HIT> Internet and Basic Skills

[Madeline Buchanan <dems105@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU>]

        I have had many requests to send results of my survey of how the
Internet can be used to supplement basic skills covered on standardized
testing, but no replies.  Since I am in a K-5 school, the majority of our
Internet activities center around electronic mail and keypal projects.
Here are some of the ways that we relate these projects to basic skills:

1.      Language skills -- letter-writing, capitalization, punctuation,
subject-verb agreement, descriptive words, finding out that English is not
the native language of some students and the letters must be translated
into English before being sent.

2.      Creative writing -- answering questions, telling about oneself,
sending class projects that others may be interested in.

3.      Math -- changing measurement from the U.S. system to the metric system,
learning about different money values of various countries, time zones,
different postage rates.

4.      Social studies -- map and globe skills, studies about various
cultures around the world, learning favorite pasttimes of students their
own age in other countries, different ways people in other countries
express themselves, learning how schools in other countries are organized,
knowing that seasons of the year are different in the northern and southern
hemisphere, different types of terrain around the world.

5.      Science -- changing values from U.S. system to Celsius, weather in
other parts of the world.

6.      Reference skills -- using library materials (both book and
electronic) to research location of keypals.

        The keypal projects also boost a student's self-esteem in various ways:

        a.      The student thinks of good things about himself or herself to
                tell the keypal.
        b.      The student is rewarded by receiving a message from his or her
                keypal.
        c.      The student finds others around the world interested in the same
                things.
        d.      The student has a feeling of self-accomplishment.
        e.      There is no age, racial, religious, or sex discrimination
                in sending messages by computer.

        Some of our keypal projects have brought about other rewards.  In
one project, our students made a video to send to their keypals in Canada
and the Canadian students sent one back.  Unfortunately, this is hard to do
with European, Australian, and Asian keypals since they use a different
system than the one we use in the United States.  However, pictures,
postcards, and small gifts can still be sent.  Students need to be aware of
the different postage rates required to send snail mail to countries around
the world.  Some of our students correspondeded with their keypals by snail
mail after school was out last spring.  Students also learn how much faster
sending a message by email is as opposed to sending a letter by snail mail.

        If anyone still has any suggestions about using any part of the
Internet to reinforce basic skills covered on standardized tests, I would
still appreciate hearing from you.  Many of our students enjoy telling
their correspondents about what they are studying in class, especially our
fourth graders who are covering Alabama history in social studies.


Madeline L. Buchanan            Barrett Elementary School
Library Media Specialist        7601 Division Avenue
dems105@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu      Birmingham, AL  35206
                                (205) 838-7644