QUESTION
Chapter 7 – Distance Learning Tools and the Role of the Internet in Education
Q. 1: Briefly explain the technical difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web (www).
Ans: The terms Internet and the World Wide Web are often used interchangeably but technically these two terms have different meanings. The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet which is the net of innumerable computers connected with each other, making it a very large network. The World Wide Web uses the Internet for the purpose of communication. In this process, communication on the Internet is made easier, enjoyable and productive by the web. Internet browsers are used to connect with the World Wide Web on the Internet. Internet or the interconnection of computer networks is a huge combination of personal and business computers which was started in 1960 under the name of ARPnet. It was originally designed for the US military to help it maintain communications in the event of a possible nuclear strike.
Question 2: Briefly describe the term multimedia search engines. As a teacher, describe how you might be able to use some of the resources that you found.
Answer: multimedia search engines can index and search digital multimedia archives. As audio and video content is difficult to browse these search engines can save a lot of time and effort in finding the relevant content. Similarly, indexing multimedia content is more complex than indexing the text content. Continuous media like videos is broken into chunks for achieving better precision in the search results by the multimedia search engines.
There are several advantages of multimedia search engines. As a teacher the resources found on various multimedia search engines like Alta Vista.com, www.alltheweb.com, www.ditto.com, Google images, Picsearch and Singingfish could help in locating audio video files or images from across the web. We can search images or videos by selecting the image or the video tab provided on the search engines. There’s also an audio tab in some search engines which helps us locate audio files on the web. These tools can be quite effective in teaching and learning and many institutions are experimenting with these new approaches. It is considered that it could be a valuable method of encouraging development of higher order thinking skills like analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating. These approaches also aim at developing the problem-solving abilities of the young people and develop the ability to work in groups and learn lifelong skills. The relevance of these skills for life in information economy is well recognized now.
Question 3: Consider the five potential, current pitfalls in Internet use for education, as summarized on pages 217-219. Choose the one that you feel is most critical, briefly summarize the pitfall, and state why you feel that it is such as important issue.
Ans: The use of Internet is growing rapidly in education also but it too has its own problems and a society wide debate is also going on to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the use of Internet in education. The five main problems with the use of Internet in education that are faced by the educators are:- (i) inappropriate content: there is a huge amount of material available on the Internet and the parents and teachers would not want the children to see many things that are available on the Internet. As the purpose of the Internet is to make information easily accessible, such objectionable or inappropriate information is also easily accessible to the children. (ii) Privacy and safety: it is also a major pitfall while using Internet as a tool for education. The children could be exposed to dangerous people on the Internet. Similarly many websites have advertisements that are especially aimed at the young people to attract them with colorful and compelling images. The privacy of the students is also a major issue when it comes to the use of Internet as a tool for education. (iii) Fraud On The Internet: Most areas the Internet are not safe and like all other online consumers, teachers and students should use reputed and well known websites for making any kind of purchases. (iv) Hacking and computer viruses: viruses and hacking are two other pitfalls that are encountered while using Internet as a tool for education. These can attack the computers through e-mail attachments or downloaded files. Hackers can also gain unauthorized access to computer systems and steal or corrupt valuable data. (v) Plagiarism and copyright: Internet provides access to documents, images and many other resources so easily that sometimes the students can forget that they are protected by copyright. With the availability of such huge written material, it is easy for the students to use such material without crediting the author.
The greatest pitfall in the use of Internet as a tool for education is the availability of huge amount of inappropriate content on the Internet. Effective steps need to be taken by the teachers as well as the parents to make such websites inaccessible to the children.
Question 4: What is the difference between an asynchronous Internet discussion and a synchronous Internet discussion? Also, give an example of each.
Answer: asynchronous Internet discussion is generally facilitated by media like e-mail and discussion boards. It supports the work relation between teachers and students even when the participants are not able to be online at the same time. Therefore it is an important component used in the flexible e-learning. The importance of asynchronous Internet discussion can be gauged from the fact that some people opt for online courses only due to their asynchronous nature which allows them to combine education with work and other commitments. Asynchronous e-learning allows the learners to logon any time and download relevant documents or send messages to their teachers or their peers. On the other hand synchronous Internet discussion is supported by media like videoconferencing or a chat. Teachers and students find synchronous Internet debate as more social and it also allows them to ask and answer questions in real time. It helps the learners feel like participants rather than isolates (Hrastinski, 2007). While learning through e-mail is a good example of a synchronized learning, videoconferencing provides a good example of synchronized learning (Ertmer, Hruskocy & Woods 2003).
Question 5: Consider Blackboard and Moodle. How are they the same and how are they different?
Answer: blackboard and Moodle, both are popular online learning platforms among the educators as they help in the development of complete online courses which can include multimedia content also. A brief comparison of the two reveals that there are some advantages as well as disadvantages while using both the tools (Sotillo, 2000). Blackboard is a proprietary learning management system and its use is very limited for the educators. Moreover the institutions where it is used have to pay an annual license fee for its use. On the other hand, Moodle is open source learning management system which is available for free and can be used on several operating systems. It can be downloaded for free and educators can use it to develop or supplement a course. The latest version of Moodle provides easier navigation and improved user profiles. A new future allows the teachers to check the work of the students for plagiarism. On the other hand the latest version of Blackboard incorporates several improvements for its use in higher education. The blackboard connect feature available in the latest version alerts the students regarding due dates, academic priorities and deadlines.
Chapter 8 – Integrating the Internet into the Curriculum
Question 1: Make use of one of the web sites listed in Table 8.1 on page 242. Develop a full explanation of a web-based lesson or project that you might use when teaching. Be sure to indicate the subject and grade level.
Answer: interactive multimedia approaches are considered quite effective and one researcher has even reported that experimental teaching approaches which use multimedia authoring can provide meaning to the activities that look laborious or going on paper (Hayes, 2004). Another study showed significant improvement in the capillary and spelling skills of the students. It also increased the reading fluency of the students. The students, who have access to both the text format as well as the multimedia format, find the multimedia format to be more interesting (Cuban, 2002).
Question: Make use of one of the web sites listed in Table 8.2 on page 244.Find a lesson plan that might like to use when teaching (and find instructionally valuable). Briefly describe why you chose the lesson. Be sure to indicate the subject and grade level, and provide the URL for the website that you used. Print the lesson plan, and attach.
Answer: In the present assignment we’re going to make a web-based lesson for the seventh grade students to increase their reading fluency and comprehension. To make such instructions really meaningful an ongoing evaluation could prove to be quite helpful. The primary object of this web-based lesson is to enable the students to identify prefixes when they are given a list of morphemes. The lesson provides the basic introduction to the notion of morphemes which are suffixes, prefixes and roots. The lesson should enable students to learn the location of different types of parts of the word and how meaning is derived by words from the morphemes contained by them. The computer is needed to have an Internet browser installed. Microsoft PowerPoint should also be installed on the computers.
Question 4:
a. How successful was the video tutorial; that is, do you understand what it is, how it works, and how to use it?
Ans: VideoANT is an easy to use, Internet environment which was developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota. This is an online video annotation system which synchronizes videos with the timeline based text annotations. This system is designed to engage the students by supporting the interaction between the teachers and students and their videos. VideoANT can handle videos from YouTube and other sources on the Internet and also the locally hosted videos.
b. How comfortable would you be annotating your own video clip using VideoANT?
Ans: I will be comfortable while annotating my own videos as it would provide a platform to the students to march along the timeline and also write comments at the side of the video. The students will be able to discuss the video as they are seeing it and the process can be taken a step further when an archive matching the various points in the video is created.
c. As a teacher, describe a way that you might use VideoANT instructionally.
Ans: Teachers can start using videoANT by clicking on the launch link provided on the home page and then put in the title of the video they want to annotate, provide an e-mail address and then enter the URL of the video. Teachers can write comments next to the video. It is very helpful for students also as they can discuss the video while it is being played.
Question: Find an image (photo) on the web that you might like to use in a publication that you create as a teacher.
Interactive Learning
Image taken from: http://www.google.co.in/imgres?q=internet+in+classroom+teaching+Australia&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1366&bih=665&tbm=isch&tbnid=hFzZTAvU4pe1UM:&imgrefurl=http://www.plps.sa.edu.au/classroom-spaces/&docid=VOtPpdQ9_MsyuM&imgurl=http://www.plps.sa.edu.au/assets/Uploads/images/_resampled/ResizedImage600347-lote.jpg&w=600&h=347&ei=dd9-T-eQOcTTrQeAofnOBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1030&vpy=297&dur=7675&hovh=171&hovw=295&tx=271&ty=100&sig=102274334693992216444&page=2&tbnh=123&tbnw=212&start=18&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:18,i:135
Question 5: Explain your understanding of the term plug-in, and explain why they are so important to your use of the Internet.
Answer: Plug in is a set of software components which adds particular abilities to larger software applications. These plug-ins allow customizing the functionality of the application if they are supported by it. They are commonly used by web browsers to play videos, display new file types and scan for viruses. Some of the popular plug-ins commonly used Adobe Flash Player, Microsoft Silverline and Quick Time. These plug ins are very important in our day to day use of the Internet as they allow third party developers to create new abilities which could extend the application.
Question: Describe the ways in which we use FTP software for this course.
FTP Software can be used in different ways to enhance the interactive learning in classroom. While it allows easy sharing and transfer of files including audio and video files, it also helps in easy dissemination of information. With the help of FTP software we can integrate effectively the information and communications technology into the classroom. It can help us in increasing and improving the quality, cost efficiency and accessibility of the delivery of education by taking advantage of the benefits provided by network learning communities.
References:
Cuban, L. Undersold & Underused: Computers in Classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Hayes, D. Leading Technologies: A midterm analysis of a longitudinal study into the integration of learning technologies in NSW Public Schools. Paper presented at NZARE-AARE 2003 Conference, New Zealand, 2003.
Stefan Hrastinski, “The Potential of Synchronous Communication to Enhance Participation in Online Discussions,” paper presented at the 28th International Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, Canada, 2007.
Ertmer, P., Hruskocy, C., & Woods, D. (2003). Education on the internet: The world wide classroom. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Merrill Prentice Hall.
SOLUTION
Chapter 7 – Distance Learning Tools and the Role of the Internet in Education
Q. 1: Briefly explain the technical difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web (www).
Ans: The terms Internet and the World Wide Web are often used interchangeably but technically these two terms have different meanings. The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet which is the net of innumerable computers connected with each other, making it a very large network. The World Wide Web uses the Internet for the purpose of communication. In this process, communication on the Internet is made easier, enjoyable and productive by the web. Internet browsers are used to connect with the World Wide Web on the Internet. Internet or the interconnection of computer networks is a huge combination of personal and business computers which was started in 1960 under the name of ARPnet. It was originally designed for the US military to help it maintain communications in the event of a possible nuclear strike.
Question 2: Briefly describe the term multimedia search engines. As a teacher, describe how you might be able to use some of the resources that you found.
Answer: multimedia search engines can index and search digital multimedia archives. As audio and video content is difficult to browse these search engines can save a lot of time and effort in finding the relevant content. Similarly, indexing multimedia content is more complex than indexing the text content. Continuous media like videos is broken into chunks for achieving better precision in the search results by the multimedia search engines.
There are several advantages of multimedia search engines. As a teacher the resources found on various multimedia search engines like Alta Vista.com, www.alltheweb.com, www.ditto.com, Google images, Picsearch and Singingfish could help in locating audio video files or images from across the web. We can search images or videos by selecting the image or the video tab provided on the search engines. There’s also an audio tab in some search engines which helps us locate audio files on the web. These tools can be quite effective in teaching and learning and many institutions are experimenting with these new approaches. It is considered that it could be a valuable method of encouraging development of higher order thinking skills like analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating. These approaches also aim at developing the problem-solving abilities of the young people and develop the ability to work in groups and learn lifelong skills. The relevance of these skills for life in information economy is well recognized now.
Question 3: Consider the five potential, current pitfalls in Internet use for education, as summarized on pages 217-219. Choose the one that you feel is most critical, briefly summarize the pitfall, and state why you feel that it is such as important issue.
Ans: The use of Internet is growing rapidly in education also but it too has its own problems and a society wide debate is also going on to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the use of Internet in education. The five main problems with the use of Internet in education that are faced by the educators are:- (i) inappropriate content: there is a huge amount of material available on the Internet and the parents and teachers would not want the children to see many things that are available on the Internet. As the purpose of the Internet is to make information easily accessible, such objectionable or inappropriate information is also easily accessible to the children. (ii) Privacy and safety: it is also a major pitfall while using Internet as a tool for education. The children could be exposed to dangerous people on the Internet. Similarly many websites have advertisements that are especially aimed at the young people to attract them with colorful and compelling images. The privacy of the students is also a major issue when it comes to the use of Internet as a tool for education. (iii) Fraud On The Internet: Most areas the Internet are not safe and like all other online consumers, teachers and students should use reputed and well known websites for making any kind of purchases. (iv) Hacking and computer viruses: viruses and hacking are two other pitfalls that are encountered while using Internet as a tool for education. These can attack the computers through e-mail attachments or downloaded files. Hackers can also gain unauthorized access to computer systems and steal or corrupt valuable data. (v) Plagiarism and copyright: Internet provides access to documents, images and many other resources so easily that sometimes the students can forget that they are protected by copyright. With the availability of such huge written material, it is easy for the students to use such material without crediting the author.
The greatest pitfall in the use of Internet as a tool for education is the availability of huge amount of inappropriate content on the Internet. Effective steps need to be taken by the teachers as well as the parents to make such websites inaccessible to the children.
Question 4: What is the difference between an asynchronous Internet discussion and a synchronous Internet discussion? Also, give an example of each.
Answer: asynchronous Internet discussion is generally facilitated by media like e-mail and discussion boards. It supports the work relation between teachers and students even when the participants are not able to be online at the same time. Therefore it is an important component used in the flexible e-learning. The importance of asynchronous Internet discussion can be gauged from the fact that some people opt for online courses only due to their asynchronous nature which allows them to combine education with work and other commitments. Asynchronous e-learning allows the learners to logon any time and download relevant documents or send messages to their teachers or their peers. On the other hand synchronous Internet discussion is supported by media like videoconferencing or a chat. Teachers and students find synchronous Internet debate as more social and it also allows them to ask and answer questions in real time. It helps the learners feel like participants rather than isolates (Hrastinski, 2007). While learning through e-mail is a good example of a synchronized learning, videoconferencing provides a good example of synchronized learning (Ertmer, Hruskocy & Woods 2003).
Question 5: Consider Blackboard and Moodle. How are they the same and how are they different?
Answer: blackboard and Moodle, both are popular online learning platforms among the educators as they help in the development of complete online courses which can include multimedia content also. A brief comparison of the two reveals that there are some advantages as well as disadvantages while using both the tools (Sotillo, 2000). Blackboard is a proprietary learning management system and its use is very limited for the educators. Moreover the institutions where it is used have to pay an annual license fee for its use. On the other hand, Moodle is open source learning management system which is available for free and can be used on several operating systems. It can be downloaded for free and educators can use it to develop or supplement a course. The latest version of Moodle provides easier navigation and improved user profiles. A new future allows the teachers to check the work of the students for plagiarism. On the other hand the latest version of Blackboard incorporates several improvements for its use in higher education. The blackboard connect feature available in the latest version alerts the students regarding due dates, academic priorities and deadlines.
Chapter 8 – Integrating the Internet into the Curriculum
Question 1: Make use of one of the web sites listed in Table 8.1 on page 242. Develop a full explanation of a web-based lesson or project that you might use when teaching. Be sure to indicate the subject and grade level.
Answer: interactive multimedia approaches are considered quite effective and one researcher has even reported that experimental teaching approaches which use multimedia authoring can provide meaning to the activities that look laborious or going on paper (Hayes, 2004). Another study showed significant improvement in the capillary and spelling skills of the students. It also increased the reading fluency of the students. The students, who have access to both the text format as well as the multimedia format, find the multimedia format to be more interesting (Cuban, 2002).
Question2: Make use of one of the web sites listed in Table 8.2 on page 244.Find a lesson plan that might like to use when teaching (and find instructionally valuable). Briefly describe why you chose the lesson. Be sure to indicate the subject and grade level, and provide the URL for the website that you used. Print the lesson plan, and attach.
Answer: In the present assignment we’re going to make a web-based lesson for the seventh grade students to increase their reading fluency and comprehension. To make such instructions really meaningful an ongoing evaluation could prove to be quite helpful. The primary object of this web-based lesson is to enable the students to identify prefixes when they are given a list of morphemes. The lesson provides the basic introduction to the notion of morphemes which are suffixes, prefixes and roots. The lesson should enable students to learn the location of different types of parts of the word and how meaning is derived by words from the morphemes contained by them. The computer is needed to have an Internet browser installed. Microsoft PowerPoint should also be installed on the computers.
Question: Consider the six Technology Integration Lessons on pages 245-248. Which would you feel most comfortable using as a teacher, and why?
Answer: technology offers an opportunity to the students to connect their learning with the real world problems. These days’ students spend considerable amount of time being online or using other computer applications. All age groups can benefit from the interactive and elaborate training provided by these tools as compared to the passive training. Most of the Student Computer Interaction (SCI) takes place in form of communication of information by the computer to students. There are three kinds of uses for computers as learning tools. They are used for teaching students about the working of computers. Next is the use of computers as teachers and third use of computers is for assisting the students in learning. The software applications associated with education technology include instructional, administrative and productivity. We feel that the use of technology as direct student learning tool and student as a designer/developer is the most important. As compared to students who watched passively to the information passed by the teacher, the students who had control over access to information and students who had the chance to create a technologically enhanced project by using the same information showed much better results.
Question 4:
- How successful was the video tutorial; that is, do you understand what it is, how it works, and how to use it?
Ans: VideoANT is an easy to use, Internet environment which was developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota. This is an online video annotation system which synchronizes videos with the timeline based text annotations. This system is designed to engage the students by supporting the interaction between the teachers and students and their videos. VideoANT can handle videos from YouTube and other sources on the Internet and also the locally hosted videos.
- How comfortable would you be annotating your own video clip using VideoANT?
Ans: I will be comfortable while annotating my own videos as it would provide a platform to the students to march along the timeline and also write comments at the side of the video. The students will be able to discuss the video as they are seeing it and the process can be taken a step further when an archive matching the various points in the video is created.
- As a teacher, describe a way that you might use VideoANT instructionally.
Ans: Teachers can start using videoANT by clicking on the launch link provided on the home page and then put in the title of the video they want to annotate, provide an e-mail address and then enter the URL of the video. Teachers can write comments next to the video. It is very helpful for students also as they can discuss the video while it is being played.
Question: Find an image (photo) on the web that you might like to use in a publication that you create as a teacher.
Interactive Learning
Question 5: Explain your understanding of the term plug-in, and explain why they are so important to your use of the Internet.
Answer: Plug in is a set of software components which adds particular abilities to larger software applications. These plug-ins allow customizing the functionality of the application if they are supported by it. They are commonly used by web browsers to play videos, display new file types and scan for viruses. Some of the popular plug-ins commonly used Adobe Flash Player, Microsoft Silverline and Quick Time. These plug ins are very important in our day to day use of the Internet as they allow third party developers to create new abilities which could extend the application.
Question: Describe the ways in which we use FTP software for this course.
FTP Software can be used in different ways to enhance the interactive learning in classroom. While it allows easy sharing and transfer of files including audio and video files, it also helps in easy dissemination of information. With the help of FTP software we can integrate effectively the information and communications technology into the classroom. It can help us in increasing and improving the quality, cost efficiency and accessibility of the delivery of education by taking advantage of the benefits provided by network learning communities.
References:
Cuban, L. Undersold & Underused: Computers in Classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Hayes, D. Leading Technologies: A midterm analysis of a longitudinal study into the integration of learning technologies in NSW Public Schools. Paper presented at NZARE-AARE 2003 Conference, New Zealand, 2003.
Stefan Hrastinski, “The Potential of Synchronous Communication to Enhance Participation in Online Discussions,” paper presented at the 28th International Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, Canada, 2007.
Ertmer, P., Hruskocy, C., & Woods, D. (2003). Education on the internet: The world wide classroom. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Merrill Prentice Hall.
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