The Global Classroom by Cathy Buckingham

Advantages of Using the Internet in the Classroom

     In a global classroom, "the Internet complements and augments education through powerful interactive teaching-tools, distance learning, online courses, virtual libraries, and access to current world events" ("About the Net" 3 of 4). Students can have easy access to a wide range of information that can be effectively taught in a progressive, interdisciplinary structure (that teachers employing conventional tools find difficult to achieve) because "Hypertext ... provides a means of integrating ... materials of a single course with other courses" (Landow, 225). Web sites link and weave materials not only from different subject areas but also at a variety of different difficulty levels, thus encouraging "both exploration and self-paced instruction "accommodating classes with different types of learners" (Landow, 224).

     Internet based instruction also encourages critical thinking -- thinking necessary to make connections, to explore different causes and effects, and to evaluate importance. "Hypertext encourages this habit" (Landow, 225). "The Internet ... now support[s] an array of potentially inexpensive collaborative technologies so that groups of students and teachers can learn together" (Bull, 48). Moreover, when students encounter work from other students in other schools around the globe,these students are convinced "that they are in a very different, more active kind of learning situation (Landow,231). This active learning incorporates unique opportunities (Internet Curriculum Integration, Tape 1) :

1. Access to up-to-the-minute information     that won't be available in text form for     years.

2. Collaboration with peers and     professionals around the world.

3. Invitations for electronic mentors (like     astronauts, anthropologists,     meteorologists, and others) to     participate in class projects no matter     where they live.

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