The Internet is a valuable educational tool in at least four important ways. First, it permits you and your students easy access to enormous amounts of information that was simply not available in the past. Your students no longer need to depend upon just their textbook or your knowledge for information.

Second, the Internet allows you and your students to communicate with others to answer project-related questions. Students can ask experts in the field, collect information from other students or adults around the world, design and administer questionnaires or surveys or obtain oral histories of adults who live or once lived in the culture being studied.

Third, the Internet allows your class to 'publish' their work, and provides audiences for that work making that work more authentic and more important.

Fourth, Internet provides a whole range of resources that enhance description and reporting of results including graphics, animation, sound and even video. All can now be incorporated in the final project and provide more interesting and more effective communication of the results of students' work.

In addition to efficient searching of the Web, students need to learn how to cite Web resources, how to evaluate sites, how to get permission for using Web materials, and the legal and ethical use of the Web. (see the Technology Toolkit).