Many teachers today are still novices on the Internet. Sites that instruct as well as inform can be very helpful. The Busy Teachers' Website is designed to do just that--help busy teachers learn to use the Internet and integrate it into their classroom projects.

As a teacher, I have found the Internet to have many and varied uses. The most helpful, I would have to say, is the sharing of ideas--online!!

Educational discussion rooms and listservs such as Classroom Connect and Teach Talk offer forums for the online exchange of valuable information.

The Alphabet Superhighway is a great site for elementary school teachers to visit! Once there you'll find an educational website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, assisting teachers, and students as well, in creating, locating, and communicating information through online activities.

Using the Internet as a way for teachers to share lesson plans in "cyber space" has infinite potential. Several sites are already up and available including:

• Collaborative Lesson Archive
• Educational Resources: Classroom Lesson Plans
• Teachers Helping Teachers
• Life Over Time Activities
• Technology Lesson Plans

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Student use of the Internet includes interactive, online learning. Among the interactive sites currently available you will find:

• The Animal Alphabet An interactive site showing each letter of the alphabet represented by an animal. Clicking on that animal will take students to a page with an illustration, a couplet, and some information on the species shown, plus links to other pertinent sites.

• Animal Tracks Designed by the National Wildlife Federation (who publish Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard), this site includes lots of information and games appropriate for their upper-level elementary students.

• Brucie's Buddies Bruce C. Gull has a club for children age 4 to 14 with the motto of "Kids Caring for the Environment". The web site teaches students about the environment through online activities, cartoons, contributions, and a direct e-mail line to Bruce C. Gull himself.

• CyberKids--Where Creative Kids Click This site was designed for kids to have fun while they learn. CyberKids contains a reading room, theater, games, and puzzles, a free online magazine, and launchpad.

• Theodore Tugboat Online Activity Centre An online activity center for Theodore Tugboat where students can help Theodore decide what to do next in an illustrated, interactive story, use the online coloring book to color pictures of Theodore and his friends, or listen to a Theodore story using RealPlayer.

Distance learning via telecommunications tools is a use for students both in and out of the classroom. MidLink Magazine, billed as "The Electronic Magazine for Kids in the Middle Grades", includes "The 'Write' Spot" (stories written by "kids just like YOU"), art work, Internet news stories, and link sites. This site allows students the chance to look in on other classrooms to see what they are doing and, if they wish, to e-mail other students.

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The wealth of information on the World Wide Web is vast. Responsibility goes hand in hand with learning on the Internet. Students depend on teachers and parents to set guidelines.

It is the responsibility of each school and/or school system to adopt an Internet Acceptable Use Policy or AUP . Several sites presently available online to inform and instruct on the construction and necessity of such a policy are:

• Arm adillo's WWW Server--Acceptable Use Policies
• Netparents
• A Sample AUP Form in English
• K-12 Acceptable Use Policies

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