DOs and DON'Ts for Using the Internet in Your Class

DOs

• Try it yourself first.
• Teach netiquette.
• Set specific tasks that students should accomplish while online.
• Encourage collaboration within your class.
• Set up inter-class projects, where feasible.
• Teach students about copyright.
• Download Web sites you want to preserve intact.
• Get permission from authors to use their material offline.
• Encourage attention to form as well as content in email.
• Do have the students turn away from their monitors or turn them down before you address them. Students in front of computers are functionally deaf!
• Pay attention to safety:
  • Tell students never to give out information such as their full name and address in a public Chat room, MUD, or MOO--it's not safe, especially for women and children.
  • Think twice before posting pictures online with students' full names, especially if you work with children.

DON'Ts

• Don't expect things to work exactly as you planned.
• Don't count on students to write and respond to email on schedule.
• Don't read students' personal email without permission -- make sure you've clarified the ground rules about what you will and won't read when you have your students work with keypals.
• Don't just tell students to "go look for something interesting."
• Don't allow students to download copyrighted material and post it on a class site.
• Don't have more than 15 stations trying to log into the same site on the Web simultaneously--start students in groups, then have them log in individually to avoid an Internet traffic jam.
• Don't have students post a question to a newsgroup without first reading other postings and the FAQs.
• Don't rely on your students understanding everything you tell them orally; provide clear step-by-step handouts with clear examples and screenshots.
• Don't be afraid of the Internet--there's a wealth of good, and only a handful of ill to be gained online.