CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TIPS

Classroom Tips will be updated monthly. This area is designed for teachers who are new to utilising the Internet as a classroom tool. The tips included have been identified by practicing teachers as things that can make the first experiences of using the Internet with students positive.

We are interested in your Internet classroom management tips. These can be submitted to the Education Team at Schoolsnet.

1. Solid Educational Objectives
It is important that the activities in which students take part have solid educational objectives.

4. Use classroom expertise
A number of students will be more familiar with the technology than you are, use them to help troubleshoot technical problems or as tutors for those who take a little longer catch on.

5. Computer literate students
Routinely check what your most computer literate students are up to. They are the ones who may be accessing "extra curricular" sites whilst you are busy elsewhere in the classroom.

6. Be aware of the 'Tricks of the Trade'
If you catch a student visiting a site that was not part of your planned lesson make sure the whole class hears about it. Then all the students will know you are aware of the "tricks of the trade".

7. Be in a position to see each computer monitor
Where possible, make sure you can see what is on the students' monitors whilst you are giving instructions. You will know if they really are paying attention!

8. Avoid using technology for technology's sake
Avoid using the technology for technology's sake. Students should be getting more out of the activity in terms of their understanding of the subject they are studying.

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11. Be aware of graphic intensive sites
Be aware that students are relatively impatient when it comes to the Internet. They expect instant gratification from the computer screen. When planning your lessons and checking for useful sites make sure the ones you direct students to first are not too graphics intensive. This will ensure that they load into each computer reasonably quickly. Another idea is to "cache" web sites locally by visiting them yourself just before the class, this usually means that they will load much more quickly.

12. Bookmark regularly visited websites
If you want students to visit more than 2 or 3 sites related to a particular topic it may be a good idea to bookmark these in your browser and then load these bookmarks onto the computers the students will be using. If you have 1 or 2 computers in your classroom this will only take a few minutes to do. If you plan to use a full classroom of computers, you may need the help of your computer technician or technical support person as well as a bit more lead-time.

13. Take advantage of known education sites
Having students undertake general searches on the web can be very time consuming for little gain. Try directing student searches to known educational sites. Some examples include; Education Network Australia http://www.edna.edu.au/EdNA/ or subject associations such as the Geography Teachers' Association of Victoria http://netspace.net.au/~gtav

15. Ask advice from experienced teachers
Ask for advice from experienced teachers. Many experienced teachers will be more than willing to start you off with your first class in the computer room using a team-teaching model. Observe the techniques they use to manage the dynamics of the Internet connected classroom.

16. Praise 'caught being good'
Use the "caught being good" idea to keep students on task. Caught being good is simply the reverse of making an example of a student doing the wrong thing. Giving positive feedback will encourage students to find more useful sites or links for other students to use.

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17. Learning with the class as a team effort
One of the biggest challenges for teachers using the Internet is to relinquish the role of "expert". In the traditional classroom the teacher is expert whilst the students are novices. When it comes to the Internet this may not be so. There is no need to be overwhelmed by this, albeit scary, notion. Since technology is only the tool you will use to meet your curriculum goals relinquishing the "expert" role to some of your colleagues or better students for a short while will not render you powerless! There are many skills you can learn on the Internet at the same time as your students.

18. Make use of the Internet for current information
The Internet is useful when you or your students need to know something that is: not in textbooks or the school library; based on data collected by governments or other organisations; likely to require specialised knowledge; best understood from eyewitness accounts; fast breaking news.

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19. Make use of the Internet for collaborative projects and group learning
The Internet is a great place for; collaborating on projects with students of different cultural, social and economic backgrounds; finding and contacting experts; getting experience in researching and evaluating information; publishing student projects and publications.

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21. The Internet is not a substitute for hands-on activities
The Internet is not, and one would hope will never be, a substitute for drawing, writing, building, planting or any other hands-on activity. If you have a limited amount of time to undertake a task then the Internet is probably not your best option. For example, the Internet may be a very good source of information on ceramics, but if you only have two periods per week for your ceramics class then they would be best used as practical, hands-on sessions. That is, the students will learn more by making than looking.

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25. Familiarise yourself with the technology before class
Practice makes perfect. Before you venture onto the Internet with your class be sure to take some time to familiarise yourself with the browser students will be using, what the buttons and links do. You will be surprised (pleasantly I hope) with how quickly you learn the basics. Why do this? Because in the very first class you have on the Internet someone will ask "What does this do Miss?"

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26. Organise class activities to match the availability of computers
Most lessons can be implemented effectively even in the one-computer classroom by having students rotate to the computer throughout the day. Using peer tutors really helps in classrooms with limited equipment.

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27. Internet based activities does not require the computer all of the time
Conducting or participating in Internet based projects does not necessarily require students to be in front of computers every lesson. Much of the student work can occur away from the computer. Compiling, collecting and researching data can all happen without Internet connectivity

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28. To assist monitoring student progress have one browser window open
Students quickly learn they can be searching for a number of things at once by opening new browser windows. Be aware of this and make regular random checks on students. You can do this by looking at the task bar at the bottom of the computer screen or (if the students have hidden the task bar) by pressing the alt and tab keys together. In either case it will show you if they are running extra windows in the background. Open any one of these by clicking on it and check what is is they have been searching for. This is a really useful way to keep students on task, minimising the amount of time spent on general surfing. It also reinforces the notion that you are in control and are able to keep track of everybody in the class.

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29. Laptop Organisation
As we have laptops that are connected by ethernet to the server and they are wheeled into the classroom when needed (after booking) this can be quite a procedure. One early task I do with my English class which sets up further use of the laptops and makes it slightly easier is to set them up in a methodical procedural manner, then get students to write up the procedure for such a process for homework. Then they word-process the procedure and it helps it to stick in their minds. A tip from Caroline Sheehan

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30. Turn of computer screens for full class attention
Have students turn off screens when you require their full attention. This will ensure that they aren't distraced, from your instructions.

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31. Internet Site Approval Licence
In my Grade 5/6 I have set up an Internet Site Approval Licence. Students must fill out a form stating the topic they are looking up, the words they will type into the search engine, why they are looking at the site and the URL they went to. They complete the form and sign it, then get the teacher to sign it. Once this has been completed they may use the Internet. This manages the students use of the Iternet and the appropriateness of words to be used in search engines. It informs the teacher of where and what is being investigated. A tip from Ken Coughlan

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32. Classroom rules for young children
When working with young children and computers I use a few rules.

• Raise both hands when the teacher asks for attention
• Raise one hand if you have a question
• Raise two hands if you are having a problem you can't resolve
• When the children are working with a partner, use an egg timer and have them switch the driver when the bell rings. A tip from Shannon King

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33. Record bookmarks as references
Students should record their most useful bookmarks to Internet sites as part of the referencing procedure for project work. This collection of URLs can be most useful for teachers in preparation for the time a class is studying a similar topic.

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34. Making use of the Temporary Internet folder
If student is wishing to return to a great website but has lost the address it may be useful on a PC to go to the systems folder and look at the Temporary Internet Files folder. This cache can be quite large and hold all the URLs for a month or more. You can sort this by Name, URL, File Type and Modified. A tip from Shannon King.

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34. Making use of the Temporary Internet folder
If student is wishing to return to a great website but has lost the address it may be useful on a PC to go to the systems folder and look at the Temporary Internet Files folder. This cache can be quite large and hold all the URLs for a month or more. You can sort this by Name, URL, File Type and Modified. A tip from Shannon King.

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35. Web Publishing
Many classroom teachers think, "Research Tool" when they hear the word Internet. In a primary school however, the Internet can be a valuable publishing tool. Get your school's SINA administrator to show you how to upload your students' web pages to your school's Internet or intranet site. The next dozen or so tips that appear in this section will contain ideas about the types of things your students can publish in their web pages.

Begin now by... having your students work with partners or in small groups, just practising creating web pages. They should use a simple web editing program such as Netscape Communicator's built in web editor. For the purposes of practise, it doesn't matter what they put on their pages. They should experiment with color, tables, inserting graphics etc. until they can confidently 'whip up' a web page as easily as they now create a word processing page.

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36. Research Tools
Many classroom teachers think, "Research Tool" when they hear the word Internet. In a primary school however, the Internet can be a valuable publishing tool. Get your school's SINA administrator to show you how to upload your students' web pages to your school's Internet or intranet site.
Begin now by... having your students work with partners or in small groups, just practising creating web pages. They should use a simple web editing program such as Netscape Communicator's built in web editor. For the purposes of practise, it's a good idea for them to save their pages on individual floppy disks. They should experiment with color, tables, inserting graphics etc. until they can make web pages as easily as creating a word processing page.

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37. Local Cache
Depending upon your school's connection, one of the main problems when using the Internet with classes can be the various website download times. That is, although you have given students the correct web address, the page takes a relatively long time to resolve completely.
An excellent way to circumvent this time delay is simply to visit the site yourself shortly before your class does. This will usually load the website into a local "cache" so that it will then load quickly for your students as much of the page will still be stored locally.

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38. Web - Based Email
An important issue facing schools is the availability of web-based email services, such as Hotmail, and student classroom activities. Schools whom already provide myinternet Limited email resources for students often find that additional Hotmail etc email resources can involve a significant proportion of their bandwidth. Quite a number of schools have therefore determined that such additional email services should not be subsidised by their school.

Hence, and although there are many 'paths' to Hotmail, the only realistic way to block Hotmail is to block, over time, every address which leads to it via your SINA interface. Port blocking cannot be used to specifically block Hotmail as it uses Port 80, the HTTP port, and blocking this port blocks the whole web. However you can block MSN Chat by blocking Port 1863 which is easy to do and certainly worth considering.

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39.Ready to begin Class Web Pages? Here are five helpful sites:

• The Web Developer's Virtual Library offers a multitude of ideas for building web pages. Try the excellent 3-day tutorial.
• This HTML Goodies website allows one to learn HTML via tutorials.
• The Classroom Clip Art website allows classes to locate photographs, clip art, and historical images provided by the original creators and free for schools.
• The Web Publishing Made Easy website offers tutorials on tables, fonts, and meta tags. Look for the excellent web design articles.
• Finally, this Beginner's Guide to HTML website is by the National Center for Supercomputing and features an excellent primer for producing web documents.
  

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40. Searching the Web for News Items: With the increasing effeciency of search engines, and the rapid growth in the number of web pages now available world-wide, it can be very difficult for students to locate quality websites dealing with specific news items on current world events.
With this in mind the Google search engine service have recently commenced a new web search service which will only search 'bona fide' news service websites worldwide for the search terms your students enter. It's a beta service available at the Google News Search website and specifically for searching the latest world headlines.

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41.VirtualSalt - World Wide Web Research Tools : Are you trying to find something but you are having no luck? Try the World Wide Web Research Tools. An extensive list of research tools in categories such as Engines, Directories, Reference, Databases, Graphics, Periodicals, Government and so it continues. Hundreds of different ways to find that needle.

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42. Wanting to have your students chat with other students on the web? One great way is to use your myinternet desktop chat with your students.
However, for a wider audience you might like to utilize the very popular Yahoo Chat service. Although prior participant registration is required, registration is free, and the usual Yahoo quality of service will be sure to satisfy your student learning outcome requirements.

43. Internet Content Filtering using Microsoft Internet Explorer: Setting up the Microsoft Content Advisor is not difficult, but you do need to follow several steps carefully. The Content Advisor was designed to work primarily with the old RSACi rating system which the ICRA system has replaced. This means that the set up procedure can lead to unexpected results. However, Content Advisor is free, it's probably already installed on your machines and it does offer Internet content control.
Hence, at their helpful website, the Internet Content Rating Association have laid out all of the relevant information regarding using Content Advisor and will answer many Internet content filtering questions.

44. Two Fifty: The clever Two Fifty website is devoted to micro-works of digital art, as so often found on the web. Hence the creation of such art represents a most worthwhile student learning outcome.
The website presents an excellent opportunity to have your students practice their web-art art skills. All artists contributing their work to this website are confined to a 250 x 250 pixel digital canvas. This showcase -- it's not a competition -- is open to everyone with a flair for creating art on various platforms including GIF, JPEG, Flash and Shockwave. Student contributions are highly welcome!

45. Science by Email: The CSIRO has recently launched their Science by Email free resource for all Australian schools.
This weekly email is a part of their exciting Helix student science club which also offers advice on conducting Cool Experiments, including Cool Links and Cool Competitions.
The CSIRO resource offers students a full range of resources free of charge and is an excellent way for primary and secondary teachers of science to manage your student computer related science learning outcomes.

46. Email Headers : Ever wondered what they mean? This site will help explain their meaning.

47. Australian Animal Printouts. The Enchanted Learning.com people have recently launched their Australian Animal Printouts resource, free for children.
This excellent resource offers hundreds of graphics of animals from all over the world. The graphics are easy to download, and the EnchantedLearning.com people offer many of these graphics as line drawings which can also be downloaded and coloured in by young people using computer graphics programs, or printed out and coloured in as well. This is an excellent resource for students starting out to create web pages and indeed all multi-media productions.

48. Web Searching Tips: provides tips on using search engines better, along with some fun facts such as what people search for on search engines

50 The Leading Practice website contains resources and links to websites that showcase leading practice ICT use and offer practical ICT integration tips for educators. It has resources and articles of both theoretical and practical use to school principals and ICT leaders, and online tutorials for educators with the specific purpose of further developing their ICT skills.