Reviewed by Amelia E. El-Hindi
Just days before his report on Brazil was due, when my sister asked her 11-year-old son Paul for an update, he said he was a "little shy" of information. My sister found that he was actually more than "a little shy" and that some of the information he found was outdated. Because his parents had recently subscribed to a service that linked the family (five children and a dog) to the Internet, Paul and his mother began "searching the net" to uncover the vast potential of information available on the World Wide Web. While Paul was more or less used to such technology from school, his mother was truly amazed. Not only could they discover what Brazil's weather would be like the next day, but they could read the latest headlines from Brazilian newspapers. Long after her son was in bed, my sister sat at her computer, digging into Web sites. Discovering Brazil led to an even greater discovery: the ease with she could access and use the Internet. Excited, she called me the next day: "I was amazed," she said, "not only at what we could get but at how easy it was. I can't believe what this allows me to do."
Her words echoed in my mind when I read Teaching with the Internet: Lessons from the Classroom (1997) by Donald and Deborah Leu. The book is aptly named, for it describes actual teachers' use of the Internet and illustrates specific strategies that integrate this new technology with classroom instruction to enhance meaningful learning. The authors' premise that "Learning from one another is essential to success on the Internet" (p. 3) becomes clear through teacher anecdotes on use of the Internet to support all types of learning, from teaching inquiry skills through navigation strategies to fostering reading-writing connections with e-mail.
This delightful resource contains twelve chapters organized into three sections. The first section features three chapters: the first on basics of the Internet and how use of it fits with recent theories of learning, the second on how to teach students to navigate through the Internet, and the third on how to use the Internet to facilitate e-mail communication. The second section features six chapters, all focusing on instructional strategies that tap the Internet to support learning across various content areas, including language arts and literature, social studies, science, and math. This section also features a special chapter on unique applications of the Internet for children in the primary grades. The third section contains a valuable chapter on the Internet's potential to enhance multicultural curricula and a chapter on creating equity of access to the Internet with a classroom of eager children. In discussing equity, the authors also provide telling insights on how this technology can be used to support children with special needs. The book concludes with a chapter on developing a classroom home page, which, according to the authors, "isn't that hard to do. Really!" (p. 191). Each chapter is introduced with an e-mail message from the authors [djleu@sued.syr.edu (Donald Leu); ddleu@syr.edu (Deborah Leu)] that not only orients the reader but also underscores an important theme of the book: that of viewing the Internet as a way of establishing a community with teachers around the world.
Such technology provides a way for teachers to reach beyond their individual classrooms and link with educators everywhere. A reader hears from Angeles Maitland Heriot, a seventh-grade teacher from Buenos Aires who praises the ability of the Internet to allow children to discover firsthand the "geography, history, and culture of the world" (p. 170). Readers also hear from Terrie Gray, a junior high science teacher from California who discusses early Web experiences and invites us to visit a Web page created to teach research skills at http://www.chicojr.chico.k12.ca.us/staff/gray/animals.html.
The authors' introductory e-mail message is followed by a detailed description of a teacher's experience with a particular feature of the Internet such as setting bookmarks to good Web sites or letting students teach each other through Internet workshops. Within the fourth chapter on instructional strategies, for example, readers are introduced to Ms. Meyer who plans a lesson on "pourquoi tales" as part of an interdisciplinary diversity unit. Pourquoi tales are myths passed down across cultures explaining the origin of natural phenomena. Ms. Meyer uses strategies such as literature discussion groups and response journal activities but then capitalizes on a discovery made by one of her students. The student, Marcus, finds an interesting Web site while leading a lesson on the Internet. He discovers the home page of a school in Tasmania that features stories contributed by children from different cultures: the Fahan School's home page in Tasmania at http://www.tas.gov.au/fahan/stor ies.html . At the request of the students, Ms. Meyer creates an Internet project in which her students request pourquoi stories from all over the world and create a new Web site based on pourquoi tales.
After describing the teacher's experience, the authors highlight specific
insights and strategies that instruct teachers in using the Web to support
their lessons. A lesson learned by Ms. Meyer includes the power of the
Internet to connect reading, writing, and listening. The authors provide
such rich detail in explaining how this technology can support learning
in actual classrooms, that teachers will be eager to try various
strategies such as using keypals (analogous to pen pals) to encourage reading
and writing. (See Pitsco's
Other highlights of the book include answers to FAQs ("frequently asked questions") such as "What is a Java-capable browser?" A Java-capable browser, the authors explain, is a Web-browsing software package used to access the World Wide Web that also has special capabilities to assist with animation, sound, or video. Netscape Navigator version 3.0 or later is an example of such a browser. In addition to the teacher anecdotes, instructional strategies, e-mail notes, and FAQs, each chapter is replete with detailed listings and descriptions of Internet resources. Consider for example the various resources science teachers can delve into, such as Bill Nye the Science Guy or NASA's Online Interactive Projects.
This is really a book by teachers for teachers. It is evident that the authors place the instructional needs of teachers at the heart of their effort to demystify the Internet. Many similar resources, while good, tend to stress the technical side of this cutting edge technology. While the authors do justice to the technical workings of the Internet by providing concrete explanations that inform rather than confuse, the technical aspect does not get the way of the instructional focus of the book. Teachers across disciplines and grade levels who are interested in using technology to support learning, or who simply want to better understand the Internet, will profit greatly from the book. I advise reading the book while seated at a computer linked to the Internet because, as several teacher reports suggest, it is important to "play, play, play" in order to become familiar with the vast potential of this tool. For example, I became intrigued by Joseph Wu's Origami page and had to investigate.
The consistent instructional focus provides much of the strength of the book. The authors discuss how to use the Internet to address very real classroom needs faced by teachers today. Attention to recent learning theory along with the particular focus on multiculturalism and special needs students can help teachers who want to use this technology in addressing the day-to-day orchestration of meaningful learning. The authors' examples come from using Netscape Navigator for the Macintosh computer. While users of Netscape Navigator for Windows will see the similarities of menus and screen images, users of browsers other than Netscape may not see the direct technical links to their own software. Even so, the instructional focus of the book offsets this limitation, and users of virtually any browsing software will be well informed about using the Internet in the classroom.
In summary, the book is a well written guide for K-12 teachers who seek to discover the potential of the Internet. Teachers' experiences enlighten other teachers. The welcome richness of detail goes a long way to inform. However, I think the greatest strength of the book lies in how the authors foster community among all of us who are intrigued, amazed, and perhaps, too, just a little awed by this phenomenon called the Internet.
At the time of writing, Amelia E. El-Hindi (e-mail: amitexan@aol.com) was Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA.