In the next few posts I am going to talk about using the Internet in science teaching.

In 1995, I published my first website for the Global Thinking Project, and ever since then, have been involved in developing websites for my own projects, and teaching others how to develop their own websites for teaching.

Since that time, the Internet is perhaps the most transforming technology in history, reshaping business, media, entertainment, and society in amazing ways. Although innovators in science education (refer to TERC and the Concord Consortium for examples) entered this field rapidly, the spread of using the Internet in “amazing ways” has been slow to transform science classrooms.

In the past five years the number of school districts and universities offering individual courses, and entire degree programs online has grown exponentially. In fact you can access nearly all of MIT’s courses online at MITOPENCOURSEWARE. Using the Internet to offer courses to students at distance locations has a romantic appeal, but research has shown that creating effective online courses and programs is much more difficult than one might think.

In a report by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), innovative technology projects were reported from more than 20 countries. In their analysis of these projects, two factors emerged from their analysis: emerging practices and traditional practices. The emerging practice paradigm was characterized by pedagogy that made students active in and responsible for their own learning, involved them in cooperative or project-based learning, engaged them in the search for information, and allowed them to work at their own pace. Traditional practices were those where the development of skills was emphasized, where all students were working on the same material at the same pace, and where the teacher kept track of student activities and progress.

The chart below identifies several categories of innovations, and how the net is used to engage students and teachers in a variety of projects.

Here are few examples of projects that you might find interesting.
Student Collaborative Research: There are many examples for to explore here. Here are links to two of them: Project Pigeon Watch; Biokids

Social Action Project: The Salt Flats Project–This stellar project was developed in the context of using ICT in environmental studies, and involved middle and high school students (grades 7 -12) from a school located in the Southern Negev desert. The focal point of the project was the development of a major Website, which served as a “dynamic learning center” for the whole school, and schools along the boarder between Israel and Jordon. Students developed projects on geography and geology, wrote historical texts and created visuals, designed learning activities, and provided links relevant to the Salt Flats.

The examples given here are simply three of thousands of Internet projects that bring you and your students in contact with students in other schools not only in your own country, but with peers around the world. Here a chart showing the visitors and their countries that have visited this Weblog April 1 – 10. And this is just the top 25. Tomorrow, I’ll talk a bit about Weblogs, how they can enhance your teaching, and provide a few examples of outstanding sites you’ll just have to visit.