Thursday, October 25, 2007

What are the Internet Issues For Students?

I think the biggest Internet issue my students will face will be computer and Internet access. You may think that every student has a computer to go home too with an Internet connection, but in reality this is not the case. As a teacher we have to understand that not every child in our classroom will have a computer at home and the assignments that we give our students must be formatted in a way that every child with our without a computer can complete. This may mean that the child may have to use the library to use the computer. It is our job as a teacher to give all our students the opportunity to complete the assignment. Even if that means the child staying after class to use classroom computer , you must cater to that need.
Another issue that is raised when using the Internet is security. As a teacher we have to give our students the tools to avoid inappropriate websites. I know in personally on more that a few occasions I have googled a topic and had pron pop up but if we can teach and monitor students properly this shouldn't be an issue.
Also, I think before any Internet use in the classroom ages k-12 we need to tell our students to never give out personal information. I feel it is important to use the scare tactic to get into students heads that there are a lot of crazies out there who are not nice people, all while emphasizing the importance to do the classroom research but not disclose any information about them selves.

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