ts full capacity, preferring to allow students to play games on the machines. This attitude is easily summed up Mrs. Linda Galway, learning resources teacher at Carbonear Collegiate, “I’ve got my card catalogue, my books and magazines…what do I need those old computers for?”**** The Internet has had a major impact on rural Newfoundland schools. As has been stated, the Internet has turned the world into a classroom, and given students in rural schools access to information that was unavailable to students a generation ago. However, for all its benefits, the Internet has had a major negative impact on the classroom. Students no longer use the library for research on their term papers and essays, preferring to use the Internet. This has created a problem. There is no regulatory agency that can control the information, and in many cases misinformation, that is on the Internet. For example, the most controversial aspect on the Internet is the ease at which hate literature can be spread. In order to use this information, and separate the lies, students must be in procession of advanced critical thinking skills (see Appendix A). Which according to Mrs. Galway, they will not develop until the student reach the university level. This has created extra workloads on teachers who must evaluate websites before they can be used in student papers. For example, one student at Carbonear Collegiate handed in a paper for World History entitled “The Holocaust: Myth or Reality.” This student through the use of “information” she found on the Internet concluded that the Holocaust was a myth, and she though she had the information to support her claim. Upon, investigation of the websites she used, they were found to Holocaust Denial sites. When confronted about this, the student replied, “It was on the ‘net, it has to be true!” The use of computer technologies in the Newfoundland ...
