Website+Evaluation

=Think about these questions and how you read websites = > Do you read all of the text on the page? > > > > > >
 * 
 * How do you use pictures to help you read?
 * What do you look for on the homepage of a website?
 * How do you choose what links to click?

Read : [|How to spot a fake website?]

=== www.google.com  ===

===Go to Google and type in a site's URL (such as www.martinlutherking.org) and click "Go." Then select "Find Web pages that link to¦." and you will get a list of other sites that link to that particular site. Some are perfectly legitimate but some are not. First, if this site were so trustworthy and accurate why would so many hate groups link to it? Second, why would so many Web sites teaching how to evaluate the Web use this one as an example of a bad site? These are questions that we must teach our students to ask. ===

=== www.whois.net  ===

===A quick visit here will allow a user to check the organization or person who owns the site in question. For example, searching for [|www.martinlutherking.org] quickly reveals that the site is owned by an organization called "StormFront". Another quick search reveals that the organization responsible for the "True Historical Examination" of Dr. King, is indeed a White Supremacy Group. I think it's safe to assume a bias in this case. ===

===Look closely at a Web site's URL. Does it contain a tilde (~)? If so, that should set off a caution flag. Consider the following, fictional, URL: [|www.reputableuniversity.edu/~walker/historyfacts.html]. Because it contains the name of a reputable university one would assume it is a trustworthy source, right? But while it may be part of a university's site, that tilde lets us know that this portion of the site is created, published, and maintained by somebody else. Universities typically allow their students to create Web pages. While the pages may physically be part of the university's site, the tilde let's us know that the university does not necessarily endorse the material. ===

===If you read something that arouses suspicion, find another source. We should constantly remind our students that the Internet is filled with information and finding another Web site that hopefully confirms but may contradict what one has read shouldn't be too difficult or time consuming. The Internet is a great tool for educators and students. We must remember to tell our students that they shouldn't necessarily believe everything they read just because it's online. If we remind them of some of the techniques available to verify the accuracy of the information they find, we'll be able to counter the demagoguery of these intentionally misleading Web sites. ===

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Read: [|Online Comprehension] <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Read: [|The 5 W's for Website Evaluation]

Use the Online Comprehension Model and answer the following questions > > > > > > > >  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Go back to [|The tree octopus] page you visited   <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What do you notice about the page?
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: initial; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-size: 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">What do we need to find out?
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: initial; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-size: 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">Where should we begin?
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: initial; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-size: 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">Where do we want to go?
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: initial; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-size: 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">What do we need to do first?
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: initial; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-size: 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">What do you predict this site will be about?