Chapter 7- Distance Learning Tools and the Role of the Internet in Education

In today’s society, it is important for students to learn how to appropriately use the Internet. The Internet is a great way to find information and communicate with others. However, the Internet does have pitfalls that teachers need to address when using it with their students. One pitfall is that there are many sites that contain inappropriate materials. Schools usually install firewall software and/or filtering software to prevent students from accessing these sites. Another pitfall is copyright and plagiarism issues. According to Roblyer and Doering (2010), “…the growing wealth of written products available on the Internet makes it all too easy for students to locate material and cite it without crediting the author or even to turn in whole papers as their own,” (p. 219). As teachers, we need to be aware of this issue and teach our students the importance of citing their sources. We should also use sites to check for plagiarism.

In addition, we need to evaluate the information that we are using from the Internet and teach our students how to evaluate information from the Internet as well. Content and design are two potential problems concerning the legitimacy of information found on the Internet. The book provides a useful checklist (Figure 7.6 on p. 216) to help teachers and students determine if the content of the website they are using is accurate and reliable. Design can effect a student’s ability to locate or read information provided on the website. Teachers should keep this in mind when providing websites for the students to use during a research project.