When you open the window, fresh air will come inside, so will flies. The creation of internet and the web is like opening a big window in people’s lives. What one can experience on there could be positive and negative. It does make lives quicker in many areas including learning process, but the fact that learning becomes too quick is not neccesarrily a good thing. The following paragraphs are going to discuss both the positive and the negative side of the use of web in learning, including reading and thinking.

The use of web makes learning process much quicker than that in traditional environment. Students can get the information they want in a very short time just by typing some words and clicking some buttons and links, so that it saves time and trouble to make work and study a lot more efficient. One doesn’t have to go to the real library to borrow a book by walking to the library and going through the whole searching procedure, or to look up a word in a real dictionary by turning pages. Through web, one can order books online and wait for the book to come at your door or even order a e-book, and one can search for words on an online ditionary. Besides, there are many searching engines on the web, like Bing, Google, Sohu, Baidu, etc. to help students achieve the goal of quick learning. Stefanie Olsen says in her article “Helping Children FindWhat They Need on the Internet” that “increasing numbers of children are using search as a starting point for homework, exploration or entertainment”. With the rapid development of the internet technology, the search engine will be much quicker and easier. “Future trends in search may also be helpful to children. The move toward voice-activated search like the Google voice search on iPhones and Android phones and audio and video search will prove beneficial to children with limited abilities, experts say.” (Olsen,  Stefanie)

Another good thing about learning through web is that students can learn more than they do in traditional classrooms. The traditional way of learning has many limits that can be found solutions to through web. In traditional classrooms, learning only involves real books, teacher-student conversations, and blackboards. It is not possible for students to just bring all the books that are related to the classroom, or for teachers to tell the students everything they need to know. The knowledge students can learn is very limited under this circumstances. But through web, they can search for knowledge of their interests any time and anywhere they want. The learning process could be like a “thesaurus” net, you learn something, and you relate it to something else. If learning is a liner-layout porcedure in traditional classrooms, it definitely is a net-layout procedure in web-based environment. It stimulates critical, broader and deeper thinking in this way. For example, the “Google For Educators” provides many tools for classroom that students can use to improve in their field of study. These tools are very versatile, like shown in the following picture that I Jinged from the Google website.

http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html

Probably the best thing about learning though web is that it provides a much more equal opportunity for everyone to learn around the world, even the places that are commonly considered backwards in education, or the low-income students who can’t afford to pay for going to better facilitated schools. As long as they have a computer or any other equipment that has internet access, they can search and learn the same informaiton (as long as they are free) no matter where they are. “The Google Teacher Academy is a FREE professional development experience designed to help primary and secondary educators from around the globe get the most from innovative technologies.” (Google) What’s more, through online education, students learn ideas from each other’s cultures, which definitely deepens their thinking.

The efficiency, equality and quantity of knowledge are three major things that I focused to discuss here. So much about the “fresh air” side of the web, I also want to talk about “flies” side.

First “fly”. Using web for learning tend to make students lazier. Since one can get what they want through web, they become used to using web for information. Why bother working harder to read a real book, or stand up and walk around asking some body? But the truth is: what if they can not find the things they want? Would they just give up searching for it else where? The laziness could stop their will for exploring the real world and communicating with “real people”.

Second “fly”.  Searching by keywords through the web is what students basically do when we need some informaiton. “Online just gives you what you need, nothing more or less.” (Bengiveno, Nicole) The internet just select what is most relevent, and even highlight those words in case any waste of time. But it prevents them from reading the whole article, so the knowledge they learn could not be complete. What about other articles, paragraphs or other ideas? “Critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement.” (Bengiveno, Nicole) If that’s the case, can the web deepen students’ thinking, or just the reverse?

Third “fly”. Being too easy to get what one wants means the same easy to lose it. Spending hours or even days to find some sources make you remember. How can you forget if it’s a work of much effort? But it is hard to remember something you learn just within minutes, let alone to “facilitate deeper reading, learning, and thinking”.

Fourth “fly”. This is maybe the one that teachers and parents concern the most—web addiction. K-12 students (mostly under 18) are not mentally matured enough to control themselves when they are exposed to the all-you-can-see internet environment. Except learning materials, there are plenty of distraction facing them, like online games, social networking tools, entertainment pictures and videos, and online shopping stores. This could be a big challenge in their learning process.

There are other things that can negatively affect one’s learning through web, like the uncertainty of the credibility of online sources, uneaqual education opportunity when something is still not free to all, etc. However, you can’t just close the window for fresh air forever because of the flies. One needs to process his mind, and learn how to accept the huge amount of knowledge from online. If the web provides food for thought, it is your job to chew it before you swallow.