Ho-hum, let's use the Internet.

Boring. That's one description students use when it comes to Internet usage in the classroom, even though they are absorbed when using the Internet at home, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

"It isn't so much that the Internet is not used, it is being used in a very boring way, just one more worksheet for the students to do," says Amanda Lenhart, a research specialist at Pew.

Whether educators like it of not, the Internet is one of the most powerful influences on a student. According to the study, 78 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 17 go online. The study was based on information gathered from 14 gender-balanced, racially diverse groups of 136 students from 36 schools.

The students in the study pointed out several factors that could be blamed for the disconnect between teachers and technology. School administrators not teachers-set--Internet policy resulting in wide variations in student access to the Internet. Some administrators put greater emphasis on technology use than others. That problem trickles down to the classroom, students say, with teachers also having different policies. Lenhart described a Boston, Mass., high school that simply turned off the Internet when students used it inappropriately, rather than educating the students or legislating the problem.

The problem also becomes one of engagement. "Students repeatedly told us that the quality of their Internet-based assignments was poor and uninspiring. They want to be assigned more and more engaging Internet activities that are relevant to their lives." the study says.

The Internet is so rapidly becoming an integral part of a student's existence that it a conventional teacher is not conversant with it, they run the risk of becoming "an archaic artifact," says Don Knezek, chief executive officer of the International Society for Technology in Education. "Even great, outstanding traditional teachers are on the brink of losing a whole generation of users because of a lack of ability to interact, and part of that is because of the Internet." he says.

Knezek says when a teacher shows a lack of aptitude or suspicion of the Internet, the student questions if that teacher is capable of leading their education. "In the final analysis." the study says, "schools would do well to heed the Latin writer Seneca's words, which ring as true today as when they were written nearly 2,000 years ago: 'The fates guide those who go willingly; these who de not, they drag.'"