Wow! There were several articles to read today. The author’s articles all had the basic points and that is evaluation and authenticity of a web site. This is sometimes very difficult to determine especially for children. I doubt students take into consideration whether the information is error free since they are just learning to digest information themselves I am not sure a 4th grader is even able to decide this information it true or not after all they are still learning. I also feel the same way with deciding if information is current. To a 9 year old two years is a life time they were little then if you question them. I do feel though they can distinguish whether a site has been updated. And they love evaluation sites for grammar and spelling errors so those site provide an educational value as well.
Reading the passage on “Evaluating Web Pages” was very useful I booked marked several useful points. Such as reading the URL this would help students determine if the site itself is reliable. Indicators such workable links were another good point if the point does not work or redirect you as a user it probably wasn’t a very reliable site to begin with. Ease of use was also a point my fourth grades can relate to. I guess the biggest thing I took away from the endless readings is the usefulness of the teacher pre-screening a web site for student use.
2 comments:
I believe evaluating web sites is mainly for us as teachers to see what would work for our students. Every year are students are different, so we have to change our lessons and maybe even our read alouds.
Hey when you want to get a hold of me... My email at home is jacksonannmarie37@yahoo.com and school email is ajackson@pesd92.org
I agree with Ann-Marie in that teachers definitely need to be evaluating sites...that's part of the beauty of a WebQuest...all the sites have been screened already. However, I do believe we need start scaffolding with students to help them learn how to evaluate a website. Teaching them simple things like looking for update dates and some basic URL knowledge will take them a long way. This is part of being literate nowadays, so we need to teach this just like we were taught skills in using the encyclopedia and library.
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