Forum/Opinion 

• Forum/Opinion
 

By DENNIS LAWRENCE Special to The Star 
Date: 05/26/99 22:00 

In "Second thoughts on subsidies for Internet access" in the May 16 Sunday Review, Matthew Keating and Raymond J. Keating use the Columbine tragedy to question the wisdom of using the Internet as an educational tool in America's classrooms. They argue that use of the Internet will "turn students' faces away from each other and their teachers toward a glowing screen." 

This assumption that using the Internet in schools will isolate students shows a lack of understanding about how the Internet can benefit the classroom. 

Projects such as the Kansas Collaborative Research Network, based in the Kansas City, Kan., School District, create an open community made up of students, researchers and teachers involved in conducting Internet-based, collaborative research. The World Wide Web site at http://kancrn.org/ contains a number of projects where students log original research that fosters collaboration with other students and the community, rather than isolating them. 

To do this original research, students must ask and answer questions about the nature of their community and the relationships of the people who live and work there. Washington High School students have created a Web site at www.arthes.com/community, using the community as their text. The Web site offers a research context for questions, which allows discussion about the community as a natural outgrowth of the study. 

Current projects on the student site include: 

These students certainly are not turning their faces "away from each other and their teachers toward a glowing screen." On the contrary, they must reach out in order to do their research. This has created connections with residents of the community that did not exist before these projects. 

Young students now work with aging Washington "Wildcats" in a common goal: preserving on the Internet the best of their community. 

Students who engage in authentic collaborative research about their community cannot be disconnected from the text they are studying and creating. They have become active storytellers for their community, instead of passive researchers into academic questions. They are celebrated for their storytelling, not only in the community but also in the classroom and in their families. 

The KanCRN Internet connection makes it possible to expand this celebration and collaboration to an audience of unlimited numbers, providing questions and answers that are important to the global community. 

In the wake of the Columbine tragedy, it is far more necessary to build on the programs already in place that lessen the chance of such a disaster occurring again. 

Contrary to what the Keatings believe, collaborative Internet student research rebuilds communities, instead of isolating us more. Just ask the students who are part of KanCRN. 

Dennis Lawrence teaches senior English at Washington High School in Kansas City, Kan. He has taught in the Kansas City, Kan., School District for 25 years and has been on the Washington faculty for 20 years.