Internet-Based Economic Education: The Case of EconEdLink.

The internet is abuzz with all things economic. Tens of thousands of websites are devoted to finance, money, or investing. And why not? The nature of economic interaction--particularly in markets-necessitates access to fast, reliable, and current information and data, something the internet is well suited to provide. Because of this, the internet abounds with sites, such as Money.cnn.com, Barrons. com, Fortune.com, FT.com (Financial Times), and MarketWatch.com, devoted to various aspects of finance and economics. Indeed, the authors recently conducted simple Google[TM] search using just the term economics, and the search returned more than 290 million pages! The internet has become natural home to, and vehicle for, the proliferation of economic information and data (to say nothing of the internet's role in increasing e-commerce), but what of the impact of the internet on economic education? In other words, has the apparently natural match between economics and economic activity (in both information and commerce) extended to resources for the teaching of particularly at the K-12 level? The Potential of Internet Use for Social Studies The internet has long been touted as having great potential for elementary and secondary education, in part because of its interactive and multimedia nature. Limited research on the use of the internet in economics classrooms has suggested that students who use technology perform as well or better than comparison groups. In addition, Sosin and Becker have described number of potential benefits to using internet-based teaching in economics classrooms at the pre-collegiate and collegiate level; and several studies have found that use of the internet did enhance college students' economics learning. (1) In spite of the promising rhetoric, however, studies indicate that K-12 teachers are not using the internet in their classrooms with much regularity. Becker found that only 25 percent of teachers in grades four through twelve used the internet regularly in their classrooms. (2) VanFossen reported that 80 percent of social studies teachers wished to be using the internet in their classrooms more often than they currently were. (3) Why aren't more social studies teachers using this apparently valuable medium in their classrooms? Among the most common barriers to internet integration cited by social studies teachers are lack of content-specific training, concern over student access to inappropriate internet sites, and concern over the amount of time needed to develop effective internet-based instruction. For example, VanFossen reported that many secondary social studies teachers felt that the benefits associated with using the internet did not offset the significant time required to find useful websites. In addition, while the proportion of secondary classrooms with internet access has increased greatly since 2000, teachers still report lack of access as barrier to use. MarcoPolo Network As direct response to teachers' concerns about lack of training and the time needed to develop internet-based instruction, the MCI Foundation developed the MarcoPolo partnership as a collection of standards-based, discipline-specific educational websites for K-12 teachers. The MarcoPolo network (www.marcopoloeducation.org/home. aspx) features seven content websites with lesson plans, student-interactive content, downloadable worksheets, links to panel-reviewed websites, and additional resources created by some of the nation's leading educational organizations. In addition, the network (partners are listed below) has provided professional development and training for more than 200,000 teachers: * National Endowment for the Humanities * The Kennedy Center * The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics * The American Association for the Advancement of Science * The International Reading Association * The National Council of Teachers of English * The National Geographic Society * The National Council on Economic Education Each partner site features partner-created content and lesson plans (currently more than 2,800 in the MarcoPolo network), including student activities, classroom resources, and partner-reviewed content from reputable sites. …