INTERNET AND STUDENTS

     Twitter, Yahoo Messenger, My Space, Flicker, Quechup, Friendster and Facebook. These are all social networks known to children, adolescents and adults. Truly, technology is unceasingly coming up like mushrooms in any forms and channels nowadays. Innumerable people of all ages, cultures and races spend copious time, sleepless nights and preoccupied days for socializing virtually. Why? Do we blame the fast growing technological advancement? If one person spends his 12 hours in a day, facing at the computer and surfing the Internet, to what extent is the drawback to his health? If children play on line games, how many of them have parental guidance, and how do parents solve the problem of obesity among children who sit on computer chairs in ten to twelve hours while eating junk foods? Situations like these are not new to us by the way.
      Too many internet-related issues confront the schools because learners or teenagers find chatting with friends more attractive than the lessons of their teachers. Similarly, parents could not prevent their children from media indulgences. Considering the benefit of using Internet as medium for providing information, the teacher primarily plays a very indispensable role. In addition, the educational system encourages any schools to incorporate information technology in syllabus, lesson plans and teaching-learning activities. Therefore, the chance of motivating the learners to use the Internet as a channel of learning is great. Basically, as a teacher, you have to design a plan which is integrative by itself. Try to combine classroom teaching and media technology to lead into a more interesting learning activity. Children, nowadays, are more on exploratory and manipulative skills, and they find computers as interesting objects to indulge in and to manipulate all day. Tell me the truth. Have you ever been stressed to hear that your students like spending more time in cyber rather than holding a pen and a book? What about  making a written assignment? Do they submit it frenziedly, not considering a neatly presented homework? I am certain that you get pissed off and frustrated.
      Since we are not supposed to be growing backward, there is a means to limit our frustration and failure. To share some hints with you, I, for one, find this haunting situation as a threat to the quality of student’s learning. While it is true that the Internet provides promising advantages like loaded and useful information, social connectivity, modernization, etc, going back to the basic of teaching pedagogy is practical enough, at least, to get along with the problem and trouble shoot the problem at the same time. Here are the tips to let students learn on and use the Internet wisely and productively: (1) Prepare your students to research effectively. In doing this, recommend to your students the site or link to open. Provide some interesting topics for them to search. Some students may try other sites such as pornography or other obscene links; however, the school can block these kinds of sites. When you ask your students to conduct research, let them identify the author, contact and link to qualify the accuracy of the information. (2) Teach them how to use the Internet. Tell your students that not all what they find on the web is true. Emphasize to them that information on the websites are to be validated. In this case you are teaching your students how to evaluate the information that they read and gather, whether it is updated, supported, reliable and credible. It is also good to brainstorm about what they have searched, and they must know that information can change their decisions and lifestyles.    Therefore, the teachers must guide their students proficiently and properly. (3) Use the Internet for homework. You can give your email address to your students and let them send their homework to your box. Never forget to show to them that you are reading and marking their submitted work. Aside from this, you must also have a list of sites that have bogus or questionable information so that you can discuss to them the possible risks. (4) Provide your students additional readings from a credible site. They can make a strong reaction paper based on what they read, and (5) Use Internet-based worksheets and practices for the students to work on.
      At school, monitoring of students in net surfing is regulated where as at the Internet café, the tendency to deviate from the purpose is possible. However, given with the precautionary measures in case of deviation, the students may think twice at this time. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. At home, they have parents to guide them, but if the parents themselves fail in supervising the studies of their children, there is a teacher who encourages them to use technology advantageously, wisely and efficiently.