Blog 2: Teaching Students How to Evaluate Web Sites

Teaching Students How to Evaluate Web Sites:

Where does one begin teaching students how to evaluate and analyze sites? Well, what I think is most obvious is by doing some demonstrations (e.g., the Google sites Wes and I looked at in class, the Martin Luther King site, Robots in Victorian England, etc.) I can think of one that I would show my class that I found while working on the Virtual Field Trip assignment. I questioned a site because of it’s URL: oyez.org. What threw me off was the “Oh, Yes” that was re-worded into slang, and I thought, how could a site about the US Supreme Court use slang for their URL? So, I decided to read through the “About Us” portion, and checked out the “Benefactors” and “Advocates” pages and deemed it reliable. The virtual field trip was great, but I’m glad I was still skeptic enough to look through the site and examine it some more. Besides, I always like reading about who created the site and why (I’m just very curious I suppose).

I will no doubt make a lesson out of this for my freshman next year. For this lesson, my students will be able to: 1) identify different methods to validate reliable web sites; 2) collaborate to make a general checklist of what to look for when validating a site; and 3) understand the importance of recognizing valid and invalid web sites.

I will first make my own expectations of what the list should look like. Mr. Alan November has it right on for a place to start - using the REAL acronym: Read the URL, Examine the Content, Ask about the author and owner, and Look at the links (Web Literacy for Educators 2008, NovemberLearning). I would essentially be making a “minimum” list of what they need to include in their “Reliable Web Sites” guide. Anything extra would be icing on the cake!

I think it would be fun for students to develop their own list (or at least make it seem like they are developing this list). By making it a collaboration where they look at sites (here's a list from Alan November to get you started) and answer questions about the validity of it  (Kathy Schrock has one such list), they can in turn develop the class guide. Essentially, the lesson/assignment would be collaboration amongst each other, working toward an agreed upon guide (using November’s REAL), all the while doing it as a WebQuest. See Filamentality from EdTec448 Diigo Group.

I have to say I was mildly frustrated looking for some virtual field trips in my curriculum today. I’m hoping that my frustration is a result of the lack of VFTs for my subjects and not my search skills. I was able to find some, but I found it difficult to find VFTs about accounting (IRS, taxes, audit, Wall Street) and law (contracts, contract law). I will have to practice these search skills. I think I’m going to make a “Stickies” that consolidates the list so I can remember them more easily. Opening a book or my notes is not always the easiest option.