The
Technology Age is here. By the year 2000, sixty percent (60%) of all jobs will require the use
of computers and technology (Gore, 1998). Our children, in order to be
successful in the next millennium, must be competent computer users. One of the
driving forces of making technology so prevalent is the popularity, power, and
ease of use of E-mail and the World Wide Web (WWW), two of the major aspects of
the Internet. It is not uncommon for students of today to be more proficient in
the use of these tools than their parents and even their teachers.
Obviously, as
teachers prepare students for life out of school, technology and the Internet must
be incorporated into the curriculum of schools. Of course, there are
many ways to do this, with both good and bad repercussions. There are
strong arguments both for and against using the Internet in the classroom.
Though, there is much information available about what we can find on the
Internet, there is little information about whether or not the impact of the
Internet in education actually improves our educational process.
Given increased
access to the Internet, what is the impact of the Internet on our teachers,
students, and education? Although more and more teachers express interest in
incorporating the Internet into their curriculum, many do not know how, do not
have the resources to do so, and do not have the time to create new lesson
plans, evaluation techniques, and daily notes for a new curriculum. With the
increased use of the Internet, the world?s borders become more and more faded
and a true global education becomes realistic. Students may realize foreign
languages are essential to communication across borders they cross in
Cyberspace. Curiosity towards other cultures and countries should increase, and
thus interest in history and geography classes increases as students
communicate with other students of similar ages who live in other areas of the
world, about which they used to only read in books.
Is there a
significant increase in all-around performance and motivation of students and
teachers who utilize the Internet in their learning? It seems that where there is motivation, there is self-learning
and the natural curiosity for knowledge becomes a priority.
The researcher has been
actively involved in computers and education for over fifteen (15) years. The
World Wide Web(WWW) has rooted across the world faster than anyone imagined.
What this will one day offer us and where it will lead are still matters of
speculation. For this reason, many schools have had to determine if they are
going to use the Internet in their schools, and if so, how they will use it and
how they will evaluate it. Over the years, the researcher has actively sought
articles concerning Internet usage and its effect of teachers, students, and
schools. While there are some articles available about the Internet in general,
very few studies have been completed focusing on the usage, and impact in
private education. As private schools are bound by different rules than public
school, they are able to make decisions based on their own needs as opposed to
those of the district, city, or state.
Through five years of interacting with faculty and staff as a teacher at
a private school and interacting with many faculty from other private schools,
the researcher felt that there was indeed a great deal of interest in what
private schools are doing in relation to the Internet.
Our government
officials are also showing a great deal of interest in the idea of actively
using the Internet in classes. Gore (1998), points out that many of the studies he saw
indicated that technology as a whole brought energy and motivation to the
classroom. Schools with Internet access
are seeing better attendance rates, better writing skills of their students,
and better thinking skills. He is
speaking about public and private schools.
Neil Rudenstine, President of Harvard University, is also a very
big advocate of incorporating the Internet into our classrooms. He believes, as
many others, that finally we have found a media that can be both educational
and fun. We have found something that can keep students? attention longer than
anything else we have tried. (?The Internet and Education?, 1997). Many
students are already using the Internet in their recreational time.
If teachers can find ways to harness this newfound
energy and desire to learn from the students and incorporate that into a student driven educational process, our
students have the chance to be one of the most intelligent generations ever.
The world today is one
in which the reputation of public schools is suffering because of the increased
violence, lower test grades, questionable government policies, and sometimes
questionable quality of instruction.
Private schools have seen a dramatic increase in class sizes over the
last ten years as parents and students demand to have a stronger say in their
education. However, there are still very few studies done that are focused on
the efforts and accomplishments of teachers, administration, and staff in only
private education. This became evident throughout the research process and led
the researcher into focusing this paper towards private education. The survey shared valuable information that
has not been previously available to the public.
THE PURPOSE OF
THE STUDY AND RELATED RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The concept for this study originated during a
class using the Internet taught by the researcher at a private school. Working
in the computer lab with a middle school science teacher, students were
enjoying themselves while learning about the various cloud formations in the
atmosphere. They were able to play interactive games to help learn the names
and differences; they were able to see actual video footage, radar maps, and animations,
and they were able to take interactive quizzes in which the results were graded
and sent to the teacher via E-mail. One of the students, normally very quiet
and reserved, commented aloud, ?I wish all our classes were like this. It is so
much more fun to learn.? This brought
out a larger point of whether using the Internet in the classroom is truly
beneficial for the long-term education of the students. Were other teachers using the Internet? Were
other teachers seeing good results when they used it? Was it fair that some
teachers used it and others did not?
Were classes that used the Internet better than those at other schools
that did not? Why, or why not, were
teachers using (or not using) the Internet in class? These questions and many more helped pave the way for the
eventual writing of this paper. In a
world in which almost one hundred fifty-four (154) million people are actively
using the Internet, students of tomorrow will be using it in virtually every
aspect of their life. Technological leaders of today, such as Bill Gates
(Microsoft) and Steve Jobs (Apple, DreamWorks), speak often of the Internet and
the future of networking as it becomes cheaper, easier, and more and more
powerful. These leaders tell us that the Internet will be as valuable to our
future life as our cars are today. Soon after taking an interest in the impact
of the Internet in the classroom, the researcher spent a few days informally
researching basic student views on the Internet (see Appendix D). Students,
from 6th grade to 12th grade, overwhelmingly felt that
something about the Internet made whatever was on the screen more interesting.
Almost all felt it was an extremely valuable research tool and would help their
teachers teach certain sections of class better.
There was a surprisingly mature attitude taken by the students as they were
asked to evaluate the Internet. While they were very positive and optimistic,
there were also many who were also afraid of how it would change the world. This informal survey, given to about 150
students would be a foundation for the creation of the survey used for this
paper; many of the original questions from that survey were also used on the
survey for this paper. The purpose of this study is to determine if the
teachers in private education (in U.S. southeastern states of South Carolina,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama) were using
the Internet in an effective way to better the educational experience of their
students. The researcher hopes this paper will be a good starting point for
anyone else wishing to investigate a very deep, extremely interesting, very
controversial subject of the Internet in our schools. Specifically, this paper
will address the following questions:
In private education in the southern United States,
1)
Are
teachers using the Internet in class?
2) What is the frequency of use?
3) Do teachers perceive improvements that are directly related to
Internet usage?
4) What Internet tools have proved to be most effective for the students
to use?
5) Should the skills needed to traverse the Internet be considered a
basic skill?
6) Are teachers using the Internet to learn more about their subject
area?
7) Are
schools taking an active role in getting their classrooms connected to the
Internet? Are they encouraging use of the Internet in class?
8) Do
schools take an active role in training (or helping to train) teachers to use
the Internet in class?
9) Do
teachers see the Internet as a powerful media of instruction? Do the positive traits outweigh the negative
for using the Internet is class?
10) What
relationships exist between age, subject, years of experience, or degree as
they relate to Internet usage?
Significance
of the Study
With the information obtained from this survey,
schools, which are looking to expand their usage of the Internet in class, will
have some information available that will indicate what is and is not working
at some schools. Other teachers will be able to determine how often, and in
what ways they might best use the Internet in their class. They will be able to
see what their peers (by sex, age, subject, location, and experience) are doing
in their classes and how they perceive the benefits of those lessons. The
researched literature will offer, the supporter and skeptic, information about
the benefits and negative impacts dealing with the Internet in our schools. The
study will also provide a sound base of data to which schools may compare their
attitudes and activities with the some of the other schools in the states
around them. While some seem to think computers and the Internet are the savior
of American education, there is also research to show the viewpoints that there
are more fundamental issues at stake, and the Internet is simply one, of many,
tools available to teachers and students.
Included in the research are opinions of students, teachers, parents,
administration, business leaders, community leaders, politicians, religious
leaders, and, of course, average citizens. Through these conversations, the
researcher hopes to offer the many viewpoints about the concerns, fears, and
support for one the fastest, most powerful technologies to come along in
hundreds of years.
Delimitations
of the Study
Surveys were sent to randomly selected private
schools, both high school and middle school, in the southeastern United States.
Included in the packet (see Appendix B) was a letter of introduction to the
administrator (see Appendix A) asking
for cooperation, ten printed copies of the four-page survey with a letter of
introduction to the teachers asking for their assistance in completing the
survey, and a floppy disk with the survey in various word processing formats to
allow extra copies or email attachment returns. There was no way to ensure that
the administrator gave each teacher an equal chance to complete the survey.
Perhaps some administrators gave only copies to the ?best? users of technology
at the school. There is no way to
determine whether the administrator required participation of the survey if the
answers given are truly accurate reflections of actual use or are reflections of desired use.
Due to schools being located in many states, the
researcher was unable to deliver and collect (in person) the surveys. The
survey was subject to the everyday dealings of the post office, which means
some may have been lost or too late in arriving or returning. The subject of the impact and usage of the
Internet in the classroom requires that many of the responses be subjective.
This makes it very difficult to make general statements about the collected
data. The survey was approximately
thirty(30) minutes in length, so there may have been some teachers who were
unable to complete the survey (completely or thoroughly) because of an already
busy schedule. This means there may not have been extended answers to some of
the questions which explained their responses in more detail. The survey had to
be kept as short as possible so as to generate a high return rate, but needed
to include as many questions as possible to obtain the desired information. In
such a broad area, with so many variables, the survey had be very selective
about the questions used, so some valuable information may not have been
obtained.