Empowering
Students through
the Internet
By Frank Odasz
The
10 collaborative tools offer fundamentally new and
different ways
for a caring teacher to interact with students. Many have
inherent
efficiencies that allow a busy teacher to extend his or
her personal
influence on greater numbers of students than ever before.
The
Internet has created the means by which anyone can learn
and teach
anywhere, anytime with no more cost than the time and
caring. Unmet
needs can be matched with excess resources, with greater
efficiency
than ever before. One person’s creative efforts can
be self-published
globally, reaching potentially millions of individuals.
Research
shows the majority of those in the workforce will need
computer
and Internet skills to succeed, of which the ability to
learn and
work collaboratively with others may prove to be the most
vital
to success in a world of accelerating change. Within 25
years, the
volume of knowledge will double every three months.
A
recent U.S. Dept. of Commerce Report (“Falling
Through the
Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide,” www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/falling.html)
indicates that those without Internet access and the
proper training
are falling behind. The challenge will be for those coming
late
to using Internet in the classroom to be able to leapfrog
ahead
by learning to use the very latest online tools, which are
improving
at breakneck speed. Beyond the mere technologies, the
quality of
the ongoing mentorship provided to these previous
“have-nots”
is likely to be the defining factor on their ability to
keep up.
And, educators can use the 10 collaborative tools to help
their
students be prepared.
Online
Mentoring
There
is no limit to the potential benefits of a good
educator–learner
online mentoring relationship or of the global impact of
one good
educator’s self-published learning resources. Many
mentoring
models have emerged, showcasing how good educators combine
caring
and connectivity to produce motivated students and
empowering learning
outcomes. (See http://lone-eagles.com/mentor.htm.)
Project-Based
Learning
Project-based
learning (PBL), centered on collaborative community
problem solving,
has become an important constructivist instructional model
for K–12
education. Simply put, a PBL activity involves students
working
together to learn about a specific topic through research,
assessment,
discussion, and reflection on questions and ideas. There
are many
sources of PBL projects, already organized for you to use
in your
classroom (see http://lone-eagles.com/projects.htm).
All 10 collaborative tools can be used for PBL activities,
either
separately or several integrated into a single PBL
activity at one
time, such as chat for immediate interaction needs, Web
conferencing
for less time-sensitive sharing, and videoconferencing for
sharing
visual information.
Creating
Web Content
Online you’ll find models where students collaborate to create
instructional Web sites to help others learn using a free CD-ROM with typically
little or no adult help (www.thinkquest.org) and where students
create community Web pages celebrating local heroes and organizations through
the Cyberfair competition (http://www.gsn.org/GSH/cf/). Creating content for the Web can help motivate
students as their work is shared with the global audience.
Entrepreneurship
School-to-work
programs have sprung up in an attempt to address the
readiness of
students to enter the emerging knowledge economy. No
longer can
students train for a job they can expect to stick with for
life.
Instead, students must be ready for short-term work
opportunities
based on a continually changing workplace, with Internet
collaboration
becoming more and more a required survival skill.
Teaching
the process of ongoing, self-directed, just-in-time
learning has
become increasingly important. There is growing
recognition that
the skills for being an active participant in the emerging
social
infostructure will be fundamental to economic and social
success.
Emerging youth entrepreneurship project models, and
School-to-Work
programs, are pointing the way forward (http://lone-eagles.com/entrelinks.htm).
Students in all cultures today become technology leaders
and key
change agents when given the opportunity to explore and
demonstrate
computer and Internet applications.
School
and community network models serving as
“instructional entrepreneurship
cooperatives” would potentially allow all citizens to
benefit
from online instructional opportunities they would create
themselves.
Increasing
Access
With
many cultures slated to receive Internet access over the
next 20
years (because of satellite connections and innovations in
wireless
hardware) in a world where half the population has never
made a
single phone call, the issue of how best to introduce the
empowering
components of collaborative learning communities using the
Internet,
within the context of individual cultures, has become a
major global
challenge. A report for the U.S. Agency for International
Development
(“Native American/Alaskan/Hawaiian K–12
Innovations Using
Computers and Internet,” http://lone-eagles.com/usaid.htm)
has links to many inspiring cultural models.
Indigenous
youth worldwide can potentially help their cultures
survive by learning
to teach self-empowerment Internet and multimedia
authoring skills
to youth in other cultures, while remaining a resource in
one’s
home village, engaged in a meaningful, culturally
supportive vocation.
As
more and more people begin to understand the
Internet’s potential,
more and more individuals will see how they too can make a
worldwide
contribution. Already, educators are sharing online
tutorials and
other resources worldwide on collaborative topics such as
citizen
activism (“The Virtual Activist,” www.netaction.org/training)
and Electronic Democracy (http://lone-eagles.com/democracy.htm).
Getting
Started
So where does a busy educator begin with all these heady possibilities?
We’re all kindergartners in the Information Age, and learn best through
hands-on experience, and working with others. The variety of new collaborative
tools is increasing rapidly. eCircles offers groups a suite of free collaborative
capabilities presented in a friendly, easy-to-learn format at www.ecircles.com “Electronic Collaboration:
A Practical Guide for Educators” is available at www.lab.brown.edu/public/ocsc/collaboration.guide.
New curriculum authoring sites, listed at http://lone-eagles.com/currtour.htm,
allow busy teachers to author multiple formats of Web-based curriculum, quickly,
and with minimal technical skills.
Web
Resources
Note. These Web sites were valid when this issue of
L&L went
to press. We have no control over these sites, though, and the Web is
very volatile.
Please let us know if you find a broken link, and we’ll do our
best to
update it.
Frank
Odasz’s home page http://lone-eagles.com
Project-based
learning activity links http://lone-eagles.com/projects.htm
ThinkQuest
www.thinkquest.org
Cyberfair http://www.gsn.org/GSH/cf/
The
Virtual Activist www.netaction.org/training
Electronic
Democracy http://lone-eagles.com/democracy.htm
Ecircles
www.ecircles.com
Electronic
Collaboration—A Practical Guide for Educators www.lab.brown.edu/public/ocsc/collaboration.guide
Free
evaluation copies and courses on using offline browsers http://bluesquirrel.com
E-mail
WebTeacher
www.webteacher.org
Polaris www.provide.net/~bfield/polaris/index.html
Reach
for the Sky www.learner.org/courses/rfts/b3web.htm
Free
E-mail Accounts www.yahoo.com,
www.educast.com, www.hotmail.com,
www.juno.com
Netiquette
America
Online www.aol.com/nethelp/home.html
University College, Dublin http://midir.ucd.ie/~cconaty/struct1.html
National Supercomputer Center’s An Incomplete Guide to the
Internet Especially for K–12 Teachers and Students www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Edu/ICG
Internet
Mailing Lists
Liszt
The Mailing List Directory www.liszt.com
Tile.Net/Lists—The
Reference to Internet Discussion & Information Lists
http://tile.net/lists/
eGroups
www.egroups.com
Reach for the Sky—A Set of Online Courses for Teachers www.learner.org/courses/rfts/b4web.htm
Newsgroups
Reach
for the Sky www.learner.org/courses/rfts/b5web.htm
Déjà
News www.dejanews.com
Bulletin Board Services (BBSs)
Take
the GeoTour www.geocities.com
Discovery
Channel School BBSs http://discoveryschool.com
Web
Conferencing
David
Woolley’s Guides and Clearinghouse www.thinkofit.com/webconf/
Forum One http://forumone.com
MUDs/MOOs
Examples
of one-on-one and small-group interactions from Barry
Kort, PhD,
a founding Director of MicroMuse, the first Multi-User
Simulation
Environment (MUSE) site fully dedicated to educational
purposes.
(Cambridge, MA) www.musenet.org/bkort/WCE
The Pueblo Project—Using MUDs and MOOs with elementary Native
American students and others www.pc.maricopa.edu/community/pueblo
Georgia
Tech’s MOOSE crossing and other projects www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb,
www.cc.gatech.edu/elc
FAQs
www.lysator.liu.se/mud/faq/faq1.html
Hands-on
examples http://angalon.tamu.edu/
IPhone
and Internet Radio
Best of the Net http://goan.com/radio.html
Real
Audio www.realaudio.com
Nexus
Internet Radio www.nexus.org/Internet_Radio/
GoGaGa—Freeform
Eclectic Internet Radio Station www.gogaga.com
Desktop
Videoconferencing
QuickTime Virtual Reality for Educators and Just Plain Folks
http://teachnet.edb.utexas.edu/~qtvr
QuickTime
video tutorials/software www.apple.com/quicktime
Paint
Shop Pro 5.0 software and tutorials http://psptips.com
VRML
Chat Systems
VRML listings http://lone-eagles.com/webdev.htm
Worlds
Ultimate 3D Chat www.worlds.net
Copyright © 1999, ISTE (International Society for Technology
in Education).
All rights reserved.
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