Advantages and disadvantages of Internet for students Learning process

Advantages of using the Internet

The Internet provides students with the tools they need to discover and own knowledge. It gives students the hooks and templates they need to fasten information to the long-term memory. There are some advantages of students using the internet for teaching and learning:

1. Motivating Factor The internet can act as a motivating tool for many students. Young people are very captivated with technology. Educators must capitalize on this interest, excitement, and enthusiasm about the internet for the purpose of enhancing learning. For already enthusiastic learners, the internet provides them with additional learning activities not readily available in the classroom.
2. Fast Communication Internet promotes fast communication across geographical barriers. Students can join collaborative projects that involve students from different states, countries, or continents. This type of learning experience was not possible before the internet. This is a unique learning experience very essential for each student, as the world is becoming one big community.
3. Cooperative Learning The internet facilitates cooperative learning, encourages dialogue, and creates a more engaging classroom. For example, a LISTSER for the class will allow the students to get involved in class discussions through e-mails in a way not possible within the four walls of the classroom.
4. Locating Materials Apart from communication, collecting teaching and learning materials takes many people to the internet. There are many more resources on the internet than the college library can provide. The teacher can encourage students to take advantage of this wealth of resources on the internet for their research.
5. Acquiring Varied Writing Skills If students are required to publish their work on the internet, they have to develop hypertext skills. These skills help students gain experience in non-sequential writings. Moreover, and since the internet is open to all with access, students publishing their work on the internet are forced to be mindful of their language and to write to non-expert audiences.

Disadvantages of using the Internet for Education

The use of the internet for education is not without problems. Therefore, one should expect the problems to be encountered in using the internet in teaching learning to be evolving as well. There are some disadvantages of using internet for teaching and learning:

1. Plagiarism Apart from Web sites that claim to help students write term papers, there are numerous cases of students downloading information from the net and turning them in for grades. One can minimize this problem by requiring students to cite research sources. There is an online service, Plagiarism.org at http://www.plagiarism.org/, which can assist in minimizing cases of plagiarism in the class. This service claims to prevent plagiarism by determining if a term paper has been copied from the internet or not.
2. Student Privacy Criminals, marketers, and other persons can easily get information from students when they are online. These could post danger to students’ lives or may even lead to litigation against the college. To avoid this problem, students should be educated on the dangers of giving information to people online. Parents and teachers need to supervise students’ online activities.
3. Low-Income Groups Students from low-income families may not have computers at home or may have computers at home with no access to the internet. Consequently, students in low-income communities may be disadvantaged. To reduce the effect that social or economic status may have, teachers may give internet assignments that students can easily complete while in college. If necessary, colleges may need to keep computer labs open for longer and/or odd hours. The use of computers at public libraries should also be encouraged.
4. Preparation Time It takes a lot of preparation time to effectively use the net for education. In addition to designing internet-based lesson plans, one has to surf the internet to download lesson plans and adapt them to support the curriculum objectives or visit sites to select those appropriate for classes. The teachers have no other choice but to prepare in order to help the students become responsible users of the internet.

For citing this article, use:

• Jai Ganesh, B. (2018). A study on internet awareness internet attitude and internet browsing behaviour among b ed trainees in the colleges of education in Namakkal district Tamil Nadu.