Designing Educational Websites for the Future

Designing Educational Websites for the Future;
Introducing The Big Myth: a New Educational Website

FIONA PASSANTINO & PIETER BATELAAN

WHY THE INTERNET?
The internet has sparked a communication revolution in just about every aspect of our society;
we buy, sell, keep up with world news and even order pizza online. The classroom is also
changing due to the new technology. The internet is increasingly becoming a critical educational
tool in classrooms across the globe and teachers are being challenged to integrate this new
medium into their curriculum. As it is now, the internet is a vast, disorganized library, overflowing
with material; much of it directly from the original source. For those who know how to use it, the
internet is an ideal research tool for students of any age in any subject. Classrooms are even
being built differently for the future to facilitate “island learning” and computers with broadband
internet connections, and around the world governments are investing millions into connecting
their schools and providing necessary hardware. At the moment Sweden leads the way with 78
percent of its young people aged 12-24 having access to the internet from school1.
The internet is a mirror image of our own society- for every personality there is a place to go and
meet others with similar interests. Chat rooms filled with chatter over every possible subject,
from science to movies to current events. Half of the children who surf the internet use it as a
communication tool, whether via e-mail, chat rooms, discussion forums or bulletin boards.
Young people recognize that the internet presents a wonderful possibility to develop
international friendships and have dialogues with people they never would have had otherwise.
Children in the most remote villages in far away places suddenly have access to global ideas,
trends and communication.
There are advantages to the more anonymous form of communication which the Internet offers:
barriers of race, gender, age, religion and nationality fall away and communication takes place
between two (or more) minds. This means that children have direct access to people and
organizations that they would otherwise never have because of their own race, appearance or
nationality. Almost every teacher will agree that there are some students who will never feel
comfortable speaking out in class, no matter what. The internet provides a forum where even
the most reticent speaker can join a discussion.
Most teachers will agree that the most intense learning experiences occur by doing. Unlike
television, the internet is an active rather than passive medium; students are in control of the
speed and direction of their own learning and learn to take their own initiative to find the material
they need. Due to the overwhelming amount of material online, it is easy to imagine that
children can become super-saturated with information and unable to process new material. In
fact, this causes students to become more critical thinkers; often the information they access is
from sources that contradict each other and they have to evaluate the material themselves. The
internet has also proven to have a positive effect on students’ outlook on learning; over 40
percent of 9-17 year olds say that the Internet has improved their attitude to attending school2.
However there is a real need for quality educational material online to assist teachers through
internet learning. Quality material means more than just a traditional textbook rewritten into
HTML and posted online; but rather material which is built for the net, that directly integrates the
resources of the internet and makes full use of all the audio, visual and interactive possibilities