Whether you value the online medium as a vast information repository or as a place to talk, you'll find a range of opportunities for educational experiences:

1. Research Resources turn the World Wide Web into a giant library. Self-directed learners use their browsers to find information, use tools and access data to answer their questions.

2. Interactivities add the Internet's communication functions to the Web's power as a library. Interactivities connect learners with other people for dialog and/or collaborative work. Interactivities may also connect learners with remote computing resources that provide learning experiences not otherwise available to them. Interactivities may or may not have been designed to work as part of some overall course design. When they are intended to be integrated with more conventional, face-to-face instruction, they often depend on local teachers for instructional leadership.

3. Online mentoring, also known as "telementoring," is a special kind of interactivity. The online medium supports a mentoring relationship between a novice learner and someone with more experience. The relationship centers on some interest they share. Online mentoring relationships are typically (but not always) one-on-one connections. They persist for at least a few months. They usually involve a caring adult and a younger student. Successful programs have also paired novice teachers with more experienced teachers, or matched a single "subject matter expert" with a whole class of students for a unit of study. The participants use some messaging technology -- usually email -- to maintain frequent contact. Messaging allows these relationships to grow, even when the participants are separated by great distances or by conflicting schedules.

4. Online Expeditions give learners a chance to participate in real research activities. Using the 'Net to communicate, students can learn from scholars doing field work in some exotic locale. Alternatively, students themselves may function as the local eyes and ears of a research team, using the 'Net to report their field observations, and to receive similar data from other participants in different locations. Students and scholars may function as authentic collaborators on a joint quest for understanding that is enriched by their individual interests and queries.

5. Net Courses may integrate any or all of these components in a sequence of activities designed to lead and support learners through a comprehensive treatment of some topic

Activity 1:

Take some time to explore examples of these sites and catalog your findings with the tools we provide.

Go to Activity 1