CALL for Lit 1

Internet: As a Tool for Teaching Literature

A computer network, and especially the Internet, is a tool or facility for electronic communication between any two or more devices. Communication is the capability of living beings to exchange messages with other living beings by using some system. Most common are eyes, ears, taste, smell and feeling. Communicative abilities are necessary for every day life. Without these abilities a living being is isolated from other people, on its own, can not regenerate and will die. Communication is therefore a basic tool to survive.

Communication is a primary tool for learning. By seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling etc a living being is able to manage itself, to survive. The human being is the superb example of learning by communication, because the human being is not only able to remember its experiences, but also to combine and reuse its experiences to new insight, skills and knowledge. And these qualities will affect then the human behavior.

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Internet can be used for many purposes, but using internet as a learning tool will really help students of literature or any other subject. The main thing which students will learn from Internet is clear understanding and objectives. Internet is necessary because literature students should be sure about what information they are getting in the class, after class students can further explore the topic studied in the class room.

The internet will allow literature students to communicate with each other about ideas, thoughts or any assignment, even if they are sitting at their home. Students can also get in touch the teacher through internet, and they discuss their problems with the teacher over internet, without waiting for next day. These days many schools are connected with each other and the world outside and are no more isolated, students can now produce work which will receive a global audience. The immediacy, speed, and interactivity of the Internet seem to be a great motivational factor for literature students.



Translating programs are in the under development, multi cultural knowledge, multi cultural society and even the multi cultural understanding is oncoming. But the big differences between the possibilities of learning for students of literature will increase. Sometimes, when I feel gloomy, I think the computer mediated communication generation will also be our new failure. Not the Tower of Babylon where all people started to speak in many languages, but the bridgeless Slope and Edge of Silicon Valley where people will drop in the depth and they will get lost.
Using the new media, especially internet is an art by its own and has to be learned. Not every one is able to learn to handle different tools for internet. The use and the purchase of a computer and the access to internet are expensive and not accessible for everyone. So students should be allowed and encourage to use internet as learning in the classroom. With the help of internet they can find complete information on every literature of world.

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Teaching students or literature to be serious of what they research on the internet can help them to be more serious overall. I think that a best way of teaching critical evaluation of material is by having the students’ access to their own class or school website. To implement and apply this at the elementary, high school level and middle school might not be very easy. Most schools and colleges are connected to the Internet for research purpose but availability of servers is non-existent or very short.

But these problems can be handled easily if teachers are willing to use internet as a learning tool. The possibility of internet as learning tool for literature, is very interesting and worth exploring. A student or a whole class would be able to benefit from the experience and knowledge that would be gained by their experience with this endeavor.

This, in fact, became apparent when the use of Internet as learning tool for literature was initiated in a small way in some schools and colleges. Students were involved in viewing other schools web sites or privately owned sits and sending feedback via email, and getting up-to-date information. All students adopted a new interest for learning literature and there was definitely increased motivation. Such interest was very heartening. It is obvious; however, that both students and teacher will face some specific changes if using the Internet regularly as a tool for learning literature, but after one or two months, they would not feel any difficulty.

One of the main positive changes is that students will be engaged and involved in more active learning, which may require the subject teacher to get used to their pedagogy. There are many opportunities for increased interaction and communication between their peers within their own classroom and further in their field. Opportunities also arise for students to question literature ‘experts’ across the world about any specific question. Active learning through internet may also occur within specific interactive web sites and resources. Internet learning will bring about considerably greater learning success.

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It is comparatively difficult to locate good resources that match the listening and talking strands in the upper stages of the primary school. There are other many helpful opportunities on the Internet for learning, which go some way towards meeting the attainment targets. As many school and college teachers have already revealed, the very nature of working in a group at a computer does, indeed, initiate helpful and meaniThe Internet also supports various synchronous discussion methods. Video-conferencing through internet, which has been successfully used in the past at many schools, is a method where remote computers can be linked and allow participants to talk and view to, each other in classroom. With the help of this technology, teachers can conduct guest speaker sessions for literature students. Internet relay chat softwares, such as NetMeeting, allow users to form discussion groups for synchronous chats. Students can make their own private discussion group to discuss their problem related to literature with other students, in this way students can greatly improve their educational abilities. Through careful planning, these two methods of communication could in fact meet the entire requirements for listening and talking.

The learning has proved to be more meaningful to students as it is a ‘real’ situation and students can be engaged and involved in discussions with peers and experts from across the world.

There can be no doubt and no objection that the skills associated with reading still need to be taught to literature students. However, the Internet does have sufficient resources that can be used successfully to practice these reading skills within the literature subject in the high schools and college. In fact, with careful selection, all the reading strands can be met through using Internet resources e.g. particular student’s literature sites, reading and sending e-mail messages, scanning contributions to discussion groups and reading on-line newspapers(SOED ,1991) National Guidelines on English Language. Such resources are already being used to complement the useful printed resources already in use in all schools and colleges.

Multimedia and internet technology allows students at any education level to participate actively in the experience of learning in literature area. Multimedia and internet based software stimulates all of the learning methods by offering information through pictures, voice narration, written text, sound, full motion video clips and animations.

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The Internet technology can help literature teachers develop interactive, creative teaching tools that present information in all the ways students really learn and think.Internet technology links information from various locations and sources through "buttons" which provide access to information in all medium at one single place and allows students to interact and learn continually.

Instead of viewing a video in a conventional linear or reading a document, interactive multimedia encourages the literature students to pursue links from one topic to another, following a distinctively personal trail through the information.The Internet has deleterious and positive effects. We need to recognize those. Literature Students who have teachers fluent in Information Literacy and Information Technology have a major advantage in developing their own Information Technology and Information Literacy fluency.

Literature teachers should become Information Technology literate, engage and involve students with real problems found on the internet and they should also engage authentic questions.Preparing literature students to do independent research prepares and helps them for the next higher stages of their lives. “Many educational researchers view the Internet as a valuable source of information that can assist students in the construction of knowledge, increasing their capacity for social interaction and the building of democratically oriented learning communities. They see the Internet promoting inquiry and creativity.” (Leu 1998)

Internet is the most suitable and widely used platform for the implementation of distance learning concept. The ability to provide all available information with a low cost of acquiring such systems is the primary reason for using internet as a learning tool for literature. The major advantages that arise from the use of internet as learning tool for literature arethe use of multimedia technology for the presentation of the courses, the use of hypermedia and hypertext, the interactive learning abilities and the wide availability of tools for developing educational applications Rapidly increasing use of Internet technology for learning purpose and the ability to access distant places, make it very efficient for the delivery and implementation of training literature programs. The training through the Internet is a method that, even though cannot achieve closeness in the relationship between trainee and trainer nor can it substitute the traditional form of learning literature, but it has in fact a lot of advantages, particularly when it comes to training high school level literature students.

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Internet technology can be used for students who are temporary located at geographically remote places or students who are on leave. Literature Students can get class lectures and related material from school or college website and practice and research it at home. So in this way students would not miss their any class lecture. Internet offer the ability of personalized training, in which student selects the pace and the timing, as well as the depth of the obtained knowledge, in accordance with his or her personal needs and potentials. Internet provides flexibility and speed in the expansion and update of the literature material. Internet does not require any special equipment just a personal computer with multimedia capabilities, a computer modem and access to the Internet network. Use of Internet as a learning tool for literature ensures savings in resources and printed material regarding the development of additional material, particularly when the required knowledge and equipment is available.

Internet learning has the capability to keep part of the most helpful learning features of conventional learning processes, such as and cooperation and communication between the student and the teacher, assignment of tasks and exercises and, as well as interaction among the students,Using internet as learning system for literature does not even require the presence of a teacher during the learning process. Students can get all information by themselves; this will enhance the student’s internet in the subject.

What is this fascination among high school students and teachers with the Internet technology? Why will they ignore all the other resources, such as books and printed articles, at their disposal, determined to find all material on the Internet? Recent researches clearly indicate that ways students are using Internet for effective learning process and to get up-to-date information. While students may be technologically advanced, but they are deficient when it comes to developing efficient research skills and strategies and judging Internet information. So literature students should also be taught through conventional learning methods in addition to Internet.

The Internet has a global appeal for most students. We (in the United States) have become more and more dependant on it for our daily routines and activities. We shop, send mail, read the news, look up movie reviews, etc on Internet. We depend on this technology, because we know and we have told ourselves that "It", the Internet has made our lives much easier. We also support the use of similar technologies within the classroom, a learning tool, because we are convinced and we know that the use of personal computers and having access to the Internet is the best and effective way to educate students so they can have an equal chance and possibility to reach their potential and achieve their goals.

The Internet technology will continue to have a global appeal for students of all ages and at all levels. We are using the Internet more and more for and communication and commercial purposes. We should teach latest technology using skills to our students, so they can also utilize it. We also need to teach them critical analysis strategies so that they can be able to differentiate between shady and trustworthy sources. This is a skill that needs to be thoroughly taught just as we teach reading, arithmetic and literature.

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But we also cannot allow our students to depend totally on the Internet for their information and learning process. We need to emphasize and require that students use different sources for their research and education, thereby making them aware that the Internet is just another effective tool that can be added to their arsenal of information sources. It is clear the Internet will continue to influence the school and college curriculum. Given this reality, students will need to master information literacy skills and strategies if they are to harness the potential of this new era of information technology.