhaps one of the most intriguing techniques for finding classes on the Internet is Web66. Web66 has been around for many years. This website was the first to suggest that schools should have their own websites so that students could showcase their work. They have a wealth of information on building and maintain a school website.

1. From the Web66 home page we click on International Registry of Schools on the Web.
2. The Registry of Schools is a database of schools from around the world who have registered their school website so that other people can find it. There are a number of other registries, but Web66 is the oldest and biggest.
3. A map of the United States appears. We click the word Europe so that we can get the Europe registry page.
4. When the map of Europe appears, we click the outline of Italy and receive a list of elementary and secondary schools with websites.
5. Our science teacher will then view a number of the websites, looking for some that feature students work, an indicator that teachers are involved in the implementation of the site and not a parent or other outside agency. Send our introductory e-mail to the teachers or webmaster of the Italian site.

When searching for Italian schools through Web66, I received a list of 22 elementary and 100 secondary schools.

Collaborative Structures – Project-based Learning (PBL)

Essentially, PBL is when students are acquiring skill and content by engaging in an activity that:

1. Extends beyond the skills and content being learned
2. Have real world application from the students' perspective
3. Involve decision-making on the part of students

Perhaps the best way to understand PBL is through an example. The following describes a project that I conducted over the Internet a couple of years ago. It was called the Eco-Marketing Project.

The Eco-Marketing Project

The primary objective of this project was to help students develop descriptive and persuasive writing skills. Students in about fifteen classes in the U.S., Canada, and Europe were divided into teams of three or four students per team. Each team became a company. Their task was to develop an imaginative new product that they had never seen in a store or shopping catalog, but a product that they thought other kids would buy. The product also had to be constructed of at least 50% recycled materials.

After fully developing the ideas around their product, each team had to collaborate to write a sales pitch, text that not only described their product and what it did, but also convinced the reader that he or she should buy this product. After their sales pitches were completed, they were entered into a website where they became part of an on-line catalog, where other students could come and shop. Each shopper was given 200 make-believe dollars with which they could select and mock purchase the products that they most wanted.

The writers could periodically check their product sales and as a result the success of their writing. If they were not satisfied, they could examine the sales pitches of products that were selling, and then edit their pitch based on what they learned about writing descriptively and persuasively. Upon re-issuing their sales pitch, they could continue to evaluate their writing in terms of orders.

Components of PBL Activities

Developing project ideas for your class can be difficult the first few times. The following list may help by providing a flexible structure of sorts for your ideas. This list includes components that may or may not be present in your project idea. I will also describe how each item was included in the Eco-Marking Project.

1.Explicit connections established instructional standards

The primary curriculum objective of Eco-Marketing was to help students develop writing skills described in the state's curriculum standards. Additional objectives were also identified including skills and content from the science and social studies curriculum as well as mathematics and health.

2.Collaboration either among students in your class, between students and experts, or students in a variety of classes

Students, first of all, were working in teams to develop and sell their imaginative product. In another way, they were collaborating with other students from across the Internet to test the success of their product development and marketing -- collaboration between producers and consumers. An additional feature of this project was the students could ask questions of business students in three business colleges, questions regarding marketing, supply & demand, and other issues.

3.Information accessing in some form either through research or survey

Participating classes were encouraged to research materials to be used in their products in order to identify recycled materials that could be included in its construction. The depth of this research and its outcomes depended on the teacher.

4.Information processing such that students are drawing a conclusion about the data they have collected

Classes were also encourage to conduct market research, to develop surveys and then analyze the results to get input on the possible success of their product ideas.

5.The construction of a unique and valuable information product

Although their sales pitches were not of particular value to other people, the students knew that they would be read and that other students would be make decisions about the effectiveness of their products, resulting in orders.

6.Self assessment

This is perhaps the best part of the Eco-Marketing Project. Students are encouraged to evaluate their own work and to improve it based on the student-centered outcomes…sales.

Types of Online Projects

No one has done as much thinking about online projects as has Dr. Judi Harris of the University of Texas in Austin. In 1994 and 1995, she published a column in The Computing Teacher, published by the International Society for Technology in Education ( In this column, called Minding the Internet, Judi described a structure of online instructional projects with categories that fell into one of three main genres. They were:

1.Interpersonal Exchanges

2.Information Collections

3.Problem Solving Projects

I am going to paraphrase a few of Harris' categories. You can read the full text of her column on the Internet. The URLs are provided below.

"Keypals"

This is probably the first type of online project conducted over the Internet, and it is a frequent first leap into instructional Internet projects for many teachers. In most cases it involves individual students in one class being matched up with individual students in another class in a different geographic location. The students send e-mail messages back and forth, usually on topics of their choosing.

The value of these projects is improved writing. Research has shown that students write more, in greater detail, taking great care with spelling, grammar, and punctuation when writing to distant audiences over the Internet (Cohen & Riel, American Educational Research Journal; v26 n2 p143-59 Sum 1989).

The downside of "Keypal" projects is the coordination that they require. Managing the constant exchange of e-mail with specific matches for each student in the class turns this seemingly simple project into a management challenge.

Global Classrooms

Global Classrooms are different from "Keypal" projects in two important ways.

1. The classes communicate with each other rather than individual students
2. The communication is more structured and on topics related more with the curriculum

The North Carolina Center for International Understanding ( organizes Global Classroom projects between rural schools in North Carolina and schools in other parts of the world. The teachers meet on-line and discuss project ideas. One issue that classes in the USA and Japan discussed what how teenagers spend their leisure time. This gave both groups of students special insights into the cultural differences and similarity between the two countries.