The Illusion of Permanence Online

Markers
Originally uploaded by blip .

The Internet is always there for us. It is like a window into amazing resources that we can tap into forever. Right?

Wrong?

I spent over two hours looking for a teaching resource that I have used time and time again. I had the direct link to the lesson but when I typed it in, I found that the website was no longer there. I was sure that the resource I was looking for must be somewhere else online so I searched and searched and searched….

and came up empty.

I really wanted to share that resource with you for my Teaching Tips Tuesday series. In fact, there were three really great lessons on that site too. Fortunately, I printed them off years ago and have them stored in binders so I can find those resources quite easily whenever I need to.

I really wanted to share those lessons with you as well so I scanned them into the computer and posted them up on my blog. This way these resources will be easily accessible to us now.

We can’t assume that a great resource will always be available to us online. Last year, I warned about the OCUP website being shut down. Fortunately they let us know that this was going to happen. That website had some amazing unit plans but since they were so involved and detailed, I couldn’t really print them off without using a lot of paper. So I saved the PDF files instead of printing them off. I still have them and I have used them this year in my classroom.

The key point here is that if you find a great resource online, you have to save it somehow. Either print it off, or save it as a file on your computer and on a thumbdrive.

The fact that online resources can disappear is actually a bit scary. In fact, a few blogs have been shut down recently as well. The Internet is not a permanent depository. We need to remember this.