COAL GROVE – Clara Ezell knows firsthand how Internet use can become a powerful tool.

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

COAL GROVE – Clara Ezell knows firsthand how Internet use can become a powerful tool.

The Dawson-Bryant Middle School teacher’s class often looks up facts for history lessons.

Students communicate with people all over the world, learning about different cultures.

And they can even find homework assignments on the World Wide Web.

"After that we just got the fever," said Mrs. Ezell, who’s now leading students on a quest to build Web pages for middle school teachers.

The web pages will play home to whatever teachers want their students, their students’ parents and their community to know about a class.

Each teacher will have a start page, with separate content from the school’s Web site.

It all began last year when students started using the Internet for research, Mrs. Ezell said.

They compiled a list of links to Web sites that could help them in class, then the students put those links on the school’s Web site.

"The next logical step was building their own Web sites," Mrs. Ezell said.

Then, because of schoolwide interest, the idea expanded to include the teachers – and give the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders working on the project valuable know-how, she said.

"Basically, what we are trying to do is to let teachers have home pages and save them time building them by giving the kids the experience," Mrs. Ezell said. "They became interested because they wanted to do home pages themselves."

Like professionals, the students coordinate with their clients, the teachers, and meet once a week on the project after school.

They take pictures, gather information and build the sites, Mrs. Ezell said.

Many students think it’s a hobby, but Mrs. Ezell wants to change their minds about that, she said.

"I think if they all realized what the jobs are, they’d think differently."

Mrs. Ezell knows what rewards Web work can bring, too.

The teacher was recently given an online award for her own Web site that she constructed on yourhomework.com.

You can visit the DBMS Web site at (www.dbms.db.k12.oh.us).