Picture this: You are a principal and have just gotten word that your school will be wired for the Internet—or you are a teacher and will have a computer in your classroom and access to a technology lab for your students. You've probably been eagerly anticipating these resources for some time. Now that you have them, though, how do you learn how to use them? And how can you integrate this technology into your daily lesson plans and classroom activities?
Getting Started: Behind the Scenes
Teacherzone.com (http://teacherzone.com/) and Link2Learn (http://L2l.ed.psu.edu/) are one-stop resources that you can turn to for information about hardware, software, and the World Wide Web, as well as for accounts of how different schools have used technology. You can also download lesson plans and projects that use technology to enhance the learning process.
Principals may want to visit Teacherzone.com's "Principal Vision" link, with stories and strategies related to integrating technology into the curriculum.
Using Computers Across the Disciplines
Math and science. Interested in seeing how teachers have integrated technology into math and science curriculums? Take a look at Tales from the Electronic Frontier (http://www.wested.org/tales/), an account of 10 teachers' classroom experiences with the Internet in K–12 science and math classes. The educators' lively, colorful reports are complemented by a useful sidebar with links to Web sites addressing technology issues, tools, resources, and projects.
Along the same lines, the "Projects" link on the Computing Across the Primary Curriculum site (http://www.serct.schnet.edu.au/capc/capchome.htm) shows how primary school teachers have introduced young learners to software projects, from "Introduction to Spreadsheets for Grade 3" to "Multimedia Using Kid Pix Studio."
Social sciences and the arts. If you're a social studies educator and you'd like your students to use the Internet for classroom projects or independent research, you can point them to the CSS (Computers in the Social Studies) Journal (http://www.cssjournal.com/journal/sites.html). There they'll find a comprehensive index of 17 topics in the social sciences, with multiple links to related Web sites, from Paleolithic painted caves to forensic psychology to the Israeli Knesset.
If you teach visual or language arts, you can explore intriguing lesson plans, curriculum ideas, online discussion groups, and gallery images in the interactive ArtsEdNet site (http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/). While you're there, take a virtual walk with your students through ancient Greece or Rome in the imaginative "Philosophers Forum: Asking Big Questions About Art."
Issues in Technology Integration
Keep up with the latest school-technology issues—or participate in discussions about them. How do you wire your school for Internet access? How do you ensure equitable use of educational technology? How do you meet the challenges of introducing computers to reluctant staff or students? Three Web sites with articles, columns, forums, and links on these subjects are the Electronic School (http://www.electronicschool.com/), Pathways to School Improvement (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/te0cont.htm), and the Well-Connected Educator (http://www.gsh.org/wce/).
Clearinghouses of Online Resources for Educators
For a thorough list of online resources pertaining to education and technology, go to "K–12 Educational Resources" on the Technology Education Lab site (http://www.techedlab.com/k12.html)—and be sure to bookmark it! Another helpful site to visit is Teachers@Work—in New Zealand—(http://teachers.work.co.nz/), with a searchable database of 1,000 useful Internet sites for educators that have been reviewed and rated.
