Potential and Problems due to Internet in School Education
What potential and problems do you associate with the use of the Internet in School Education? How might the maximum potential be achieved in this area?
In these days of technological advances, internet is said to be the most powerful educational tool that would transform the traditional form of education. The internet can provide different options of education instructions. Even distance education is possible with the use of the internet. The Internet is a technological breakthrough which allows us to talk to people in other states without the long distance charges, allows us to purchase products without having to go to the store, and in which allows us to get information about almost any topic without having to go to the library.
Nowadays, internet use in school education has rapidly becoming the mainstream component of educational instruction. The Internet becomes the solution to problems on low level of educational opportunities due to geographical location, school size, demographics of income and race/ethnicity, budgeting constraints, and substandard teachers.
Primarily, internet is used to search and find information. The Internet is being used as a high-tech encyclopedia. The Internet is similar with a very huge library with all the sources you may need to find the information you needed. Students may look up for information in the internet just like in the libraries.
According to (2001), the ability to deliver full-length courses and class work online will upend traditional and long-enduring notions of school and teachers will no longer be expected to be experts in academic subjects. Instead, they will serve as guides to learning, facilitators to help students discover what they need to know rather than serve as original sources of information.
Moreover, as (2001) states, the school campus of the future will cease to be the place where you go to specifically learn academics but rather, students will attend campus to counterbalance the social isolation and alienation that will come from the increasing amount of time they will spend in front of computer and TV screens. The role of school will change to become more of a social and activity center where students learn social skills through participation in group activities (2001). Students are usually bored and dissatisfied with the traditional type of instruction which have been the case for over a century. The Online education plays as the catalyst in this case.
However, not all students are Internet literate. Problems had came out that some of the students or people were slow or not connected to the Internet or they only used computers only for games. Some students didn't know how to really operate them. They didn’t even know how to receive email or send attachments. These start up a problem. It instead ended up doing a lot of computer instruction first. Instructions on computer operation are needed and these would take time. However, there students who are in the mid- to lower-third of achievement tend to do well with this technology if they are motivated because distance learning gives them more time. They're not constrained to the classroom. Also, another problem is that technology is available but it is still expensive. But in some ways, wherein you can't find teachers to handle the more advanced courses, such as calculus or physics in small, rural school districts because of limited resources, but through the Web or a satellite system, it could tap into courses designed and offered elsewhere. The internet continues to be integrated into Science classrooms at a torrid pace, with utilities such as virtual field trips, collaborative problem solving with students from all over the world, theme-based courses, and structured online learning (1997).
One of the biggest attractions of an online education is the ability to learn at any time (1995). Today information about earthquakes, bombings, trials, and election results can be disseminated world wide almost instantly. The point is communication capabilities are changing very quickly. The Web provides a forum for such instant communication. A document can be posted at one location in the world and retrieved almost instantly in another part of the world. Text, pictures, graphics, and even animations can be transmitted nearly instantly from one location to another.
According to (1996), maintaining a Web site is somewhat like publishing a paper, a book, a video, or links to other sites. Such sites can also support many forms of interaction. Having near instant access, independent of time, location, age, social, or economic status, to a world of Web sites is what constitutes the Web. Such sites are using common code that can be translated by a Web browser. Never before have we had such capabilities through direct access. It is only a matter of time until the Web will be processing real time action, video, audio, and online dialogues, and in some cases these already exist (2001).
In the contrary to these potentials of Internet, knowledge is dynamic rather than some fixed amount of information. What people believe is truth at one time, changes with new discoveries. Changes in the communication systems and dissemination of information are occurring very quickly. If people know how to get knowledge and how to interpret it, they can continue to learn and grow through lifelong learning.
Moreover, the Internet poses significant problems for parents and educators. Using online technologies, students have the capability to communicate with individuals or groups across the globe in which some of whom might mask their identities, genders, and motives. The students might be in danger with the people they come in contact with in the Internet. Indeed, over the past few years, many families have no doubt been shocked to learn that their teenage sons or daughters have suddenly left home to rendezvous with their online "lover" whom they have never seen (1995). Furthermore, pornography is also available in the Internet and students are potentially dangerous.
The traditional way of instruction emphasizes teaching, wherein the teacher is the sole source of knowledge, and the students wait for the information to flow from the teacher. With the knowledge explosion happening at the current rate and with instant communications, that model of instruction may not be the most affective model for helping students gain knowledge. There has a shift from teaching to learning that can allow students to develop skills for lifelong learning such as learning how to search for and gather knowledge, and whether the knowledge is making any sense.
In the older means of instruction, a systematic approach to teaching involved content being carefully broken into subtasks and taught one by one. An alternative approach would be to present the students with a problematic situation and figure out how to gather information and pursue the solution to that problem.
The usual instructional design model that is often used involves a linear process of teaching or learning where outcomes are identified, instruction is broken into sub goals or tasks and taught one by one. Many of the major skills to acquire, such as problem solving, communication, or thinking, are not simple outcomes to develop nor can they be easily taught. Teaching and learning needs to be rethought as more of a recursive rather than linear process, where emphasis is upon the big ideas and realization that they will not be developed instantly ( 2001). Such skills need to be developed at deeper and deeper levels through recursive cycles.
Careful thought needs to be given to how students can best develop their major skills and what are the major skills for the future. “Control is a major issue,” suggested (2001).
Also, one more comment concerning the teaching or learning process for disadvantaged students, particularly economically disadvantaged students, it is extremely important that schools help these students take advantage of the changes being brought on by technology. The more economically advantaged students will likely be able to benefit from the technological changes outside of school settings, where the economically disadvantaged students will not. Similarly, culturally diverse and special needs' students also need to be actively involved in changes being brought on by technology.
There will also be changes in the learning environment as mentioned by (2001). Shifting from thinking about teaching in a classroom alone to conceptualizing a classroom without walls also is feasible in the future because of the presence of evolving technology. We will no longer need to have desks in a classroom all lined up in rows and columns waiting for the knowledge to be handed down from the teacher with everyone working on the same page of the textbook at the same time. In many cases, a book is out of date before it even rolls off the printing press, as enormous amounts of information become available on the Web. Current events provide a number of opportunities for students to learn up-to-date information. Students can become far more active pursuing knowledge and solutions to problems and activities. Students can also be engaged in a variety of topics rather than everyone doing exactly the same thing. Students can become more active searchers of information rather than waiting for the teacher to transmit it to them.
According to (2001), there will also be changes in skills and curriculum. Shifts can occur in curriculum from closed to an open curriculum, where doors of opportunity for investigations are opened. There would be an assurance that teachers are not teaching out-of-date information ( 2001). Students will be able to access teachers' assignments and curriculum while in the classroom, the library, or home or anywhere they have an Internet connection. They can work collaboratively on projects or individual homework requirements.
Contrary to these potentials of the use of Internet, cheating and plagiarism is now widespread in school. According to (2004), students are downloading essays and assignments from the internet. Thousands of essay banks and coursework sites have sprung up on the internet in recent years, with A-grade papers just a few clicks of a button away from computer-literate teenagers. With pressure to produce top grades growing on both pupils and schools, the temptation to pass off someone else's work is high. External markers, who have no idea of an individual student's writing style, often have no way of differentiating between copied and original work. The problem of internet copying is so great among undergraduates in the country's universities and colleges.
On Whitfield’s research, he has found out that there are websites where you can buy coursework off the shelf. Thousands of websites now exist offering ready-made coursework in different subjects. Some sites sell their essays, while on others work can be accessed for free. Some even offer to tailor the work to fit past records of grades, saying that that way the cheating will be harder to spot. For teenagers who have grown up regarding the internet as a huge on-line library, the temptation to take work from the web and pass it off as their own has often proved too strong.
In the article of (2004), , manager of the Plagiarism Advisory Service concluded that much of the problem stems from the belief among young people that the internet is a no-limits source of information. She said that "there is now so much information available to students and pupils, and a lot of them don't seem to understand that they need to show where they've got things from. They understand that if they're copying something from a book or a journal they have to acknowledge that. There's less appreciation that it's just the same when information comes from a website,”she added. According to her, it's part of a wider culture. Teenagers are downloading music files and sharing them left, right and centre with their friends and they think it's the same with essays. When coursework questions are set, everyone knows what they're doing and how to find information. The questions are often general enough for people to be able to find some sort of answer on an essay bank (2004).
In report on (2003), pointed out a new study by a North lecturer, , claims that using the internet at school can lead to teenagers losing their confidence and becoming frustrated. Most teenagers lack the more complex information gathering skills necessary for internet searching, ultimately using the internet inefficiently, says of University. has completed a four-year research study into the subject.
According to (2003) report, states that “while the internet is an amazing resource, kids need to be empowered with the information literacy skills to be able to use the internet properly. Problems has compounded for the teenagers blaming themselves for failing to use the internet effectively. Teenagers blame themselves for unable to find the information they are looking for, added
Internet in school education has enormous potential to improve the level of education of students in most cases but still it should be considered that there are also problems that might be encountered.
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