Internet Changing The Face Of Teaching At Winslow High

The teacher of today in the Winslow school system has tools at his or her disposal that were not even dreamed of a few years ago. The computer has changed the face of education forever, just as it has changed many other areas of life.

Winslow High School is completely wired for the Internet. Every classroom has access to the vast resources that are available at the click of a mouse. Every teacher has the knowledge of the ages available at his or her fingertips. The ability to communicate with experts in every field is there. The ability to communicate with many parents (those who own or have access to a computer) is also available as never before.

Winslow’s Junior High and elementary schools should be connected for Internet access by the end of October or early in November. The Arizona School Facilities Board is spending over $500,000 in Winslow’s schools to finish and upgrade all of the school networks and connect all classrooms and offices to the Internet. This is part of the Students First program, which is designed to correct deficiencies in existing schools facilities.

Most of the teachers have home computers and all will now have access to computers at their schools. The possibilities are mind-boggling. The answers to almost any question one can conjure up are there. All you have to do is find where to look.

Students with home computers have long had an advantage over those lacking that resource. That will, no doubt, continue to be true, but the playing field will be made much more level with the presence of computers in every classroom.

The computer will be a fabulous asset for the teacher and the students. It will not, however, make the human being obsolete. Computers are no smarter or more efficient than the person operating them. To use the computer for the maximum benefit, a person must be disciplined enough to program his own work schedule effectively and efficiently

There is a real danger in succumbing to the idea that the “computer is always right”. The human being is capable of reasoning and thinking for him or her self. The computer is a wonderful tool, but it can not think. If a mistake or a piece of false information is programmed into a computer, it is there until corrected, if corrected, by a human being.

We should see a vast improvement in the quality of work our students do as the resources available to them grows. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the teacher of today will be to see that students do not rely upon computer information to the extent that they cease to do any original thinking. Research must be more than just finding a suitable paper on the Internet and printing it for presentation.

The Winslow school system has greatly expanded the tools and resources available to its teachers, staff and students. We have entered a new century in which the slate carried by our grandparents is as obsolete as the caveman’s Stone Age axe. We must now work to see that we learn at least as much as they did with their slate and chalk. The proof is not in the tools you use, but what you do with them. Let’s help our children to use their tools to the maximum of their abilities.

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