Internet use in the classroom can be very beneficial. There are all kinds of safe websites out there for children to learn by playing interactive games and there are also websites where research can be done just as easily if you were sitting in your local library. At the high school that I work at, they use a website for personal finance class where the students can go on and purchase stocks and watch the prices rise and fall. While they are playing this game they are secretly learning about the ins and outs of investing money wisely.
Internet use is great for classrooms because that is the direction this world is going and the children must not be kept in the dark. Having said that, there should be plenty of supervision, parental blocking, and security in place to protect our students. The teacher should have a website picked out that he/she wants their student to use so that they are not left to their own devices. Though internet use is not as personal as having a blog or personal information online, there are still plenty of hazards that can interfere with learning.
http://www.stockmarketgame.org/overview.html
http://www.ebscohost.com/
It is a good idea to have a specific website for the teacher to have picked out for student use, instead of asking them to "type so-and-so into google, and find a good thing to research", as I think it would help with supervision. Of course, if they are researching then they need to be able to research.
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