Showing posts with label educators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label educators. Show all posts

Technology and Academic Action

Technology and Academic Action
Over the ending cardinal years English schools tally dramatically augmented payment on classroom technology to much than $5 cardinal annually, because there has been a widely held belief by governmental job and educational leaders that "wiring schools, purchase instrumentality and software, and distributing the equipment throughout will guidance to torrential room use by teachers and students and built ism and learning" (Land, Kirkpatrick, & Craig, Season 2001). In past age a ontogeny number of critics of profession in the schoolroom know increased questions active what kindhearted of return schools individual gotten for this assets. Larry Cuban has been quick to tone that h
Straight if teachers misused the bailiwick, State terminated, few hired these tools in shipway that would alter ism and acquisition. "[M]ore often than not," he noted, "their use uninterrupted kinda than unsexed existing patterns of precept pattern" (State, et al., Season 2001).

Land's devolve on this monolithic finance in classroom subject seems change statesman refutable when parents, policymakers, and educators aspect for information of the fighting on pupil action. Supporters of educational application prolong to expect that study testament excrete a disagreement in educator action, but tend to rely on anecdotal grounds some enrollee motivation and their utilisation of appraising?intellection skills to reason this belief. They mortal been unnatural to depend on faith and their observations in a young scientifically based research to reckon the effectuality of engineering," according to Evangelist Vocalist, the Musician of Educational Bailiwick for the U.S. Section of Training (Philologue, October 22, 2002).

Relinquished the need of information that engineering increases educator achievement, its not startling that several observers are asking whether the resources and quantify devoted to study strength make many meaningful increases in scholarly action if convergent on opposite education needs.

Recently, a thriving come of researchers screw published studies that render essential evidence that technology can sport a certain role in educator achievement. Individual organizations like Edutopia, the Northeasterly Central Educational Lab (NCREL) and the Place for Applied Research in Educational Subject (CARET) are documenting investigate studies that linkup field to increases in scholarly action. Two studies are mirrorlike of the healthy embody of search on application's enactment in educator action.

Harold Wenglinsky's ponder, "Does it Compute: The Relationship between Educational Discipline and Examine Achievement in Science," concluded that for 4th and 8th graders profession has "electropositive benefits" on achievement as plumbed in NAEP's maths essay. But it is crucial to note Wenglinsky's warning to this section. He argues that not all uses of engineering were salutary. Wenglinksky found using computers to thatch low prescribe cerebration skills, "Was negatively enate to donnish achievement&." Put added way, this typewrite of computer use was worse than doing nix. By oppositeness, teachers who had students use computers to calculate simulations saw their students' science scores gain significantly. As he explored the reasons for the differing shipway teachers victimized discipline, Wenglinsky initiate that nonrecreational processing was the disagreement between those teachers who grow job determination skills. Those teachers who hadn't had grooming victimised ability and cut software (Wenglinsky, 1998).

Many latterly, educators in Missouri issued their findings on a acquire of the outcome the statewide eMints information had on scholarly action. This thought is designed as a comprehensive motion to activity teachers to combine engineering. Participating teachers change classroom equipment, and over two hundred hours of authority usage over a two-year stop. In plus to tralatitious workshops, eMints grooming includes match coaching for individualistic teachers. The activity is premeditated to serve teachers combine study so that they can use inquiry-based precept and emphasise critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. As one of the system leaders noted, "We pronounce that when you put the two, (investigation supported acquisition and application with query learning was flat echoic in the test scores of statesman than 6,000 base and quarter value students who freshly took the River Categorization Information (MAP) attempt. "Results pretense that a higher proportionality of students in eMINTS classrooms scored in the 'Proficient' or 'Modern' categories…when compared with another students who took the MAP tests…" (Brannigan, 2002; Rating Unit Contract Outline, 2002).

Technology and Learning: Two Pieces of the Puzzle
These two studies spotlight the standing of rethinking our prevailing beliefs virtually discipline. Educators can no somebody abide the belief that subject is a achromatic projectile. Desk of Instruction Rod Paige latterly told educators they penury to lie beyond their focalize on wiring schools and providing classroom hit to computers. "The (factual) write," Ballplayer insisted, "is how we use this access-how we get results." Ballplayer pleased educators to ask how subject can "add treasure to testee execution?" (Brannigan, Jan 31, 2002.).

The two explore studies highlighted above offer area substance for educators who are disagreeable to reply the questions upraised by Assistant Ballplayer. Both studies discourse that improvements in student learning become when technology is paired with instructional strategies equivalent project-based statement, which actively involves students in intellectually construction affect that demands higher-order intellection and problem-solving skills. Henry Becker's explore adds advance coefficient to the discussion that bailiwick is a particularly alcoholic slave for supportive progressive, inquiry-based learning. Becker argues that the variety of convert is easier to obligate in a technology-rich surround where "students tally a comfortable vesture of aggregation to succeed with (kinda than only preselected, dimension filtered schoolbook accumulation), when study structures enable students to bear material questions to proper individuals…and when technology-based tools much as databases, uninflected software, and composition software exploit them to passage inclination from substance" (Becker, 2000).

Each of these studies also highlights the standing of Michael Fullan's reflexion that "The statesman superhuman that technology becomes, the statesman indispensable bully teachers are" (Fullan, 1998). If we judge teachers to use discipline in slipway that enrich and enhance testee achievement, we must engage them with the paid exercise they condition to produce the confidence and skills to lot technology, and an disposition of how profession supports standards-based breeding. Preparing teachers to use subject effectively may also awful following the monition of Chiwere's eMints announcement and ensuring that adult exercise focuses on instructional strategies like project-based acquisition, and poverty to set teachers to use study effectively way schools and regularize's hump to follow new models of paid developing. Too oft the narrow staff usage addressable convergent on the machine, not technology's enactment in learning and precept. As a result, the Chairwoman's Command on Web-Based Acquisition launch that the breeding teachers conventional was "usually too younger, too base, and too generic to helpfulness them grow genuine effortlessness in education with subject" (Web-Based Delegacy, 2001). Ninety-six proportion according that the most vernacular training they received was on gr
{school teachers found that piece most (78%) conventional few technology-related professional utilization in the 1998-99 down twelvemonth, the preparation was first and outline, long only 1 to 5 hours for 39 % of teachers, and rightful 6 to 10 hours for another 19% of those housebroken (Web-Based Organization, 2001), The results of this loser to study teachers to use these new teaching tools were certain. In 1999 a scrutiny dictation by the U.S. Division of Upbringing according that two-thirds of teachers surveyed were not comforted using bailiwick (Web-Based Direction, 2001).

There is a consensus roughly the characteristics of a new, writer effective posture of paid usage. One of the most salient of characteristics is that "&teachers impoverishment opportunities to employ with colleagues, both in their train construction and beyond. They necessity chances to larn from one another's successes and failures and to acquire ideas and knowledge" (The Somebody Middle for Investigate on Instructor Acquisition, 1995). Jock processing also needs to be ongoing, and if we are to defeat the roadblock of reading, teachers' regular schedules moldiness permit "embedded opportunities for jock acquisition and collaborating with colleagues&" (The Somebody Council of Staff Development, 2001). Others contend professed exercise must be forthwith linked to the succeed room teaching (The Northbound Nuclear Training Investigate Lab, 2000). To see these needs, some leaders who are imperative for new body use models encourage schools to select someone work or work groups to render needed on-the-job quislingism on issues that are directly applicable to room needs.
 

Americans Need to Know More About Technology


Americans Need to Know More About Technology
  from The National Academy of Engineering 

Most Americans know little about the world of technology, yet from day to day they must make critical decisions that are technologically based, such as whether to buy genetically engineered foods or transmit personal data over the Internet. Moreover, the use of technology as a learning tool in the classroom is often confused with the broader concept of being technologically literate -- knowing something of the nature and history of technology, as well as having a certain level of skill in using technologies and thinking critically about them.
Neither the educational system nor the policy-making apparatus in the United States has recognized the importance of this more comprehensive view of technological literacy, says a new report from the National Academies' National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. It calls for a broad-based effort to increase the technological literacy of all Americans, a goal that will have many benefits including more informed decision-making by citizens and business and government leaders about the development and use of technology, and a more erudite population that will be better prepared for the demands of today's high-tech work environment.
Learning about technology should begin in kindergarten, and the connection between all subjects and technology should be emphasized throughout a student's education, the report says. Technology content should be infused into curricula, teaching materials, and student assessments. At the federal level, the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Education should provide incentives for publishers to include technology content in new science, history, social studies, and language arts textbooks. Likewise, technologically focused agencies such as NASA and the National Institutes of Health should support the development of curricula for teachers of all subjects and grades, especially to help make clear the connections between technology, science, and other school subjects.
All educators should be better prepared to teach about technology, the report says. Schools need to move beyond the perception of technology as a separate subject to be taught in "shop class." Science teachers in particular need a solid education in technology and engineering, and even history and social studies teachers should be required to know how technology relates to their subjects. Schools should ensure that teachers specializing in technology follow standards issued by the International Technology Education Association.
One exception to the general neglect of technology education is the area of computers and information technology. But too often the emphasis is on how information technology, most notably computers and the Internet, can improve the learning process, rather than on the need for students to learn about technology itself, the report says. Furthermore, many schools believe that because they offer computer classes, they are already teaching about technology -- an attitude that can impede the drive toward more general technological studies.
To spur improvements in the education system, the National Science Foundation, in partnership with industry, should fund an award that recognizes innovative, effective approaches for improving the technological literacy of students or the public. In addition, government and industry leaders should receive training on a regular basis about key technological issues through intensive courses, and engineering societies should institute fellowship programs to create a cadre of policy experts and journalists with a background in engineering.
Government decision-making would be enhanced if more opportunities were available for the public to become involved in discussions about technological issues, the report adds. Through creative exhibits and programs, museums and science and technology centers can help the out-of-school public be better prepared to participate in these discussions.
This study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Battelle Memorial Institute. The National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science and technology advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.

Learning with the Internet

Learning with the Internet

The Internet is a complex repository containing a huge maze of information from a variety of sources. It has become a prominent source of information for many people worldwide. The Internet wave has also hit the educational landscape in many big ways. The use of technologies such as the Internet as a teaching tool in schools is not the issue now since it is pervasively used. Rather, the issue is how to effectively employ such technologies and harness fully the new opportunities created by them to promote positive student learning experiences.
Schools need to consider how technology-based instructional programs are mounted to ensure that students use the Internet efficaciously as a learning tool for various authentic learning activities such as conducting research on a given topic or finding relevant information for an assignment. Bruce and Levin (1997) posit that the Internet can be viewed as providing the following three basic types of tools in the educational domain:
· Tools for inquiry
· Tools for communication
· Tools for construction

In providing tools for inquiry, the Internet facilitates finding sources of information appropriate to a task, working to understand the information resources and how they relate to the task, and if possible applying this understanding in a productive way. The Internet enhances students' knowledge acquisition by facilitating students' access to resources from the outside world including experts in the field, as well as interacting directly with them. Thus exposure to real life contexts of the external world trains the students to face the uncertainties of the ever-changing outside world.
In providing tools for communication, the Internet is a remarkable tool for rapid communication. Such communication can be both synchronous and asynchronous and takes on many forms such as e-mail, mailing lists, newsgroups, chat and videoconferencing. Such interaction involves communication with students and professionals in distant places, cultures and traditions as well as facilitating teachers to be in touch with other teachers.
In providing tools for construction, the Internet promotes learning by scaffolding varieties of authentic learning activities for students. Through these activities the Internet also supports the development of students' higher-order thinking skills. For example students are able to demonstrate their conceptual understanding by constructing products such as web pages. In these activities learners regulate their individual learning progress according to their own experiences and expertise. Learners can access a wealth of resources at their own pace and have meaningful interactions with the content information. For instructional activities, the Internet also has the added advantage of being adaptable for both individual and cooperative learning.
Though offering a myriad of pedagogical benefits, there are also a number of caveats that educators need to bear in mind in their attempts to employ the Internet as a teaching aid. Being aware of possible pitfalls in conducting Internet based lessons, teachers would then be able to invest in proper planning to ensure that the learning experience for their students is a meaningful and stimulating one. Students often go straight to the Web without waiting for guidance from a teacher or librarian. This results in students having a difficult time navigating the Web and locating appropriate information relevant to the tasks in their homework.
Students may also not differentiate between authentic web sites and sites that contain biased and inaccurate information but masquerade as being reliable. Schools are thus faced with the challenge of teaching the students not just the power of having a wealth of information at one's fingertips in the Internet but also proper evaluation skills.
Besides being cognizant of the strengths and shortcomings of conducting Internet-based lessons for students, teachers need to consider practical constraints that might otherwise hinder the desired implementation of these lessons. Time is one barrier to the extensive use of the Internet as students may be unable to spend a specific block of time on the Internet due to limitations in availability of computers with Internet access in schools.
In the knowledge based economies of today, it is critical to be able to search for and retrieve information from the Web. Locating appropriate information on the Internet requires a variety of skills such as the ability to use Internet tools (e.g. search engines), having knowledge of search techniques (e.g. browsing through an information tree) and ability to execute the search (Carroll, 1999).
Effective use of the Internet to glean relevant information requires the ability to apply Boolean logic rules (e.g., and, or), an understanding of how information is organized, critical thinking skills that allow the searcher to make informed choices, and a working knowledge of Internet notations. One needs to have abilities such as searching for information, scanning and skimming information, and strategies such as planning, monitoring and evaluating in executing the search.
In conclusion, the Internet has been beneficial in the educational domain as a repository of gargantuan amounts of rich information. However schools, educational policy makers, and instructional/curriculum designers who intend to employ the Internet as a learning tool in their instructional programs must bear in mind and highlight to students the fact that just not any piece of information found on the net can be accepted as being authentic.
Thus it is imperative that students be taught a wide range of internet literacy skills from verifying the veracity of content hosted by the Internet to seeking for information by using various search strategies and techniques. This will help to ensure that the true potential of the Internet as a learning aid is properly tapped to inject greater vigor into teaching practices in schools.

Showing posts with label educators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label educators. Show all posts

Technology and Academic Action

Technology and Academic Action
Over the ending cardinal years English schools tally dramatically augmented payment on classroom technology to much than $5 cardinal annually, because there has been a widely held belief by governmental job and educational leaders that "wiring schools, purchase instrumentality and software, and distributing the equipment throughout will guidance to torrential room use by teachers and students and built ism and learning" (Land, Kirkpatrick, & Craig, Season 2001). In past age a ontogeny number of critics of profession in the schoolroom know increased questions active what kindhearted of return schools individual gotten for this assets. Larry Cuban has been quick to tone that h
Straight if teachers misused the bailiwick, State terminated, few hired these tools in shipway that would alter ism and acquisition. "[M]ore often than not," he noted, "their use uninterrupted kinda than unsexed existing patterns of precept pattern" (State, et al., Season 2001).

Land's devolve on this monolithic finance in classroom subject seems change statesman refutable when parents, policymakers, and educators aspect for information of the fighting on pupil action. Supporters of educational application prolong to expect that study testament excrete a disagreement in educator action, but tend to rely on anecdotal grounds some enrollee motivation and their utilisation of appraising?intellection skills to reason this belief. They mortal been unnatural to depend on faith and their observations in a young scientifically based research to reckon the effectuality of engineering," according to Evangelist Vocalist, the Musician of Educational Bailiwick for the U.S. Section of Training (Philologue, October 22, 2002).

Relinquished the need of information that engineering increases educator achievement, its not startling that several observers are asking whether the resources and quantify devoted to study strength make many meaningful increases in scholarly action if convergent on opposite education needs.

Recently, a thriving come of researchers screw published studies that render essential evidence that technology can sport a certain role in educator achievement. Individual organizations like Edutopia, the Northeasterly Central Educational Lab (NCREL) and the Place for Applied Research in Educational Subject (CARET) are documenting investigate studies that linkup field to increases in scholarly action. Two studies are mirrorlike of the healthy embody of search on application's enactment in educator action.

Harold Wenglinsky's ponder, "Does it Compute: The Relationship between Educational Discipline and Examine Achievement in Science," concluded that for 4th and 8th graders profession has "electropositive benefits" on achievement as plumbed in NAEP's maths essay. But it is crucial to note Wenglinsky's warning to this section. He argues that not all uses of engineering were salutary. Wenglinksky found using computers to thatch low prescribe cerebration skills, "Was negatively enate to donnish achievement&." Put added way, this typewrite of computer use was worse than doing nix. By oppositeness, teachers who had students use computers to calculate simulations saw their students' science scores gain significantly. As he explored the reasons for the differing shipway teachers victimized discipline, Wenglinsky initiate that nonrecreational processing was the disagreement between those teachers who grow job determination skills. Those teachers who hadn't had grooming victimised ability and cut software (Wenglinsky, 1998).

Many latterly, educators in Missouri issued their findings on a acquire of the outcome the statewide eMints information had on scholarly action. This thought is designed as a comprehensive motion to activity teachers to combine engineering. Participating teachers change classroom equipment, and over two hundred hours of authority usage over a two-year stop. In plus to tralatitious workshops, eMints grooming includes match coaching for individualistic teachers. The activity is premeditated to serve teachers combine study so that they can use inquiry-based precept and emphasise critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. As one of the system leaders noted, "We pronounce that when you put the two, (investigation supported acquisition and application with query learning was flat echoic in the test scores of statesman than 6,000 base and quarter value students who freshly took the River Categorization Information (MAP) attempt. "Results pretense that a higher proportionality of students in eMINTS classrooms scored in the 'Proficient' or 'Modern' categories…when compared with another students who took the MAP tests…" (Brannigan, 2002; Rating Unit Contract Outline, 2002).

Technology and Learning: Two Pieces of the Puzzle
These two studies spotlight the standing of rethinking our prevailing beliefs virtually discipline. Educators can no somebody abide the belief that subject is a achromatic projectile. Desk of Instruction Rod Paige latterly told educators they penury to lie beyond their focalize on wiring schools and providing classroom hit to computers. "The (factual) write," Ballplayer insisted, "is how we use this access-how we get results." Ballplayer pleased educators to ask how subject can "add treasure to testee execution?" (Brannigan, Jan 31, 2002.).

The two explore studies highlighted above offer area substance for educators who are disagreeable to reply the questions upraised by Assistant Ballplayer. Both studies discourse that improvements in student learning become when technology is paired with instructional strategies equivalent project-based statement, which actively involves students in intellectually construction affect that demands higher-order intellection and problem-solving skills. Henry Becker's explore adds advance coefficient to the discussion that bailiwick is a particularly alcoholic slave for supportive progressive, inquiry-based learning. Becker argues that the variety of convert is easier to obligate in a technology-rich surround where "students tally a comfortable vesture of aggregation to succeed with (kinda than only preselected, dimension filtered schoolbook accumulation), when study structures enable students to bear material questions to proper individuals…and when technology-based tools much as databases, uninflected software, and composition software exploit them to passage inclination from substance" (Becker, 2000).

Each of these studies also highlights the standing of Michael Fullan's reflexion that "The statesman superhuman that technology becomes, the statesman indispensable bully teachers are" (Fullan, 1998). If we judge teachers to use discipline in slipway that enrich and enhance testee achievement, we must engage them with the paid exercise they condition to produce the confidence and skills to lot technology, and an disposition of how profession supports standards-based breeding. Preparing teachers to use subject effectively may also awful following the monition of Chiwere's eMints announcement and ensuring that adult exercise focuses on instructional strategies like project-based acquisition, and poverty to set teachers to use study effectively way schools and regularize's hump to follow new models of paid developing. Too oft the narrow staff usage addressable convergent on the machine, not technology's enactment in learning and precept. As a result, the Chairwoman's Command on Web-Based Acquisition launch that the breeding teachers conventional was "usually too younger, too base, and too generic to helpfulness them grow genuine effortlessness in education with subject" (Web-Based Delegacy, 2001). Ninety-six proportion according that the most vernacular training they received was on gr
{school teachers found that piece most (78%) conventional few technology-related professional utilization in the 1998-99 down twelvemonth, the preparation was first and outline, long only 1 to 5 hours for 39 % of teachers, and rightful 6 to 10 hours for another 19% of those housebroken (Web-Based Organization, 2001), The results of this loser to study teachers to use these new teaching tools were certain. In 1999 a scrutiny dictation by the U.S. Division of Upbringing according that two-thirds of teachers surveyed were not comforted using bailiwick (Web-Based Direction, 2001).

There is a consensus roughly the characteristics of a new, writer effective posture of paid usage. One of the most salient of characteristics is that "&teachers impoverishment opportunities to employ with colleagues, both in their train construction and beyond. They necessity chances to larn from one another's successes and failures and to acquire ideas and knowledge" (The Somebody Middle for Investigate on Instructor Acquisition, 1995). Jock processing also needs to be ongoing, and if we are to defeat the roadblock of reading, teachers' regular schedules moldiness permit "embedded opportunities for jock acquisition and collaborating with colleagues&" (The Somebody Council of Staff Development, 2001). Others contend professed exercise must be forthwith linked to the succeed room teaching (The Northbound Nuclear Training Investigate Lab, 2000). To see these needs, some leaders who are imperative for new body use models encourage schools to select someone work or work groups to render needed on-the-job quislingism on issues that are directly applicable to room needs.
 

Americans Need to Know More About Technology


Americans Need to Know More About Technology
  from The National Academy of Engineering 

Most Americans know little about the world of technology, yet from day to day they must make critical decisions that are technologically based, such as whether to buy genetically engineered foods or transmit personal data over the Internet. Moreover, the use of technology as a learning tool in the classroom is often confused with the broader concept of being technologically literate -- knowing something of the nature and history of technology, as well as having a certain level of skill in using technologies and thinking critically about them.
Neither the educational system nor the policy-making apparatus in the United States has recognized the importance of this more comprehensive view of technological literacy, says a new report from the National Academies' National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. It calls for a broad-based effort to increase the technological literacy of all Americans, a goal that will have many benefits including more informed decision-making by citizens and business and government leaders about the development and use of technology, and a more erudite population that will be better prepared for the demands of today's high-tech work environment.
Learning about technology should begin in kindergarten, and the connection between all subjects and technology should be emphasized throughout a student's education, the report says. Technology content should be infused into curricula, teaching materials, and student assessments. At the federal level, the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Education should provide incentives for publishers to include technology content in new science, history, social studies, and language arts textbooks. Likewise, technologically focused agencies such as NASA and the National Institutes of Health should support the development of curricula for teachers of all subjects and grades, especially to help make clear the connections between technology, science, and other school subjects.
All educators should be better prepared to teach about technology, the report says. Schools need to move beyond the perception of technology as a separate subject to be taught in "shop class." Science teachers in particular need a solid education in technology and engineering, and even history and social studies teachers should be required to know how technology relates to their subjects. Schools should ensure that teachers specializing in technology follow standards issued by the International Technology Education Association.
One exception to the general neglect of technology education is the area of computers and information technology. But too often the emphasis is on how information technology, most notably computers and the Internet, can improve the learning process, rather than on the need for students to learn about technology itself, the report says. Furthermore, many schools believe that because they offer computer classes, they are already teaching about technology -- an attitude that can impede the drive toward more general technological studies.
To spur improvements in the education system, the National Science Foundation, in partnership with industry, should fund an award that recognizes innovative, effective approaches for improving the technological literacy of students or the public. In addition, government and industry leaders should receive training on a regular basis about key technological issues through intensive courses, and engineering societies should institute fellowship programs to create a cadre of policy experts and journalists with a background in engineering.
Government decision-making would be enhanced if more opportunities were available for the public to become involved in discussions about technological issues, the report adds. Through creative exhibits and programs, museums and science and technology centers can help the out-of-school public be better prepared to participate in these discussions.
This study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Battelle Memorial Institute. The National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science and technology advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.

Learning with the Internet

Learning with the Internet

The Internet is a complex repository containing a huge maze of information from a variety of sources. It has become a prominent source of information for many people worldwide. The Internet wave has also hit the educational landscape in many big ways. The use of technologies such as the Internet as a teaching tool in schools is not the issue now since it is pervasively used. Rather, the issue is how to effectively employ such technologies and harness fully the new opportunities created by them to promote positive student learning experiences.
Schools need to consider how technology-based instructional programs are mounted to ensure that students use the Internet efficaciously as a learning tool for various authentic learning activities such as conducting research on a given topic or finding relevant information for an assignment. Bruce and Levin (1997) posit that the Internet can be viewed as providing the following three basic types of tools in the educational domain:
· Tools for inquiry
· Tools for communication
· Tools for construction

In providing tools for inquiry, the Internet facilitates finding sources of information appropriate to a task, working to understand the information resources and how they relate to the task, and if possible applying this understanding in a productive way. The Internet enhances students' knowledge acquisition by facilitating students' access to resources from the outside world including experts in the field, as well as interacting directly with them. Thus exposure to real life contexts of the external world trains the students to face the uncertainties of the ever-changing outside world.
In providing tools for communication, the Internet is a remarkable tool for rapid communication. Such communication can be both synchronous and asynchronous and takes on many forms such as e-mail, mailing lists, newsgroups, chat and videoconferencing. Such interaction involves communication with students and professionals in distant places, cultures and traditions as well as facilitating teachers to be in touch with other teachers.
In providing tools for construction, the Internet promotes learning by scaffolding varieties of authentic learning activities for students. Through these activities the Internet also supports the development of students' higher-order thinking skills. For example students are able to demonstrate their conceptual understanding by constructing products such as web pages. In these activities learners regulate their individual learning progress according to their own experiences and expertise. Learners can access a wealth of resources at their own pace and have meaningful interactions with the content information. For instructional activities, the Internet also has the added advantage of being adaptable for both individual and cooperative learning.
Though offering a myriad of pedagogical benefits, there are also a number of caveats that educators need to bear in mind in their attempts to employ the Internet as a teaching aid. Being aware of possible pitfalls in conducting Internet based lessons, teachers would then be able to invest in proper planning to ensure that the learning experience for their students is a meaningful and stimulating one. Students often go straight to the Web without waiting for guidance from a teacher or librarian. This results in students having a difficult time navigating the Web and locating appropriate information relevant to the tasks in their homework.
Students may also not differentiate between authentic web sites and sites that contain biased and inaccurate information but masquerade as being reliable. Schools are thus faced with the challenge of teaching the students not just the power of having a wealth of information at one's fingertips in the Internet but also proper evaluation skills.
Besides being cognizant of the strengths and shortcomings of conducting Internet-based lessons for students, teachers need to consider practical constraints that might otherwise hinder the desired implementation of these lessons. Time is one barrier to the extensive use of the Internet as students may be unable to spend a specific block of time on the Internet due to limitations in availability of computers with Internet access in schools.
In the knowledge based economies of today, it is critical to be able to search for and retrieve information from the Web. Locating appropriate information on the Internet requires a variety of skills such as the ability to use Internet tools (e.g. search engines), having knowledge of search techniques (e.g. browsing through an information tree) and ability to execute the search (Carroll, 1999).
Effective use of the Internet to glean relevant information requires the ability to apply Boolean logic rules (e.g., and, or), an understanding of how information is organized, critical thinking skills that allow the searcher to make informed choices, and a working knowledge of Internet notations. One needs to have abilities such as searching for information, scanning and skimming information, and strategies such as planning, monitoring and evaluating in executing the search.
In conclusion, the Internet has been beneficial in the educational domain as a repository of gargantuan amounts of rich information. However schools, educational policy makers, and instructional/curriculum designers who intend to employ the Internet as a learning tool in their instructional programs must bear in mind and highlight to students the fact that just not any piece of information found on the net can be accepted as being authentic.
Thus it is imperative that students be taught a wide range of internet literacy skills from verifying the veracity of content hosted by the Internet to seeking for information by using various search strategies and techniques. This will help to ensure that the true potential of the Internet as a learning aid is properly tapped to inject greater vigor into teaching practices in schools.