Critically Evaluating the WebEach day a student researches on the internet, they are faced with the validity of the information they find. Last week, my lesson for my gifted students was to analyze three web sites about the millennium and evaluate them based on the following criteria...
authority
purpose
content
designhttp://mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~spjvweb/evalchart.html
I wanted the students to begin to look at web sites with a critical eye. Since they had never been asked to do this, it was a good lesson for my students. However, I quickly discovered my junior high students(6-8) understood the lesson more than my upper elementary students(3-5). I know some of this is that the junior high students have had more exposure to the web, but I want the upper elementary students to become more comfortable with critically evaluating the internet.
After reading the articles and looking at the web sites my classmates found this week, I plan to continue this lesson and utilize the new information I learned. I especially want to try a web evaluation that is more suited for the primary grades. An example I am considering is,
http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/edu/rubric1.htm
Overall, the articles we read this week, presented important factors that I had overlooked. I had neglected to point out to my students when the site was last updated. I realize that this is an important point when looking at a web site critically.
I also felt the CARS acronym, (credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support) by Robert Harris, included the important factors and would be easy to understand for my gifted students. If fact many students would be more inclined to remember and critically evaluate a web site if it is in a format that they can recall easily.
I feel this lesson of critically evaluating a web will be an important issue for a long time to come. We, as teachers, need to continually prepare our students for the future when there will be even more information on the internet. Students need to develop a critical eye and the earlier they are exposed to it, the better they will be adapted to it.
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