We are in an information age that is immediate and instantaneous. We need people who can discern and utilize what is useful and disregard that which is untrue and misleading. Workers today need to be able to access information and ideas quickly, and formulate their thoughts so that they are making informed decisions. Writers, artists, and thinkers can interact and share with one another on a level that was not possible before. What took reams and reams of paper to accomplish in the past, can now be done with people simply looking at a particular URL address. Communication, both locally and globally, can be instantaneous and inexpensive. Today's students need to explore multiple sources. Students need to use the Internet and technology in the Language Arts classroom because it is the way people will continue to communicate, exchange ideas and do business, now and in the future.

Using the Internet as an electronic tool can begin in the primary grades. Being able to use a keyboard and a mouse can be a first exploratory step. In From Now On published by Jamie McKenzie in the Jan. '97 article "The Internet as Curriculum," it states that "Schools should be much more about students making meaning rather than merely committing someone else's insights to memory." Students need the exploration factor that the Internet provides to keep learning active and alive. The article continues and says that learning should be like "an adventure, an invitation to explore interesting questions and issues,...." The point that learning should be like an adventure is well taken. Guided use of the Internet can provide that stimulus. I do not see abandoning the textbook in the Language Arts classroom as a source of information. It can be an excellent jumping off point. Our recent adoption of the McDougal-Littell text comes with an exploratory section called "The Classzone" which has further on-line sources that students can access. It has author studies and additional literature connections. A textbook can certainly be a starting foundation point in the search for information, and the Internet can give the reader a contemporary or up to the minute look at an author, issue, view point, or additional piece of literature. Beginning to use the Internet as a searching and gathering tool early on will prepare students for the world of work, ideas and communication.

Later on, the Internet can connect learners from different areas of a city, state, nation or even different areas of the world. Where the communication may start out as an informal exchange, it will eventually allow students to understand others in different circumstances. It can go further to a pen pal email exchange where young people of different countries can better understand their countries differences, both cultural and political. The recent terrorist attacks on our country require our students to understand why there are people in the world who wish to eliminate and destroy the influence of the United States. Further in another realm of communication, James Marshall's and Allison Rossett's article "The Learning Community" the connectivity of the Internet can provide communication between the teacher, students and parents. The teacher can send out classroom lesson updates and unit information. As recently as this year in August 2001, my district, the Paradise Valley School District setup a homework site where teachers in our school can post their daily homework assignments. Additionally, the district or school site can provide homework help lines and possibly tutoring in difficult subject areas as well. We have teachers who tutor students daily after school in our library. But even more important, teachers need the help and understanding of a student's parents. Parents want to know what is going on in class and what needs to be done. The closer students, parents and teachers can work the more successful that student will be. The Internet can provide this positive connectivity. In my district for every teacher who posts their homework, there is an electronic source of what took place in class and what still needs to be done. In another situation, the email feature of the Internet will allow students to communicate with scientists, astronauts, archaeologists, writers, artists, and celebrities as they do their work. This close communication might encourage a student to follow a similarly inspired path. The email capability of the Internet does make our massive, diverse world smaller, and hopefully, it will provide greater opportunities for understanding each other and making it a more peaceful place to live.

The Internet and the technology that goes with it can connect Language Arts classrooms in the primary, secondary, and post-secondary grades. Now and in the years to come, schools and Language Arts classrooms will be creating Web Quests, Instructional and Informational Units and Student Work Galleries that are all posted on the Internet for parents, teachers and other learning institutions to see. Using Web Quests, teachers will effectively guide students on a variety of searches. From these searches students may create Web pages, Power Point Presentations, Hyperstudio Stacks or Multimedia projects that share what discoveries the students have made. The learners in making these creations become the teachers as others examine their work. Another item like teacher instructional sites, are already in existence. Teachers through school sites and educational sites have already posted Lesson Plans on a vast number of topics and subject matters. The ease of posting lesson information and the educational groups that pay for such work has created this vast resource. The Internet also provides a publishing facility. Teachers can place student work in project galleries where it can be viewed, valued and appreciated with no cost of printing involved. Colleges can see what high schools are doing in their Language Arts classrooms. High schools can see what is happening at middle schools and on down or up the line. The Internet and technology that goes with it has created a vast information sharing network.

In addition to the Internet, the modern Language Arts classroom needs to use technology in all its forms to enhance a student's presentation abilities. While students create Web pages, Power Point Presentations and other Multimedia projects, teachers need to be guides and channels to make sure students not only master certain basic technical skills but also master important skills within that particular discipline. English teachers need to assess whether a student can assemble and organize his or her ideas in a logical linear pattern. As communicators and sharers of information and knowledge, linearism is not bad. What we are as humans and what we intend to produce and create must be in some recognizable form. The use of technology is an art form and tool, just as expressing oneself in the written word is an art form. Our media generation has advanced beyond simple print on a page to a mixture of images, sounds, information and virtual experiences that capture reality and thought in a thoroughly vivid way. The content of the communication that is made determines its value. Literature as an experience is not less valid because it still can convey truth and capture the human condition. A multimedia presentation can capture other truths, and it also has validity. Teachers need to help students experience their world with various platforms, both print and technological. Because children are over saturated with television and video games does not mean their world must reflect only that type of stimulus. Teachers must guide their students to quality experiences in the realm of the printed word as well as the technologically enhanced world of media. Children and adults need experiences that provide depth and truth. We need to take advantage of the opportunities that the Internet and technology provide, but we should not forget that they are only tools. What we intellectually consume, produce, create and proclaim often determines what we become.

Introduction	Process	Task
Resources	Learning Advice	Evaluation
Reflection	Conclusion	Notes to the Teacher

Click here to go back to the beginning.