Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:17:53 +0530
From: Subbiah Arunachalam
Thanks very much Jorge. I am circulating this to many key people in India
with a request to spread the word. Regards.
Arun
-----Original Message-----
From: Jorge Gallardo Rius
To: Subbiah Arunachalam
Sent: 10/17/03 9:26 PM
Subject: Evaluating Website Sources
Evaluating Website Sources
By Jorge Gallardo Rius
Many students in Honduras use the World Wide Web to
research homework topics. Sometimes they take the
content directly from the web and insert it as their
own work. Other times they take parts of the work and
insert it into their own, often forgetting to quote
the source. At best, they use it as reference
material to write their own work but often do not
indicate the source. Some teachers only require
references from printed sources.
Teachers in all academic areas should be concerned
because often they won't know if they are evaluating
the student's work, a respectable outside source or a
quack's eerie sense of humor. That is why many
schools are now using website evaluation worksheets as
part of the homework completion material. By not
using them, schools are missing the opportunity to
fulfill important educational standards.
Using a website evaluation worksheet helps students
recognize authorship and helps them learn to respect
intellectual property rights. Standard 2 of the North
American Education Technology Standards (NETS) and
other international standards place much importance on
learning to use technology resources responsibly. It
is important that students learn to indicate website
references, using the URL, as well as printed
references.
Secondly, a good website evaluation worksheet will
guide a student to properly evaluate a website and
distinguish "good" sources of information from "bad"
ones. This helps student develop their critical
thinking abilities. Not everything in the World Wide
Web is informational and students must learn to select
respectable sources of knowledge or, at least, beware
possibly tainted information.
In a sixth grade science class, a teacher asked her
students to search websites and find three important
discoveries made possible by space travel. She gave
students a list of websites which included NASA, CNN
and other good sites. She included other sites to
test her students. One was about space aliens and had
links to "Elvis lives" websites. Another presented a
detailed "scientific" analysis proving that squirrels
are aliens.
In social studies classes, website evaluation
worksheets help students identify compromised
opinions. Another sixth grade class did a project on
the Middle East about the role religion plays in
regional conflicts. By recognizing the URL and the
author's resume they were able to determine what his
biases were likely to be. This data was part of
filling the website evaluation worksheet.
Both of these projects, and others reviewed for this
article, were designed by teams made up of class
teachers and computer lab teachers, and all used
website evaluation sheets to document the student's
research and webquest results.
Webquests are web pages that gather different
resources and make them easily available for student
projects. The computer teacher prepares them in
conjunction with the regular class teachers.
Students, specially younger ones, find it easier to
simply click on the screen and access predetermined
contents. Access to search engines, such as Google or
AltaVista are also included for more advanced students
who want to be creative. Website evaluation
worksheets document the student's navigation through
the web and are part of the project completion
requirements.
If you are interested in sample website evaluation
worksheets to implement in your school or furthur
descriptions of these and other similar projects,
write to me at the e-mail listed below. I have
several lesson plans for different topics and grades
available in PDF format (Acrobat Reader is also free
and easy to download and install in your computer).
Send comments to: jgallardo515@yahoo.com
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