Information Access How To...Save Time How To...Ensure Safety How to...Maximize Internet Access
	You and your students will find the Internet to be a rich resource for research. There are four challenges that most teachers face as they begin to use the Internet for research in their classrooms: limited amounts of time; limited access to computers; limited points of Internet access; and student safety and privacy. This section provides you with strategies for overcoming these challenges and choosing and using the software in this kit to maximize your research experience on the Internet. How To...Save Time Going online to research a particular subject can be daunting. Without search strategies, students could wander for a long time without finding anything of value. Teach your students how to use search engines and how to browse by modeling search techniques and by having them use the tutorials on Internet, the City. Internet Curriculum Connections provides two types of resources that save you time searching the Internet: online subscription services and CDs with live links to the Internet. Scholastic NetWork is an online subscription service that comes with this kit. You sign onto the network, type in your user name and password, and then have full access to all its resources which include curriculum areas for teachers and students, places to find partners in collaboration and a searchable topic database. Links go right out onto the Internet. Electric Library is the second online subscription service in the kit. You will be assigned a user name and password which you type in each time you sign on. It provides a searchable library of excellent reference sources for student research. It too, provides links out to the Internet and saves lots of time. Encarta Deluxe is a CD encyclopedia which is searchable by keywords. Articles contain links to other parts of the CD as well as links that go directly onto the Internet for more current information on the topic. The Ancient Civilizations Web Pack is a lesson-planning resource with links to Internet sites grouped by subject area. Multidisciplinary units and activities with connections between social studies and math, science, language arts, and the arts make it easier to plan to use the Internet in your curriculum. One way to save time in research is to preselect sites for your students. You can do this with several of the tools in this kit. DragNet Features: You can create folders of links grouped by assignment or topic. This ensures that students will find what they need safely and efficiently. These folders can be saved from year to year so that you don't have to "reinvent the wheel" each time you teach a unit. DragNet also has a "URL validator" which will go out and check to see if the sites you saved last year are still there. Strategies for using DragNet: DragNet allows you to collect Internet URLs into searchable directories. As you develop curriculum units throughout the year, create DragNet folders with the Internet resources you need. DragNet folders can be imported and exported, making it possible for you to copy these files onto your students' computers and send them to partner classrooms. Web Buddy Features: Web Buddy is an "offline browser" which allows you to download sites and use them from your hard disk. This reduces the need for constant Internet access. If you have access to the Internet from a limited number of computers in your school, download the sites that pertain to your units of study and copy the files onto your classroom computers or a server. Students have access to the sites, can browse by clicking on links, and can carry out their research safely and efficiently. Strategies for using Web Buddy: Once it is installed, the Web Buddy tool bar appears at the bottom of the screen when you launch your browser. While you are online, use Web Buddy to download Web pages or whole Web sites and save them into folders in Web Buddy Central. The program helps you create your own customized folders which you name yourself. This will allow you to group and save Web sites to be used again without going back online. Myrmidon +Personal Web Sharing Features: Myrmidon converts text to HTML. Strategies for using Myrmidon: Use this program to create an HTML-based class assignment sheet which you post to the Personal Web Sharing server in your classroom or lab. Include links to the worksheets, and specific Internet sites (Myrmidon converts all Internet addressesÑeven e-mail addressesÑin a text document, to active links.) This will facilitate independent and group work, as students can access all of the materials necessary for the project because you have placed them in a central location. Use Myrmidon to convert students' work to HTML format and publish it on your school's intranet or Internet site. Other students and teachers will be able to connect to the site and view the work; even parents will be able to see it if your school's network is accessible to the public. How To...Ensure Safety The Internet is still a wide open place where students can stumble onto inappropriate content. Many teachers feel much safer creating DragNet folders or downloaded ("whacked") sites to keep school Internet usage appropriate. Restricting students from searching the Web is not necessarily the answer, though. Work with your school and parents to establish an "Acceptable Use Policy" for safe and appropriate use of the Internet. There are a number of sites on the Internet that will help you develop an "Acceptable Use Policy": A guide to writing AUPs, created by the Southern Indiana Education Center, containing a model AUP and a list of what should be included in an AUP can be found at http://mercury.esc.k12.in.is/aup/index.html. You can also go the Alta Vista directory and search using "Acceptable Use Policy" as the criteria. You will find many examples to choose from. Helping your students to use the Internet appropriately will ensure that they can make full use of this valuable research resource.   How to...Maximize Internet Access Once you have developed efficient and safe Internet usage patterns, the last challenge may be getting sufficient access to Internet resources. It may be that you have one Internet-connected computer in your classroom or that you share a computer in the media center. Planning for access may mean that your students use the Internet station in small groups. It may also mean that you will need to create desktop files that contain hot links to sites for your students or that contain whole sites so that students can efficiently do their work. The Internet gets very slow after 12:00 noon Eastern Standard Time. You might consider timing your heaviest use to occur early in the morning on the East coast and later in the day on the West coast. ClickBook Features: ClickBook can be used for printing a website or standard text in booklet or brochure formats. Strategies for using ClickBook: If your classroom has limited access to Internet-connected computers, you can print whole Web sites and create a classroom library of website booklets. Students can create their own set of Web booklets as resources for their individual projects. If the class creates its own Web site for a curriculum project, the site can be published for parents as a ClickBook booklet. Use these booklets each time you teach the unit. Internet Gateway Features: If you have only one computer connected to the Internet by a modem with dial-up access through an Internet service provider (ISP), this product allows up to three other computers (they must be networked. LocalTalk will work) to use that one connection at the same time. You'll create your own mini-network right in your classroom! Combining software Web Buddy and Personal Web Sharing are a powerful duo. If you have limited access to computers with Internet connections, you can preselect sites, download them with Web Buddy and save them to a central computer. Turn on Personal Web Sharing and all of the computers networked (LocalTalk will work) to that computer will be able to see those sites. Myrmidon and Personal Web Sharing can create simple lists of URLs which can be posted to the central computer. The links will be active and students can use these lists to jump straight to these sites. By using the software titles mentioned in this section in creative combinations, you will be able to create starting places for your units that include active links to the Internet, downloaded sites, and full instructions for your classÑall in HTML format.