Challenges of Utilizing the Internet in the Classroom

Scenario from Professor: Pretend there are plenty of computers in your classroom and they are all connected to the Internet, describe what you think will be several of the most significant challenges you will face when using the Internet in the classroom.

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Honestly, this isn’t a stretch for me to answer at all and I think this is probably more of a concern for the K-12 classrooms then it maybe is for a college classroom. I have a classroom lab consisting of 18 student computer stations, 16 of which are equipped with video editing software and hardware including dual-flat screen monitors. Each of these is connected to the Internet and is loaded with the most current version of the most popular creative software available. I’m lucky!

Well…let me rephrase that…my students are lucky.

That said, none of this comes without some certain concerns. In our readings this week, we were intrigued by discussions from a ‘net gen learner’, delved deeper into the world of copyrights and fair use, learned more about how dividing our country really is when comes to ‘being connected’, how to bridge the use of different cultures effective through technology and how to deal with different learning styles.

I have two concerns that I could right away identify in my teaching, and oddly, one of them was not really discussed in readings this week, however, one of them was. As an instructor of interactive media and video editing, I especially have concerns regarding copyrighting and fair use guidelines. In all the reading I have done on the topic of fair use, I have found the guidelines to generally be gray in manner and not all that clear. There are too many leniencies with these guidelines and I think that makes the walking along the fair use high wire to be extremely tricky. “Fair use can raise some of the most difficult and controversial issues in copyright law. Users often wish there were clear rules to establish exactly when a use is fair and when it is not. But the ambiguity of the fair use doctrine is also its strength, because it allows courts to apply fair use to new and sometimes completely unanticipated uses of copyrighted works.” (Besek, 2003). The age of the Internet has obviously allowed for quicker, easier and more frequent access to technology and therefore, the ease of copyright infringement. Without fully understanding the boundaries of copyright and fair use, one can find themselves plagiarizing very easily.

My other concern deals with how to juggling a diverse population in class, but not in learning styles, rather, in digital familiarity and use. Having a student population that ranges from the traditional 18-year old recent high school graduate to the 50-something who is trying to reinvent themselves and their career paths, this can create quite a unique teaching environment. In an introduction course in interactive media, for instance, I may have someone who has been dabbling in web sites since they were 12-years old (now being 19 years old), but who still does not know the formalities of the software, why they do certain things when creating web sites or the structure by which a web site should be created. However, the first few weeks of class could be a complete bore to them because they already have much of the basic knowledge, whereas others, who have never attempted to create a web anything, need this very basic, yet incredibly important foundation.

I am not certain how many main campuses have this same concern, but for those at regional campuses, like myself, and at community colleges, I would think that this happens quite often. One article that has helped me a little more discusses how a range of four generations is currently all working together. Classrooms, really, are not much different than an office because everyone still needs to know how to communicate and work together.

Though there are obvious managerial benefits from having different generations working together, when technology is involved, the digital divide sometimes just grows wider. I am absolutely not stating that the ‘older’ generations are not tech-savvy; however, if there is going to be a person in the classroom who is not familiar with texting, emailing, surfing or im’ing, chances are, it is not going to be the traditional aged college student. Adapting the classroom to fit the needs of all generational learners definitely takes some extra time and effort, but it can work. Allowing the Gen-Y’er to take a lead role in the sharing of technological information has been one successful method I have used so far, for instance.

Overall, even though the ease of accessing information with the click of a button has awarded many opportunities, it does not come without its complications, adversities and changes. I have only identified two that have greatly impacted me over the years – I’m sure they will not be the last.


Additional resources:

The Challenge of Teaching Across Generations

Teaching/Training Across the Generations – a blog post by Karl Kapp

Teaching in a Digital Age – a YouTube video post by Vanderbilt University

Questions from Professor: How you are doing and feeling about what you have learned this week? Did the group experience help or hinder your learning experience?

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I did not have any issues this week in working in a group or in the topic at hand. I felt that we worked pretty well together. I think it helped immensely having the YackPack session, as it was much easier to make decisions and discuss things openly rather than to have to rely on emailing back and forth and waiting for responses. I also believe our group communicated very well and documented our thoughts and our contributions so that the next person on our site knew what had just been changed or added.

I wouldn’t say that the group experience hindered my learning experience and I'm sure it did help provoke thought and move the process along. In addition, I otherwise would have had to answer all the questions on my own! :)

It was nice to bounce ideas off of one another and to ask for feedback and assistance. For example, I was having issues formatting the text on our Wiki site one evening and made note of that on the site. The next day, when I logged in, someone had already fixed my issues and made note of it. That was wonderful!

Overall, then, this was a positive experience for me…no issues, no concerns…and I was very interested in the topic, so that helped, too!

Mashup? What's a mashup??

Though a ‘mashup’ was originally a term used in the music industry, these days, a mashup refers to a new breed of Internet applications. A mashup utilizes Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that traditionally allowed programmers to interface a CPU (Central Processing Unit, aka ‘the brain’ of a computer) with a peripheral and/or a component of the computer system, such as the file management system. Internet developers have taken this concept and have now created APIs on the Internet. Companies such as Google, eBay, and Amazon have created these APIs so that motivated Internet users can combine different interfaces, therefore creating completely new, integrated applications. Taking APIs from multiple websites and merging them (or ‘mashing’ them) together creates a new, innovative application that has never before been found on the Web. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9sENSA_sjI)

Mashups are just beginning to find their way into the education arena and the trend of utilizing mashups and creating ones that are specifically focused on educational methods are not that distant in the future. According to The Horizon Report – 2008, which was just recently released by the New Media Consortium (2008), mashups could quickly become a pedagogical tool within the next two to three years.

Mashups…will largely impact the way education institutions represent information. "While most current examples are focused on the integration of maps with a variety of data," …"it is not difficult to picture broad educational and scholarly applications for mashups." Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and the University of Minnesota are examples of higher education institutions using mashups for learning resources and other projects. (New Media Consortium, 2008).

Because mashups do not require a lot of sophisticated programming and intricate development, The Horizon Report highlighted that faculty will be able to custom create applications to illustrate different concepts as they teach. From this same report, the following are examples of current education-related mashups (New Media Consortium, 2008):

• Interactive Learning Resources at Michigan State University. MSU offers a set of webware applications that allow faculty to mashup interactive language learning resources on the fly.
• Research at Pompeu Fabra University. Researchers at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona are mining the spatial-temporal data provided by geotagged Flickr photos of urban locations.
• Interactive Map Tool. This web-based authoring tool, developed at Johns Hopkins University, supports digital field assignments and allows students and instructors to create custom mashups using a wide variety of digital media, text, and data.

Facebook vs. Second Life

What is the appeal of social networking for today's generation whether it is done in a place like Facebook or SL? How might social networking itself positively and negatively affect individuals? Do you think there are more positives or negatives?

I do not particularly see social networks such as Facebook to be comparable to Second Life. However, I will look at each of these individually.

When MySpace came about, I found the site to be a little on the creepy side, I have to admit. I did not see the appeal of it and I had refused to get a MySpace account myself. Then, as I was teaching an interactive media class in the Fall and heard my students consistently talking about their MySpace sites or their Facebook accounts, they continually asked me when I was going to get my own.

After a little investigation and more curiosity, I decided to embark upon the world of Facebook and pretty quickly saw its appeal. I found Facebook to be a nice way for me to get acquainted with some of my colleagues on a more personal level and to talk, a way to find friends who I haven’t been in close contact with for a while, and to stay in contact with friends who lived further away in a fun environment. I would not say that I am hooked on Facebook, but I do enjoy having an account there. My main concern was addressed early on as I was allowed to limit my information and my site only to those I wished to have access.

Recently, I had a request to join LinkedIn by a colleague of mine. I had never heard of this service before and the more I read about it, the more I found this also interesting and potentially useful. After I joined LinkedIn, I immediately through a quick search found a few of my colleagues who do not work on my campus and asked them to join my network. Within two days, people who I had not spoken to in quite a while had asked me to be in their network. I was able to be 'relinked' (so to speak) with a previous student of mine from Athens, Greece, and someone who I went to school with who I hadn’t spoken to in years! Though I have not had a chance to fully explore the benefits of LinkedIn, I do think it can be very useful for networking within your discipline. As with Facebook, you can also limit your information to only be viewed by the people within your network.

Then, there is Second Life. I have been a member of Second Life now for a couple of weeks and have been “hanging out” in the virtual world a few different times. One thing right away that I have noticed is that this can easily be a serious time waster and time literally flies by when you’re trying to accomplish something in the virtual world!

I am sure mastering the interactivity in SL takes some time, patience and practice, but I found myself getting very flustered right away with the interface. At first, the fun of creating my avatar (Annalyse Latte) was entertaining, but then I started trying to make my way through the virtual environment. Not as intuitive as I would have imagined! The program also has a tendency to crash fairly often and I could see this as being a potential problem if a class was taking place. Apparently, this is a frequent problem, as I found this same information in online documentation (Johnson, 2006).

That said I could see why this can be intriguing to today’s generation. This is yet another forum for today’s technology- enriched generation to intermingle, interact and amalgamate. However, in my escapes as Annalyse Latte, I ran into a number of areas (completely unintentionally) that I would not want a student of high school age entering. For that matter, I didn’t want to be there and I am certainly over high school age!!

So, do I think there are positives and negatives to social networking? Absolutely. Are there, as well, to virtual worlds such as Second Life? Sure. These, as with gaming and any Internet communication has to be effectively monitored by an adult. As long as that can happen and is enforced, there are safe ways for all of these to be used by children under 18. As for adults? Again, this is all as effective as the person utilizing it. I can completely see the benefit in networking with professional colleagues with LinkedIn and I can see a social value to Facebook. As with anything, all in moderation and with caution.

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I was not able to meet my class in Second Life this week, so I am answering questions relating to this missed opportunity...

1. What were the challenges that prevented me from meeting in SL?
2. How could I remedy this situation in the event that future classes require this of me?
3. What did I probably miss that might have been of value to me?
4. What are the potentials and dangers for integrating a technology such as SL in education?"


1. Personal challenges are what prevented me from attending the meeting in SL. If an event with my daughter didn’t present itself, I would have been online.

2. How can I remedy what happened? I probably should not have been open to a Friday evening time slot! :)

3. I think the most valuable thing I missed out on was the communication between colleagues and people I know. To date, I have only been approached by people who I do not know, and in some cases, who I do not wish to know. I was propositioned by a guy with hair for a face and feathers on his arms…being able to communicate with people who I know would be interesting to me!

4. Potentials of Second Life in education are a bit foreign to me right now, but I can already think of a number of fears. As far as potential goes, I think its quite interesting that people can 'visit' areas in a virtual world that they may not be able to in person. I, for instance, ran across an American History gallery where I could look at artwork (and could purchase as well, had I wished to do so). I think it is interesting that there are virtual areas of the world established and even virtual museums that avatars can visit if they cannot go to the actual places. I think the advantage for people confined to their home for medical reasons is also very interesting.

According to the article "101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom", virtual communication and role-playing is used fairly extensively by individuals who cannot interact in the ‘real’ world, at least, not without physical or mental obstacles and with some difficulty (Conklin, 2007). In Second Life, for instance, consider the feeling a young paraplegic would have who could have his avatar fly around to see the world around him, or the 20-something year old confined to a wheel chair who can walk into a dance club and dance the ‘night’ away. As highlighted in the YouTube video “In My Language,” people dealing with autism are also very involved in virtual exploration. There is even an island in Second Life dedicated strictly for autistic people. These situations are intriguing to me and I can see a very good reason why they should be used in these scenarios.

However, as an everyday communication and/or education forum, SL is still a little odd to me. The software is not for the every day computer user, either. SL requires some pretty serious hardware to even use the software and has a pretty steep learning curve, as well. As I stated before, I had been on SL a few different times and feel like a complete computer novice. In addition, in order to advance your skill set in SL, you need to actual get involved in “scripting (which allows the user to create programs to control object and avatar behavior) and prims (“primitives” are basic objects that can be linked together to build larger objects that can have physics associated with them)”. (Johnson, 2006).

I guess I can foresee some powerful uses for Second Life, I am just not sure that I would personally use them in my own classroom…at least, not at this point.

Educational Gaming - a slight change of heart...

Well, I concede! After much deliberation, thought and insight from my classmates, I have come to realization that I was allowing my own personal reservations to influence my stand on gaming in education. Thanks to my classmates for grounding me a little.

However, with that said, I do still have my reservations about the use of gaming in the classroom. I can see some good in using gaming in an educational environment in the K-12 level. Learning games are highly available and they are the type of games I allow my own children to play on occassion. Some of these sites my children visit are pbskids.org and Zoom. There are also some pretty decent learning games on playhousedisney.com and then there is my daughter's favorite, 5aday.com (a site about eating your fruits and veggies each day -- she learned about this site in school).

Though I still think too much of anything isn't necessarily good, I do think this can be controlled. It is absolutely up to the 'adults', however, to do the controlling. I suppose the idea of gaming addiction in adults is their own vice...just like gambling, etc. I do think that isolating oneself at a young age and 'living' through the fantasy world of gaming is still not positive.

So...do I see a place for gaming in education? Sure. However, all in moderation and with caution and supervision.