I feel that the internet is an amazing tool for a teacher to use. There are so many resources available on the internet and it would be silly to not take advantage of this. Some pros of internet use in elementary classrooms would be finding lesson plans, fun and educational clip art, as well as allowing students to do research on any given topic. While I feel that there are many more pros to using the internet in education, there are most certainly some cons which include safety- there are a lot of inappropriate sites on the internet that may not be blocked even with privacy settings, and you definitely don't want your young students coming across these. Also, using the internet too much can take away from teacher-student relationships as well as peer relationships. If I were being interviewed and asked how I would use the internet in my classroom, I would say that I would use it for several things. I would use the internet to come up with different ways to organize my classroom, such as seating charts, I would use the internet to generate quizzes, tests, games, and puzzles. I would use the internet to come up with fun lesson plan ideas and to print off clip-art and signs. I would use the internet as a tool for my students to do research and to help them come up with topics for projects. I would allow my students to use the internet to come up with new ways to do presentations and use graphics such as searching for sound and video. The opportunities for using the internet in an elementary classroom are endless, and I will most certainly use as many of these as I can in my own classroom.
One of my favorite teacher websites I have found so far would be Discovery Education: School Resources which is sponsored by the Discovery Channel. On this website, you are able to generate your own puzzles, you can search through the thousands of lesson plans in the lesson plan library, you can look through the clip art gallery, and there is also a section called "Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators" which is a list of sites for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. There is so much more to this site as well so you should check it out!
10.15.2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I totally agree that there is an endless amount of resources that can be found on the internet. I think that the internet is amazing and research would be so much more difficult if people had to use books sources to do projects or papers. The internet is easy access and is available at all times. I think that internet use in elementary classrooms is important and should be incorporated in all classrooms. I think there are a lot of fun activities that elementary children can do on the internet that can help them with learning. I do feel that there are some disadvantages to the use of internet in an elementary classroom. I never really thought about the teacher-student relationship until I read your comment. I really think that this is important and may not be incorporated as much if students are more focused on the computers rather than the teachers. Some teachers may incorporate computers to much where the computers are teaching the students rather than the teachers. I do not feel that computers should be used everyday in the classroom. I think they should be incorporated at least once a week so the teachers still have to teach the students and they can engage in activities on the computers related to the lesson. I have never heard of the website that you mention. I will have to check it out sometime!!
:)
Post a Comment