The wired classroom
In Room 108 at the Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the Utah State University campus, the alphabet is strung across the top of the dry-erase board with other education-oriented decorations.
In the back of the room are five Macintosh computers lined up against the wall.
The Internet is being incorporated as a learning tool in classrooms across the nation.
Ninety-seven percent of the 600 teachers surveyed by the Associated Press said their schools have Internet access.
Kurt Johnson teaches third and fourth grades at Edith Bowen School and was recognized as the Utah technology educator of the year for 2000. The five computers are in Johnson’s classroom.
He has incorporated the Internet as a teaching mechanism for research and class projects.
“Access” to the Internet is the key word.
With Internet access, there are sharing possibilities, and students are not being tied down to specific computers, Johnson said.
“[There is] more opportunity for students to be involved with it,” Johnson said.
They have more reign on the agricultural Web sites to find the information they need, Johnson said.
How can teachers incorporate the Internet in their classrooms?
“More teachers need to learn,” Johnson said.
The Children’s Internet Protection Act requires schools and lib-raries re-ceiving Internet access through a federal program to certify access to material harmful to minors has been blocked, according to the Family Research Council.
In regards to blocking or filtering Internet in classrooms, Johnson said, “Filtering or blocking creates more work than it’s worth and takes teaching opportunities away.”
When Dylan Taylor, a fourth-grade student, was asked what he thought about blocking “bad stuff” on the Internet, he said, “We should have it open to see if it builds trust with your parents.”
Betsey Wagstaff, technology teacher said, “If we teach the children how to use it, what’s appropriate, filtering doesn’t have to be there.”
Wagstaff is a technology teacher who teaches children, with parental permission, how to use the Internet and the importance of safe use of the Internet.
With the Acceptable Use Policy, parents choose to give their children permission to learn about the Internet and the “learning resources it can provide students,” according to the Edith Bowen Lab School Internet Acceptable Use Policy.
Children are not allowed to “surf the net” or give out personal information.
The child will also always be under teacher supervision and will use the Internet solely for learning, Wagstaff said.
“With guidelines, teaching and structure, it can be used, and bad stuff can be avoided,” Wagstaff said.
The students spend 45 minutes each day for several days learning and participating in discussion.
At the end of the class, they’re given a written “driving” test to get their “driver’s license to cruise the Information Highway,” as a poster in the computer lab puts it.
The children agree the Internet class is beneficial.
“Betsy teaches us how to get on. She shows you interesting Web sites. Miaquest was cool,” said Ethan DeVilbiss, a fourth-grade student.
Taylor said, “On special sites, you can type a topic in and what you want, and it will show you.”
Johnson is working with his class on its next project involving agriculture.
The students will eventually create their own Web pages dealing with the subject of agriculture.
Johnson said one of the benefits of Internet access for class projects is the students can share their work with parents, relatives or friends over the Internet.
“They can share it. [They can say], ‘Go to this Web site and see what I’m doing,'” Johnson said. “The student can share things with more people.”
The children have several sites they said they especially like to visit, like happypuppy.com or google.com.
“That’s why we’re lucky,” DeVilbiss said of the availability of so many different types of Web sites. “You can just type in something and there’ll be a page for it,” DeVilbiss said.
Taylor pointed out benefits to the Internet many people overlook.
“It doesn’t weigh anything. When I’m doing a special report on something – I swear [my backpack] weighs about 40 pounds,” he said.
The Internet does have its benefits, but are there dangers to Internet access?
“We always teach them, ‘If you get in a place that you feel is inappropriate or [you’re] uncomfortable – go home,'” Wagstaff said. Then the students will click on the “Home” icon to go directly back to the student home page for Edith Bowen.
Children are taught to apply the words “efficient,” “ethical” and “legal” to Internet usage.
The test quizzes them on this, Internet safety and Internet vocabulary.
The final section tests their knowledge of the basics of the Netscape Internet browser software.
When the students pass the test, they are given a “driver’s license” with their names and the date it was given to them.
This license helps teachers monitor students using the Internet and only allow access to students who have passed the tests and obtained parents’ permission.
An estimated 11 million children are cruising on the Information Highway, and more than half the nation’s classrooms currently have access as well, according to the Family Research Council.
Students are being taught at school, but the lessons are also beneficial in their homes.
Sixty-one percent of households with children between the ages of 8 and 17 have computers with Internet access, according to the Family Research Council.
Jill DeVilbiss, a music teacher and Ethan’s mom, has software installed on her family’s computer to keep her children out of objectionable sites.
She said she puts the computer in the middle of the room, where the family activity is going on.
The amount of computers with Internet access is steadily growing both at home and in the classrooms; students will almost certainly end up negotiating the Information Superhighway. This program will hopefully help keep them safe, Jill DeVilbiss said.
“You definitely don’t want anyone to get on the Internet if they don’t know about it,” she said.