Post # 5

Using the internet to support student research can be very helpful when it is used in the right manner. If is used to better research, then it can be advantageous to the research that the student is doing. When the internet is used properly, the results can be fantastic. I have found this tool in my own academic experience to be extremely rewarding. I think that using the internet can help lead students' in the right direction when it comes to doing a research project, or to help them find new and innovative ideas for a project. Beneficial as this tool may be, it does have some negative consequences that make a student's research a little more difficult. Because of it's nature to be easy to use for all, the internet makes plagiarizing an even easier task to accomplish. When this comes into the picture, it makes the internet seem as a bad tool for students to use in their work. As exhibited in chapter 3, it shows that using the internet can be resourceful. For example, the internet provides various forms of the information. It is not only presented in text, but also in sounds, movies, and pictures. Some downfalls for the internet is that it can give faulty information. Not everything you read online is true, and websites such as Wikipedia allow anybody to edit their articles. With Wikipedia, you are far less likely to find good, factual information, than if you looked in a printed version of a book that you find in a library. 

Web-based resources might support student learning in several ways. It can allow the student to find information more quickly, with the push of a few buttons, rather than taking a long time to find it in a library. Another way that web-based resources can support student learning is to offer them more than just text to enhance the learning process. Videos and animations can help to give the student a more in-depth look at a subject. 

My concern as a teacher supervising students that use technology based resources would be that they would use the technology incorrectly. For example, if I was teaching 8th grade Science, and I requested my student's to do a report, there would be the danger that the student's might plagiarize something that they found on the internet. They might also find incorrect information that would lead them astray in their endeavors to write a report. I think it could become difficult for my students to know what information is credible and likewise what is not. My job as a teacher supervising the student's would be to teach them what is good information and what sites are most appropriate to lead them to the information that they need. I would want to make sure that they found the very best information that could lead them to learn more about the subject.