Net Lessons features 70 K-12 classroom-tested lesson plans that harness the unique potentials of the Web, plus hundreds of extensions and ideas for all subject areas. The book also provides curriculum frameworks for creating your own successful Web projects, assessment tools, and the advice of teachers who have used the Web in their classrooms.
Classroom teachers are overwhelmed. With budget cuts in everything from grant money to family services and a national agenda of higher standards for both teachers and students, teachers are increasingly being asked to do more with less.
Teachers know there is no magic elixir. An eternally practical group, teachers are interested in easy-to-implement solutions that help them do their job better. And once they find it, they are masters at making the most of a good thing.
Only the most motivated of teachers, however, will embrace a technology that is difficult to learn. That has been the problem with the Internet. Though the Internet's applications to education are obvious, very few schools and fewer teachers have had both the access to the technology and the know-how to make the most of it. Quite simply, as one teacher said, "Why go through all of that?"
The World Wide Web offers teachers an easy-to-learn graphic interface and a bounty of sites customized to educators. Now they want to know what to do; to teachers, that means asking for curricula.
This book helps teachers reap the benefits of the World Wide Web in their classrooms, by supplying them with actual activities and projects that both:
This book focuses on projects that let teachers and students use the World Wide Web. It is practical in its approach, emphasizing that the Web's usefulness depends on how effectively it helps teachers achieve their goals.
Unlike other books about this topic on the market, Net Lessons focuses on the curricular applications of the Web, not the tools. Rather than tell teachers where the sites are that supply good ideas, Net Lessons gives them those ideas, complete with comments from teachers who have used the plans successfully in their classrooms.
The book includes scores of tried and true curricular ideas for K-12, organized by subject area and level, with tips for adapting lesson plans to different age groups, classrooms with different resources, and environments such as home schooling. The book includes multiple cross- referenced lists for ease in finding topics by subject, age group, and activity type (cooperative vs. challenge vs. research, etc.). Teachers who have already successfully applied Web resources in their classrooms share their ideas. Activities and projects have been chosen for inclusion based on their ease of implementation and relevance to standard curriculum.
Too often books about the Internet and teaching evangelize. This book uses a cautious tone, helping teachers maximize the benefit and minimize the time needed.
Teachers who use this book will inherit the advice, experience, and project ideas of veteran Web users and curriculum experts.
