Education

Curriculum-based Internet Management

How Saint Francis teachers manage the Internet in their classrooms

The Internet was not specifically designed for classroom use, most teachers experience difficulty managing this resource in a way that truly supports their daily lesson plans and curriculum needs. Anyone who has ever surfed the Web knows that Internet information needs to be managed and organized before it can have true educational value. The majority of schools focus on filtering out and blocking web sites defined as ‘inappropriate.’  Often times this leads to over blocking vast expanses of what the Internet has to offer, it removes choice from the educator and it offers no educational value to the teachers.  At Saint Francis prefers to take the opposite, more proactive approach by designing the Internet into the classroom experience as a way of reinforcing the teacher’s traditional lessons. 

A primary objective for all teachers is to find interesting and dynamic ways for students to become engaged in learning by providing a stimulating way of presenting information. The Web has proven to be a tremendous tool for conveying information that can be used to attain knowledge, reinforce learning and facilitate classroom discussions. Internet use in the classroom is effective because of its interactivity; however, most teachers find it hard to harness and utilize, because of the vast amount of disorganized content. Nevertheless, the Internet learning environment is important in today’s modern times but it must be tailored to the needs of students.

Therefore our Saint Francis teachers need a way that is not limiting yet provides a choice that offers flexibility to decide what Internet resources should be used in their classroom. Using Global Chalkboard provides our teachers with categorized, all-inclusive Web sites that offer them more control and flexibility than old-fashioned filtering found at other schools.  Filtering reduces the choice and proves restrictive for both students and teachers. Content is blocked based on the idea of what may be construed as “inappropriate,” but often -- may not be true.

On the other hand, Saint Francis teachers utilize Global Chalkboard’s “curriculum-based Internet management” approach which focuses our students on specific academic resources available on the Web. Sites pertaining to specific curricula are categorized, rated and graded by Global Chalkboard’s professional staff of educators.  This means that our teachers don’t have to wade through outdated or unrelated information to find Web sites for their lesson plans.  Global Chalkboard keeps current as the Internet evolves and changes.  The Educational staff at Global Chalkboard constantly review the Web’s changing content and qualify it for its educational value. All websites that qualify are reflected in the Global Chalkboard teacher’s resource area and organized to help teachers select and adapt them as resources that fit their daily classroom needs.

Using such an educational resource allows our teachers at Saint Francis to design their own lessons for each class and choose internet web sites that coincide with their daily lesson plans. Websites can now become effective ways to add to the interactivity of the classroom. At Saint Francis, the Internet can be tailored to the needs of the lesson and the students.  It is important to highlight that the choice of what to put in the classroom’s lesson is put back into the hands of the classroom teachers. Through “curriculum-based Internet management,” classroom teachers decide and create unique Internet-enriched lessons to offer their students.

At Saint Francis, Global Chalkboard enables teachers to take an instructional approach towards the management of Internet resources.  Individual teachers can choose from resources reviewed by fellow educators and add their own content. They can select interactive Web resources and create an accompanying electronic instruction sheet that focuses students only on the resources needed for that task. In this manner, Internet resources are aligned to professional standards and our school curriculum. With Global Chalkboard, students use the Internet much as they would a workbook; only, it is customized by our own teachers to meet the unique needs of their students. Global Chalkboard’s easy-to-use tools allow our teachers to use the Internet as a true instructional resource.  It helps the teacher by:

•  Eliminating the distractions that students often find when they stray off lesson while surfing the Internet.
• Enabling teachers with varying levels of technical proficiency to hand-pick web resources that create dynamic lessons focused to that day’s lesson.

The Global Chalkboard is an innovative and flexible teaching tool that uses the Internet to craft learning. For the teachers, Global Chalkboard provides immediate access to educational Web sites and helps them build Web-enriched lessons mapped to curriculum goals, state standards as well as specific Saint Francis goals deemed important by each individual teacher.

For the teacher, Global Chalkboard is both flexible and easy to use:

•  It offers an Internet novice teacher immediate access to educational sites with the Web Library.
• It offers an Internet intermediate teacher ready-to-use online lessons by using prepackaged lessons.
• It offers an Internet advanced teacher a rich set of tools for building their own, Web-based lessons using the Lesson Creator tool.

For the student, Global Chalkboard delivers a controlled, lesson specific environment that manages them within the boundaries setup by their own teacher.  Students can not stray off-lesson and disappear into the vastness of the Internet.  This keeps them focused on the learning tasks, accomplishing the goals set by their teacher.  Such a tool allows the teacher to design Internet based experiences for their students that reinforce the traditional lessons taught in their classroom.

Although, Saint Francis teachers don’t have to use the content that is provided by Global Chalkboard; it serves as an effective starting point and a classroom-ready resource to help teachers introduce students to a Web-supported education. Our teachers can use the suggestions offered by Global Chalkboard or add their own ideas. New Web sites are constantly provided as a way to keep Saint Francis teachers up-to-date on the latest educational offerings evolving or newly appearing on the Internet.

To see a demo of how our teachers benefit from our partnership with Global Chalkboard, click this link:

Faculty Room Demo  

To see a demo of how your child experiences a typical Global Chalkboard Internet lesson, click this link:

Student's Experiance of Global Chalkboard Demo

This demo shows the student experience of using the Internet as an in-class assignment. When students logon to a classroom computer they find a Lesson Start Page that leads to an online assignment created when a teacher builds a lesson.  To see a demo of how Saint Francis teachers design and develop lessons using the Global Chalkboard tools, click this link:

Teachers Creating a Global Chalkboard Lesson Demo

As you can see from watching both demos, Global Chalkboard delivers a set of tools for our teachers to tailor their student’s Internet experiences to specific classroom lessons and to manage the student’s experience throughout the assignment.  In summery, at Saint Francis, Global Chalkboard delivers the following:

For more information or to get answers to your questions, please feel free to contact our Principal by using the Contact Us page.