Internet Learning Resources Part 4

For the last week of this class, we addressed some of the darker issues involving the use of the Internet as a learning resource, namely copyright, privacy, and child protection issues.  The internet has always carried with it risks, and as with any new technology, some of the early adopters are people who see a way to use it to further their illegal activities.  From pornography to identity theft, part of our role as educators will be to protect our students from these risks, while still using the tolls of the internet to provide the best possible education experience.

The key in this case will be to plan in advance what internet resources will be used in class, and make sure they are safe for the students.  We have already talked about ways to use custom search engines that will only return desired results, or ways to filter results based on reading level and age group.  Teachers can also direct the class to specific research sites, rather than just letting the students search blindly and stumble across possibly hazardous sites.

We have talked in earlier classes about the need for educators to plan the resources they are going to use in advance, not just to assume that students can find appropriate information.  The risks of the Internet make this doubly important.

Internet Learning Resources Part 3

My first experience this week underscores the usefulness of distance learning.  I am submitting this blog from Taos, NM.  My wife had a business trip, and I accompanied her to visit the town.  Even though I am remote I can still continue to work on assignments and team meetings.  The only issue is winter weather.  I am not sure when we will make it back due to the storm that is hitting the Midwest.

This week's assignment was to work as a group and review a number of sites that educators might find useful.  Some of these sites have shown up in previous classes, but many of them are new to this class.  Some of the highlights for me were the Google for Educators site.  This is a group of links that cover all subject areas, but that all have some connection to using technology for education.  This will be a great resource, and a constant source of new ideas for teachers.  Another tool that we have used before is Google Sites.  This allows a user to quickly create a web page that links other Google documents or information.  It will be a great way for classes to organize data while still making it available online.

The one other tool that we were to review was tokbox.  We have used this in previous classes as well, but recently we got a note saying that the service will be discontinued as of April 5th.  This demonstrates one of the dangers of Internet Learning Resources.  All of these tools are run by companies who may or may not succeed.  When a company goes under, a tool that may have been extremely useful to your class might suddenly not be available.  Teachers should always stay up on the current events that affect the resources they use most.  They should also have other ways of achieving the same results.  The good news is there are many tools available on the Internet, and it is almost always possible to find another option that provides a similar service.

Internet Learning Resources Part 3

My first experience this week underscores the usefulness of distance learning.  I am submitting this blog from Taos, NM.  My wife had a business trip, and I accompanied her to visit the town.  Even though I am remote I can still continue to work on assignments and team meetings.  The only issue is winter weather.  I am not sure when we will make it back due to the storm that is hitting the Midwest.

This week's

Internet Learning Resources Part 2

This week we continued our exploration of Internet Learning Resources by trying some more websites that could be useful in classroom lesson plans.  My favorite of the week was a site called Noodle Tools: http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html
This site had an amazing collection of links, but more importantly it also grouped the links by the type of information that they contained.  Do you need facts?  Opinions?  Media?  This site helps to organize the wealth of information that is on the internet.

That is the theme for the week, based on a quote from Tom March.  Although the internet is a great source of information, there is so much out there that an instructor will need to spend significant time to select the right resources from the pile, and to incorporate them into a lesson plan.  Other tools that we explored this week include Google Alerts and the characteristics of search engines.  Both of these are to help understand how internet search results are presented, and how to know when those results change.  These are two more strategies for finding the right information on the internet.  In short, too much information is almost as bad as no information at all.  Instructors will need to keep refining their searches, looking for new tools, and revising their lesson plans to make sure they get the most out of the information that is available on the internet.

Internet Learning Resources

Our latest class, CeDO520, is all about Internet  Learning Resources.  Considering that our first three classes have already introduced us to numerous tools and websites that could be used in a classroom setting, I was curious about the type of new resources we would encounter.  The class started right away with a tool that we have yet to use, namely a Wiki.

Wiki's have been around for many years, and I have used them previously at work.  They are especially good for collecting knowledge of a group of people, in our case, programmers and engineers who understand our computer systems.  We have used Wikis to collect the knowledge of some of our key computer systems.  By creating a page for each system or component, we can then make links to all of the systems that are related to the original.  Since this knowledge is shared among many people, each person can edit the page that relates to their particular systems.  By collecting and linking this knowledge, we ended up with a single web location for all information.  

Similarly we are creating a Wiki for our class.  As we go through the content, we will be able to build and link the different ideas that we encounter.  Two of our first points:  That we need to teach students to be discerning about the web sites that they view, and that we can help this process by creating a form to evaluate websites.  We will keep adding to these lessons, and linking in more pages to the class Wiki.

Internet Learning Resources

Our latest class, CeDO520, is all about Internet  Learning Resources.  Considering that our first three classes have already introduced us to numerous tools and websites that could be used in a classroom setting, I was curious about the type of new resources we would encounter.  The class started right away with a tool that we have yet to use, namely a Wiki.  Wiki's have been around for many years, and I have used them previously at work.  They are especially good for collecting knowledge of a group of people, in our case, programmers and engineers who understand our computer systems.  We have used Wikis to collect the knowledge of some of our key computer systems.  By creating a page for each system or component, we can then make links to all of the systems that are related to the original.  Sonce