As valuable as you make it.

That question reminds me of how television and movies were used in the classroom in the nineties.  When I was in school, high school and college too, teachers would try to find a movie on the topic of a subject we were studying in class.  They would play the movie during class time, uninterrupted and encourage us to take notes (which we never did) to talk about at the end of the movie (which was usually three days later).  This was not the best use of time, or technology. It would have been more valuable if you start and stop the movie for thoughtful discussions, and not have a video babysit the students.

Even back then, educators saw potential in new media, but weren't educated on how to best use the technology.

Same goes for the current use of websites in our curriculum. Providing students a web address to go to without any purspose or directions is similarly a waste of time and technology.  At best, poor website integration becomes a newer version of media babysitting our students.  At worst, our students become confused and frustrated and navigate to a less educational site like disney.com.

Internet resources are valuable when educators put in the legwork necessary to gain understanding from the materials. Below are a bulleted list of things a teacher will need to do before introducing a website to her or his students:

- thoroughly research the appropriate sites based on the content of the material, the ability levels of their students

-develop accountability measures to ensure students are learning what needs to be learned

-create (if needed) graphic organizers

-have students orally share what they learned