FEATURE ARTICLE
Integrating Technology
into Student Learning
By Lolita Villa
The World Wide Web
is a wealth of information and opinion, says Web-based
Educator and Director of Ozline.com, Tom March. For educators,
to be able to use this "embarrassment of riches" to facilitate
learning and integration into the classrooms entails some
exceptional planning out. While it's true, that thanks
to the Internet, we have at our fingertips a lot of valuable
data, it will take a skilled Internet user to be able
to use all this effectively in helping students achieve
advanced thinking by using technology, and integrating
the best that IT can give into a curriculum.
But because of the
speed of technology's turnover and the volume of information
being added into cyberspace each day, the Internet's potential
and its role in student learning will be lost, unless
educators can exchange their cluelessness over getting
a handle on this valuable tool. But as it is in everything,
no challenge is insurmountable without the proper guidance,
interest and perseverance in getting the job done.
Here are some useful
tips from Tom March:
1. Don't let
technology intimidate you. The first step to
managing the Web and ultimately using it for student learning
is to get out your preconceived notions about the Internet
and iron them out. Take your time in exploring cyberspace
by playing around with what's already available to you.
Some of the misconceptions that non-Internet literate
people have are "everything is on the web,"
or that the bulk of its activities are only pornography
and chat, and other such notions, which can only be further
from the truth. Remember that the Internet is the world's
largest publisher with a lot of content written from first
person accounts, and therefore potentially biased angles.
But when taking the whole picture into perspective, you'll
find that there is enough content (around 50 million websites!)
out there to sort through the garbage, pick out the shining
pearls and still have enough useful material to go around.
Begin by logging onto portals, which are gateways that
lead users into discovering a diversity of interests in
cyberspace. You can start with Yahoo.com, MSN.com or Excite.com
- comprehensive directories that offer samplers of what
can be discovered over the web. Use these portals to expose
you to more of what's out there.
2. Discover
your niche. Once you've overcome your preconceived
(and most likely narrow) notions of what the web is about,
you can proceed by narrowing down your search and access
pages to your specific line of interest. Start with entering
key words on search engines: guide to teaching technology
to students, student-teacher web resources, web activities
for students, etc. You can start with Kathy Schrock's
Guide for Educators (http://discoveryschool.com/schrockguide/)
or Filamentality (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil),
a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that helps you
pick out a topic, searching the Web, gathering sites,
and turning Web resources into student activities. With
these sites and some initial discoveries you make with
your search results, you can explore and find out what
works for you.
3. What do
you want your students to learn? When bringing
the Internet to the classroom, you can start by asking
yourself, what are your goals in student learning? Would
you like to have the student learn, acquire more knowledge
on a subject, or get them to care about a subject? For
the first option, you can try creating a Knowledge Hunt,
wherein you present a topic (i.e. Philippine History during
the Martial Law era) and ask students questions which
they will answer through exploring a matching list of
Websites. On the other hand, the second option can be
explored by using a Subject Sampler, wherein students
are asked to find personal relevance - their opinions,
preferences, and personal insights - on the topic.
4. How do you
create these applications? While interactivity
and downloading resources online can be had by simply
searching and clicking on your search results, or teaching
students how to use e-mail and chat forums (you can teach
students to be gainfully interactive by letting them join
an educational mailing list - Yahoogroups has a host of
mailing groups to choose from, depending on your chosen
topic), creating simple applications for online learning
can be a headache, especially for those who are just beginning
to discover the wonders of the web. After browsing through
some introductory sites that can give you ideas, try downloading
tutorials (from Yahoo or Geocities) on how to create simple
web pages from where you will launch your educational
samplers or hunts. Or, you can have a graphic designer
design this into an html page - all you have to do is
simply provide the content and the list of websites you
would like to connect into your online lesson.
5. Transfer
knowledge to hands-on projects. After you and
your students have gotten the hang of exploring and using
the resources on the web, the next step would be letting
your students put into practice what they've learned.
Create teams and hand out a mission for each team - give
them subjects to work on, wherein the finished product
would be the results of the learning which will be displayed
on their own website. For the technical details - designing
and getting a free domain to post the data - use the tutorials
you download online or ask a web designer to have a class
session on this topic. Making web pages are getting easier
these days, as long as you have the interest and take
the time to explore these things out.
The web is a vast resource
waiting to be tapped by young, eager minds. Remember,
just because this wealth of knowledge is available out
there and can be accessed by a click or a tap of a button,
doesn't mean that you'll be able to maximize its best
without planning, creativity and a child's insatiable
curiosity.
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