School vs. The Internet

Traditionally school has been a forced daily experience for school aged children. The material taught is often dull in content and one-sided. The Internet becomes so appealing because it allows kids to view anything that they desire. It is an autonomous experience where the user is in control. The Internet is designed to be centered around the user’s strengths, abilities, and desires. Schools have to focus on a large group of students and each lesson needs to be tailored to every student in the class. Another aspect that differentiates school from the Internet in its approach to audience centered design is that school is often text based learning. The Internet offers inactive learning to students who are visual and hands-on learners.

Because the internet allows the single user to explore any web page on any topic, at any given time, the user becomes solely responsible for their own learning. There are no other students or teachers to ask questions to, but instead the user has to recognize the need for additional assistance and perform an appropriate search for that information.

Schools need to learn that it is beneficial, although time consuming for teachers, to teach to each student’s unique learning ability. If each student feels like a lesson was created just for their learning style, they are more likely to be more attentive. While the Internet does provide a huge amount of information on just about every topic, it does not show how reliable sources really are. Schools, teachers in particular, can point students in the right direction to locate the most reliable source.