Richard A. Huber is an Associate
Professor at
The University of North Carolina at Wilmington
huberr@uncwil.edu
G. William Harriett is an Graduate
Assistant at
The University of North Carolina at Wilmington
gwh6651@uncwil.edu
It was the opinion of Mark Twain that the person who did not read good books had no advantage over the person who was illiterate. If Twain were alive today, what would he have to say about our use of the Internet as an educational tool? What manner of "computer literacy" are we providing? Unquestionably, the Internet can be a valuable resource and powerful tool. Through the Internet, students can be involved in rich classroom learning experiences in ways that were not merely possible but scarcely imaginable without the use of a computer. It is now possible from the classroom to find weather reports and forecasts for any city in the world; students can be directly involved in environmental projects with other schools across the nation; and without ever leaving the classroom, you can take students on field trips to various museums, the Galapagos Islands, and even the virtual edges of the known Universe. How could any of these things been done prior to the computer age that gives us ready access to the World Wide Web? These are just a few of the incredible opportunities that the Internet has to offer if it is used to its greatest potential. Yet, in most classrooms where the Internet is being used, the applications and strategies that might really allow students to begin tapping such potential are conspicuous by their absence.
The majority of teachers who are using the Internet use it primarily to
find information. Essentially, the Internet is being used as a high-tech
(and expensive) encyclopedia. Thus, students learn how to use the Internet
to "look up" factual information on the Internet, just as they
would in books. And after the students master such competencies, just what
advantages do they have over the "Internet illiterate" peer who
only knows how to use conventional paper reference ? Our intent with this
article is not to justify, nor to condemn using the Internet as a glorified
encyclopedia, but to suggest better ways to implement the World Wide Web
as a powerful teaching tool.
Valid concerns have been raised over the inappropriateness of some of the
material to be found on the World Wide Web (Jackson, Bourdeau, Sampson,
and Hagen, 1997). We feel there is little need for the students to be involved
in an open-ended search for information. This could be a waste of time and
also very risky due to the amount of adult sites that could appear. Ideally,
if the teacher is setting up a lesson plan on a subject, they would be responsible
for finding the most appropriate Websites ahead of time. Our solution to
the argument proposed by Jackson and others, appears in the identification
of specific sites that can be used for detailed educational purposes.
We consider three general educational strategies, each of which taps into
different strengths of the Internet as an information delivery system. First,
through daily activities, students learn how the Internet can help them
be informed citizens in an age of information explosion. Knowledge bases
are changing and growing rapidly; students need to learn how to stay up-to-date
if they are to be "informed citizens." The daily exercises described
here address this need through activities that tap into the Internet's strengths
of (1) providing up-to-date information and (2) providing easy access to
a broad base of information. Second, through weekly project activities,
students learn how the Internet can help them be contributing members of
society in the age of the "global village." These activities tap
into the Internet's strengths of allowing interactive informative exchanges.
Finally, through Cyber field trips students learn how the Internet can help
them explore the wonders of the universe in exciting ways that could barely
have been imagined only a few years ago. These activities tap into the richness
of the information base available on the World Wide Web.
Daily Exercise
We propose that the Internet can be effectively used through daily exercises
that approach the Internet less like an electronic reference book and more
as an electronic newspaper. These exercises are scheduled as daily activities
for the same reasons that newspapers are read daily--the focus is on information
that is constantly changing, such as current events and weather reports.
In addition to exploiting the Internet's strength of provider of up-to-date
information, these exercises should utilize the Internet's strengths for
easy access to promote integration of the curriculum. For example, in the
absence of a resource such as the Internet, you might turn to the daily
paper for current weather reports (of limited depth) and information texts
for more in-depth "science content" information. Why not use the
Internet to check out current conditions and forecasts and then "browse"
into content areas in more depth while you are at it? Math lessons naturally
fall out of this application as well (e.g., graphing and measurement exercises),
not to mention opportunities to delve into meaningful geography (and other
social studies) content. A good Internet resource for this activity is the
Weather Channel homepage (http://www.weather.com/twc/homepage.twc).
At this weather channel homepage site, you can actually call up the five
day weather forecast for your own state and city, or many other parts of
the world for that matter. You could take your students to this site every
day and have them observe satellite pictures or Doppler radar for your region.
There is even a section called the weather classroom where you can guide
them in learning about all things involving the weather: from hurricanes,
tornadoes, and winter storms; to how to measure precipitation and temperature;
to how to actually become a meteorologist. Graphing techniques can easily
be incorporated into these lessons. For example, students might graph temperature
against other parameters. Students can build a weather station and compare
their data with the data provided on the net. Storm tracking provides an
effective and meaningful means of teaching about longitude and latitude
and X-Y coordinate systems. By visiting this site every day, students will
gain appreciation of the importance of being able to predict the weather
and come to better understand how the entire world depends on this knowledge
for not only travel, but for agriculture and human safety.
You could take them to find out Today's Earthquake Activity Around the World
(http://inspire.ospi.wednet.edu:8001/curric/land/todayqk.html). At this sight you can find the date, time, location
and magnitude of the most recent global earthquake activity. Let the students
discover if there has been any seismic activity anywhere near their city
or state. They can also use the instructional student activity that is provided
to learn how to predict the location of an earthquake.
Jean K. Martin makes the observation that "when students browse through
the Web, they look for striking pictures; such pictures make students want
to learn more about a topic." (1997). If you are studying the stars
and our universe, why not take them to Amazing Space: Education Online from
the Hubble Space Telescope which is affiliated with the Space Telescope
Science Institute (http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/amazing-space.html). Martin and her associates have created educational lessons
that all grade levels can participate in. This site also highlights the
thousands of pictures the Hubble Space Telescope has taken that the students
can view. There are mind-numbingly beautiful pictures of the wonders of
space added to this archive almost daily. Any one of these images could
spark a topic of conversation that can be used to interest your students
in astronomy and/or the physics involved in these galactic processes. This
sight could also be used in the Cyber Field Trip category that will be discussed
later in this article.
Project Involvement
Through the Internet, you can access tremendous resources that have been
specifically designed (and are maintained) for classroom science (and other)
instruction using the Internet. That is, the projects are designed to teach
about a traditional content area and about using the Internet and telecommunications.
The Project Involvement activities focus on using the Internet to interact
with students in other settings on relatively large scale projects. Through
these resources, students can conduct research and compare their findings
with the findings of others (both students from distant classrooms and in
some case with real scientists)--a central component of real-world science
that was once too impractical to incorporate into classroom activities.
Many of these resources lend themselves nicely to a schedule of (about)
once-per-week lessons.
As examples of resources suitable for a weekly Project Involvement activity,
consider the Students-as-Scientists Website (http://smec.uncwil.edu/glaxo/sas/index.htm) and the Globe Project (http://www.globe.gov/) webpage. Both of these projects involve middle and high
school students from schools located throughout the country who are gathering
environmental data to be used by other students as well as scientists for
information gathering. The Students-as-Scientists project allows students
to not only compare their findings with those of other student researchers,
but those of professional scientists conducting similar research. You and
your school can become a part of either of these studies or you can use
the data presented on these pages to help supplement your environmental
studies in the classroom.
The Students-as-Scientists project is a growing North Carolina based program
that will allow your students to go out into the field, take water samples,
and test the samples for numerous parameters such as dissolved oxygen levels,
pH, carbon dioxide content, temperature, nitrate levels and others. This
information will then be posted on the web to be compared to scientist's
data from nearby locations. It will also allow local scientists access to
data from locations that may not be within their gathering area. So, not
only will this give scientists information that they may not have, but it
will allow students to have a feeling of importance in that their data will
be looked at by not only their peers, but also by the scientific community.
J.F. de La Beaujardiere describes the Globe Project as "a World Wide
Web-based, user-friendly... interface providing access to visualizations
created [specifically] for GLOBE." (1997). This project is similar
to the Students-as-Scientists project, but along with water data, it also
includes atmospheric observations, soil investigation, and biology investigation.
Both of these projects have or are developing an Ask-a-Scientist component
where questions about the various aspects of these projects can be sent
to be answered. These are just two examples of ongoing projects that were
developed specifically with educational use in mind and would be ideal for
use in the classroom setting.
Cyber Field Trips
Our third recommendation for using the Internet in the classroom capitalizes
on both the quantitative and qualitative richness of the World Wide Web
information base in what we call a Cyber Field Trip. After a unit on rocks,
why not take the students on a Cyber Field Trip by way of the Internet to
The Mineral Gallery (http://mineral.galleries.com/)? On this trip, students can call up any mineral, such
as their birthstones, and see what the actual stone looks like, as well
as call up written documentation about its properties and uses. From that
site, you can use the Geology Link (http://www.geologylink.com/) and extend the outing to a virtual field trip to any
region of the world. Students can see pictures of volcanoes in Africa or
find out how coral reefs form at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Students can experience the Exploratorium (http://www.exploratorium.edu/). The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human
perception with over 500 interactive "hands on" exhibits. With
such topics as Sports Science, Searching for Radio Emissions from Alien
Civilizations, and a virtual Cow's Eye Dissection, this site covers a broad
range of science educational themes that could easily be implemented into
your classroom.You could go to the Terraquest homepage (http://www.terraquest.com/)
where they offer a virtual field trip of the "living laboratory of
evolution", the Galapagos Islands or even a trip to Antarctica. Both
of these explorations delve into the history, ecology and wildlife of that
particular site. The Field Museum of Natural
History in Chicago (http://www.fmnh.org/default.htm) offers an on-line tour of our Earth before dinosaurs,
during the dinosaurs, and after the dinosaurs. Basically, a field trip through
geologic time!
Never before in the history of civilization have
educators had so many places to go and so many project opportunities available
to them. In this time of budget cuts for supplies and field trips, the computer
is a tool that can be utilized to fill that void. It is up to us to use
the Internet to its greatest potential. The Internet's greatest potential
is not as an expensive encyclopedia, but as a resource that will allow teachers
to use and manipulate the world's knowledge in such a way that students
can explore our planet without having to leave the classroom.
References
de La Beaujardiere, J. F., et. al. (1997). The GLOBE Visualization Project:
Using WWW in the Classroom. Journal of Science Education and Technology,
6(1): 15-22.
Exploratorium (1998). Available: http://www.exploratorium.edu/
The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1998). Available: http://www.fmnh.org./default.htm
Geology Link (1998). Available: http://www.geologylink.com/
Globe Project (1998). Available: http://www.globe.gov/
Jackson, D. F., et. al. (1997). Internet Resources for Middle School Science:
Golden Opportunity or "Silicon Snake Oil"? Journal of Science
Education and Technology, 6(1): 49-57.
Martin, Jean K. (1997). Interactive Astronomy. Science Teacher, 64(3):
50-52.
The Mineral Gallery (1998). Available: http://mineral.galleries.com/
Space Telescope Science Institute (1998). Available: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/education/amazing-space/
Students-as-Scientists Website (1998). Available:http://smec.uncwil.edu/glaxo/sas/index.htm
Terraquest (1998). Available: http://www.terraquest.com/
Today's Earthquake Activity Around the World (1998). Available: http://inspire.ospi.wednet.edu:8001/curric/land/todayqk.html
Weather Channel (1998). Available: http://www.weather.com/twc/
homepage.twc