WHO is teaching our students to understand this huge resource, the Internet? As people learn to use books, by first understanding letter recognition, sentence structure, Table of Contents, etc. so that books CAN be a valuable resource, the use of digital media must also be approached with the same time and care. I do not see that happening in our schools with the Internet. There seems to be no succession. For many reasons: adult/teacher undersanding - who knows what they don't know? and assuming students will figure it out; parent involvement-lack of knowledge, rules, expansiveness of the Web, and understanding themselves; user/student exploration-lack of critical thinking, reading skills, judgement and analysis of authenticity.

My conversation with a high powered, innovative teacher who does embrace technology use with her 7th graders.
"Bradlee, who is teaching Interent skills in our school?"

"Well, the librarian does a little and so do I, and Angie our health teacher does the I-Safe program with students, but really nobody is doing the big picture and connecting it all."

"We have a huge reading problem in our school. Kids can't read! They don't even know key words and what to type for an efficient search, and critical thinking is really lacking. They can't skim and summerize."

"So, we really need to start with reading skills."

New kinds of reading skills. This is a huge problem. Teachers assume, just as they did when the old Apple IIE's hit the schools that students could just figure it out. Yes, they figure out lots and yes, many of them can do without a teacher ever knowing how, but without the reading/writing paradigm switch in our schools to Internet global online communication and use, the students will find their way with no leader. It is too big a world to just toss them into without careful planning and education.

The constant cry from teachers is "there is no time". Content must be taught and squeezing in another thing is beyond...We are asked to do more testing, more content, more meetings, more classes and more and more of the parenting in schools. The basics of right and wrong, putting computers with Internet access in the child's bedroom without supervision or education, etc. can make this technology incredibly overwhelming, not useful and dangerous. I see many of my students just scratching the surface of what the Internet has to offer and finding the dark places faster than the useful places. It becomes the entertainment center and their link to their world, for some postively and others negatively. The BASICS must be taught.

Example: I wanted to show my 6th graders how to "easily" make an outline in Word using the auto features. In the same lesson I wanted to show them the indent tools for "proper" bibliography format.
I was blown away...after much questioning, no one knew what an outline was, nevermind the Roman numeral, capital letter, number indent progression and only one knew that bibliography was not a book about a person!!!! After asking who in our school teaches this, 5th and 6th grade teachers said they all went over it???

I came with a set of assumptions that they should know this. Certainly graphic illustrators may take the place of an outline, but understanding outline format is similar to having your computer folders organized or web addressing. I think it is still useful, therefore, it took me 4 classes to do what I had intended in one! What are the BASIC skills these days? A lack of orderly plan, not knowing what they know as learners or teachers, not being flexible as a teacher or learner all play into this "willy nilly" delivery. The train has to stop and really be looked at in a bigger way than curriculum expectations currently address. Our students ARE in the online world and the immigrants must get on board with the natives.