Students learn to surf the 'net

Ebony, August, 1995

The worldwide computer network known as the Internet has revolutionized education as we know it and transformed America's classrooms into bustling thoroughfares that give elementary, middle school and high school youths instant access to the information superhighway.

Using a computer, a modem and a telephone hook-up, resourceful students can now tap into the high-tech world of graphics, sound clips, video and other on-line features available to help them turn ordinary classroom assignments, dull term papers and drab lab experiments into exciting and enriching projects.

It's this type of immediate, in-your-face technology that grabs the attention and challenges the minds of students like Kenan Higgins, a 17-year-old junior at Chicago's Dusable High School, the first school in the city to have a direct connection with Internet. "I passed two finals with the information I found on the Internet. It's like a whole city library in a little box," says Higgins, who uses the system for school and to search out "obscure things," like Japanese animations.

Biology student Sherry Bowers is another high schooler who has benefited from surfing the `Net. To gain a better understanding of the techniques involved in dissecting a frog, she first witnessed a computer-generated dissection before attempting the real thing herself. "It looked so real," the 15-year-old says of the animated version.

The advantages of combining modem technology and basic classroom skills are innumerable, educators say. And, students around the globe are likely to agree. Youngsters, kindergarten through 12th grade, in the Washington, D.C., Public School District routinely travel in cyberspace. There, they scan Library of Congress listings, play educational games, read transcripts of television talk shows and even review pro football schedules right from their desks. "They've found many resources on their own," says Dr. Donna Graham, the computer technology instructor at Macfarland Middle School who guides sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders down the busy information freeway. These kids are hooked. They're learning, and they find it fun."