Lesson 16 – The Internet and Education

Education these days has been the top priority for any family or individual person, and no doubt amongst the latest technologies to promote and maintain the education standards the internet comes first.

Internet is not only an access to websites, these days there is knowledge and information on every aspect of the educational world over the internet. The resources provided on various web pages are indeed very informative and useful for professionals and students related to every field of work. The only pre-requisite is the research over the internet for a specific educational topic, and then this information just needs to be filtered to gain the basic knowledge of what you are looking for. Therefore, these are true internet resources which deal with every individual's educational needs.

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide.

 How does the Internet educate the learners?

There is so much that students can do with the Internet. Not only can they communicate with international students, they can gain from others' knowledge and experiences, participate in chat rooms, share ideas and solutions and learn about the many diverse cultures out there.

While the Internet does a lot for students, there are also benefits for parents and teachers. The interactive learning that the Internet provides can help students and parents with little or no English skills to learn English. Parents can become more involved in their children's education by connecting the school with homes, libraries or other access ports.

Teachers can adjust to the different learning styles and in the classroom. They can also set their own pace of teaching. Individual teaching techniques can become more available, which has been proven to be a factor in student achievement.

Advantages: 

1) Information on almost every subject imaginable. 

2) Powerful search engines. 

3) Ability to do research from your home versus research libraries. 

4) Information at various levels of study. Everything from scholarly articles to ones directed at children. 

Disadvantages: 

1) There is a lot of wrong information on the internet. Anyone can post anything, and much of it is garbage. 

2) There are predators that hang out on the internet waiting to get unsuspecting people in dangerous situations. 

3) Some people are getting addicted to the internet and thus causing problems with their interactions of friends and loved ones. 

4) Pornography that can get in the hands of young children too easily.