Ch. 8 Integrating the Internet into the Corriculum

     Web-based activities have great potential to enhance learning, but they are time consuming to develop and implement and difficult to design in ways that have substantial, positive impact on students learning.  Some of the most exciting distance learning applications call for students to use technology as a means of collaboration so they can address significant problems or issues or communicate with people in other culture throughout the world. There are three general applications: Interpersonal exchanges, information collection and analysis, and problems solving.

     There are many types of Web-based lesson and projects.  These type of web-based projects help address a variety of classroom needs, and it is this match of activity types with needs that defines and shapes integration strategies. Web-based projects are so rich in resources and learning possibilities that each one can usually be used with more than one of the integration strategies.

1.       Electronic pen pals

2.       Electronic mentoring

3.       Electronic field trips

4.       Electronic publishing

5.       Group product development

6.       Problem based learning

7.       Social action projects

     Good activities, projects, and lessons can help students in multiple ways, which include; support for student research, motivation for writing, practice for information literacy skills, visual learning problems and solutions, development of collaboration skills, and multicultural experiences. One featured area throughout the realm of education is reading and writing skills. These strategies in which students write for distance audiences help motivate them to write more and to do their best writing. Overall, I think all of these web-based activities have helped improve education over the years and have aided our students in this ever advancing technological world.