Learning with the Internet

Learning with the Internet

by Muthu Kumar

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.
References
Bruce, B., & Levin, J. (1997). "Educational Technology: Media for Inquiry, Communication, Construction and Expression." Journal of Educational Computing Research, 17(1), 79-102.
Carroll, J. B. (1999). "Expert Internet Information Access." Journal of Educational Computing Research 20(3): 209-222.