The Internet in Teaching and Learning

Bill DodgeEDU 6606

Current and Emerging Instructional Technologies

6 November 2011

The Internet in Teaching and Learning

While this slideshow is not a factual “Top 10” list of best uses for the internet, these are among my top 10 uses as I conduct myself as a student and professional. The particular sites listed can be easily replaced with countless other sites. I thought these to be good examples for each Internet use and some that I frequent.

# 1 - Search Engines

Search engines allow teachers and students alike a gateway to information. Search engines such as Google Scholar provide scholarly material while sites like Yahoo help with general searches and have vast searchable content.

http://scholar.google.com/

http://www.yahoo.com/

#2 - Communication

The internet provides a multitude of forums for communication. Aside email, chat, blogs, discussion rooms and the like formal communication sites such as SearchTeam and Wimba Classroom provide teachers and students real-time collaborative classroom functions.

http://searchteam.com/

http://www.wimba.com/services/students/classroom/

# 3 - Internet Resources

Students and Teachers can easily find authoritative resources through sites like iSEEK Education. It has content from universities, government and established noncommercial providers. SearchEdu.com is a service that limits searches to the .edu, domain; and also offers to search dictionaries, encyclopedias and almanacs.

http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page

http://www.searchedu.com/

#4 – Course Administration

Virtual Classrooms via the Internet such as Blackboard provide students and teachers a host of functions from a single site. Everything from assignment submission, testing, peer reviews, discussion boards and resource links can be found on the Blackboard website.

http://troy.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

http://sitesforteachers.com/

#5 – Education Websites

Equally important to teachers and students are education websites. Not only do these sites help you find content relevant to learning, they can help you avoid biased, non-factual sites that may be misleading. Be sure to check the sources!

http://www.webs.uidaho.edu/info_literacy/

https://www.sitesforteachers.com

# 6 – Web Design

WebDesign.org and BuildYourSite.com are good sites for tutorials, software reviews, design showcases plus lots of free stuff to use in web design. These sites also offer links to designers if you need help and can also direct you to or offer web publishing service.

http://www.webdesign.org/

http://buildyoursite.com/website-builder.php

# 7 – Networking

Teachers and Students can make use of networking websites to provide both formal and informal connections and to promote social interaction and enhance professional affiliations. Classroom forums are a type of networking.

http://www.linkedin.com/

http://www.facebook.com/

# 8 – Professional Development

No list for teachers and students would be complete without listing sites for professional development. Since Troy State is a given, I am listing two professional sites I use to further my development and increase my skill sets outside the university system.

http://www.pmi.org/

http://www.dau.mil/default.aspx

# 9 – News & Current Events

Regardless of subject or topic, student and teacher access to news and news archives as well as researching current events is a valuable resource provided through the internet.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

http://www.foxnews.com/

# 10 - Messaging

Far beyond what email gave us years ago, instant messaging, tweets, blogs, and status posting on social sites broadcast to a defined audience or the public at large. Students and teachers can use these tools to keep in constant contact.

http://www.wimba.com/services/students/pronto/