Teaching and learning in an Internet-based environment

There was so much more to the guidelines document than I expected. I had forgotten about things like educational games and test preparation. Many of them will be more appropriate when students are in middle and high schools. As an elementary school teacher I would concentrate on only a few.
I would love to further explore and incorporate online field trips into my classroom. I could see using online field trips complimenting both my science and social studies curriculums. Time and distance sometimes prohibit field trips, but with a computer lab students could explore virtually what they are not able to explore literally. Reading about other parts of the world or other periods in history in a textbook gets the job done in most cases. Allowing students to dig deeper, however, will make it more meaningful. There are always a few students who really connect with a unit of study. Online field trips would let students explore the aspects of the material that they really connect with.
I also plan to continue to explore WebQuests. I especially want to check out the ones created in this class. I just started a force and motion unit and would love to tie in the WebQuest created by one of my group members.
I’m not sure podcasts would be difficult to use with students as young as mine (third grade). The first reason is that I don’t believe that they have the skills necessary to do a podcast. It would require a lot of preparation to get them to a place where they could manage it. Secondly I do not have the necessary equipment to make use of this particular technology.