Internet Projects

All of these internet activities are inter-related.  They differ to some extent about the particulars, of course, but what they do very successfully is to build off of the previous activities developed skills.  Internet workshops, projects, and inquiries all rely heavily on the students using the internet to find good, credible sources of information.  This is an important skill outside of the normal curriculum that is, unfortunately, not taught well enough to students of all ages.  This underlying theme to the internet activities presented in the videos by Dr. Leu (2004) is what makes them most useful, in my opinion.  You start with a workshop, which seems to be the easiest of the techniques.  This one is a solitary project for the most part, in comparison to the other forms of internet models to use.  Once the students find what information they are looking for their is a collaborative session where their learning is shared with the rest of the class.  The other forms of internet use in the classroom also share their work with other students but it is with whom and at what point in the process that differs.  With WebQuests curriculum materials are shared with a variety of students around the world.  The only requirement of the teacher is to have access to the internet and a knowledge of where the information can be found.  In the internet project 2 or more schools work directly with each other in order to increase both classes learning opportunities.  Where the workshop shares information among your own students, the project shares the information with a school hundreds of miles away or farther.  The inquiry project is not so easily shared among students until the project is over.  All of the work leading up to the presentation of the project is individual work.  These inquiry projects also give students the most freedom of choice with the result being an increased attention span.  The other models: workshops, projects, and webquests, all have more structured topics to cover and so offer less choice for the student to decide what is important for them to study.  The beautiful part of these models is how they all lead into one another.  Used in conjunction with one another these can be powerful learning tools.
I could see myself using these tools in my future classroom in a variety of ways.  I would definitely use the internet workshop in my science classes.  My Bachelors degree is in Environmental Conservation.  Having the students use the internet in class to research things like global warming or pollution related inquiries would be terrific.  I know that my particular school has a portable island of laptops that can be reserved for classroom use.  My particular class does not have a smartboard but they are available in other classrooms.  In the future I would like to use the internet project to let my students connect with other children around the world.  I can imagine a project where students from many areas around the world all collaborate on environmental problems local to each school district, ie. lake eutrophication, smog problems, toxic landfill runoff, species depletion.  I could see this project spanning many school districts around the world.  It would let students know that A. there are these environmental problems in their own backyard and B. these problems are local everywhere.  In addition to the factual learning this type of project would help students around the world become globalized in their thinking.
 

References
Dr. Leu, D.J. (2002) Introduction to models of internet use.  retrieved from http://ctell.uconn.edu/canter/canter_video.cfm?movie=1a_new_technologies.mov