The fourth station might be a computer with CD-ROMs or bookmarks to Web sites with information about prehistoric animals. The students might rotate from one station to another in small groups at fifteen or twenty minute intervals. At each station the groups would work together to gather information and develop notes about what they were learning. Print Another way to make efficient use of limited computer resources is to encourage students to print the resources they find. Students gathering information should skim pages and headers to find likely sources of information and then print those pages to be read later.
Most people prefer reading a printed page rather than reading lengthy text from the monitor.
While students are going though material they printed, extracting and pondering the information they found, other students can be using the computer to find and print pages with the information they need. This may occasionally lead to printing some pages that are not what the students were looking for. They may be able to share those pages with other students who were looking for that information. In any case, paper and toner are inexpensive compared to the cost of providing computers to students. A teacher who can get more use from limited computer resources at the cost of paper and toner has done well by both students and district.