LearningWebs: Curriculum Journeys on the Internet

by Keating, Michele; Wiles, Jon W.; Piazza, Mary Wood

• ISBN13: 9780130319197
• ISBN10: 0130319198
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon

Summary

This book was written to help instructors build classroom lessons with the use of the Internet. By following easy-to-understand steps, users will soon be on their way to developing their own curriculum journeys on the Internet. The book provides an introduction to computer use, explores Internet resources, and shows how these resources can be "fit" to the existing school curriculum. Written "by teachers for teachers," users will appreciate the support and guidance evident in each chapter. For pre-service and practicing teachers, and other educators.

Author Biography

Jon Wiles is a professor of education at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

Table of Contents

Understanding the Internet	1	(6)
What Is the Internet?	2	(1)
Will the Internet Really Change Teaching?	3	(2)
Some Sample Changes Possible	5	(1)
Readings	6	(1)
Selected Learning Activities	6	(1)
Exploring the Internet	7	(8)
Journeys Using Web Addreses (URLs)	7	(5)
Book Marks, Search Engines, Keyword Searches	9	(3)
Useful Sites for Teachers	12	(2)
Readings	14	(1)
Selected Learning Activities	14	(1)
How the Internet Fits Classroom Lessons	15	(8)
Eight Curriculum Designs	16	(5)
Content-Based Curriculum	16	(1)
Skills-Based Curriculum	17	(1)
Inquiry and Exploratory Curriculum	17	(1)
Conceptual Curriculum	18	(1)
Interdisciplinary Curriculum	19	(1)
Cooperative Learning Curriculum	19	(1)
Problem-Solving Curriculum	20	(1)
Critical and Creative Thinking Curriculum	20	(1)
Readings	21	(1)
Selected Learning Activities	21	(2)
Applications and Ownership	23	(34)
Creating Lessons	23	(2)
Planning a Curriculum Journey on the Internet	24	(1)
Journeys: Using the Eight Designs	25	(3)
Content-Based Lessons	28	(5)
Skill-Based Lessons	33	(2)
Inquiry and Exploration Lessons	35	(4)
Conceptual Learning	39	(4)
Interdisciplinary Designs	43	(4)
Cooperative Learning Designs	47	(3)
Problem-Solving Designs	50	(2)
Critical and Creative Thinking Designs	52	(2)
Summary	54	(1)
Readings	55	(1)
Selected Learning Activities	55	(2)
Resource A. Useful Internet Sites for Classroom Teachers	57	(2)
Resource B. K--12 Technology Literacy Standards (NETS Standards for Schools)	59	(4)
Resource C. Preparation Standards for Twenty-First-Century Teachers	63	(2)
Resource D. Creating an Internet Web Page	65	(2)
Resource E. Topical Internet Sites for Lesson Planning	67

Excerpts

PrefaceTechnology is rapidly changing our schools. New interactive learning technologies, particularly the Internet, are altering the 3500-year relationship between teachers and students. These technologies are providing teachers and students with vast and seemingly endless access to learning resources. At the same time, the technologies are a source of novel mediums that allow teachers and students to explore these learning resources together.Because of these interactive technologies, a new kind of teacher is emerging. The task of teaching is shifting from one of delivering content to students to a new role of providing a context for learning and assisting students in constructing meaning in learning. Toddy's new interactive technologies are reshaping how and why we learn, and creating a curriculum with rough and porous edges. It is evident that teachers must adjust to these changes.LearningWebs: Curriculum Journeys on the Internetinvites all classroom teachers to join in this momentous evolution by becoming knowledgeable about the new technologies. Unfortunately, it has been estimated that fewer than one-half of all classroom teachers in America currently actively use interactive technologies with their students. Our book is for every teacher interested in entering this new era, but especially for the majority of classroom teachers who feel technologically inadequate or who lack confidence in their ability to use the new technologies to modify the present curriculum.LearningWebs: Curriculum Journeys on the Internetwas written by real teachers for other practicing teachers. It provides a concise and coherent introduction to the power of the Internet to enhance and improve classroom teaching and student learning. This book will show you in easy-to-learn steps how to develop Internet-assisted lessons in your classroom in order to improve student learning.Thirty years ago, an Austrian named Ivan Illich wrote an important book,Deschooling Society(1970). In his book, Illich distinguished between learning that is controlled and constrictive and learning that is natural and expansive. He referred to these two forms of learning as "funnels" and "webs." This was one of the earliest uses of the term web, which today is part of everyone's vocabulary (as in World Wide Web, or www).Illich advocated abandoning the restrictive "funnels" of organized schooling, including highly prescriptive curricula, testing, and preoccupation with credentialing. He sought to develop a new and rich learning environment "in which educational webs heighten the opportunity for each person to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring."Illich envisioned "an educational network or web for the autonomous assembly of resources under the control of each learner." He called for an educational system with three purposes: "to provide for all who want access to available resources; to empower those who want to share what they know with those who want to learn from them; and to present an issue with an opportunity to make the (learning) challenge known." He concluded that such learning webs "could spread equal opportunity for learning."Thirty years have passed, and through the Internet, Illich's ideas about learning webs and the freedom to learn have become feasible. In the past ten years, instant access to persons or resources anywhere on earth has become an operational reality People can learn, people can teach, people can share, and people can challenge ideas on the World Wide Web or Internet.The world Internet community is growing exponentially, and 11 million of these regular users are children under age 15. Some children's learning occurs in schools, but much of it does not. Things are changing rapidly. Schools are not the only educational locations in 21st-century America.The Internet, once the monopoly of the English-speaking w