Teaching Students How to Search, Evaluate Information, and Communicate on the Internet
Summer 2002
Course Requirements
Web Site Evaluation
Instrument
Tuesday, July 30
This assignment will focus on Web Site Evaluation. You will have two missions: (1) To visit web sites that address the topic of web site evaluation and (2) To develop a web site evaluation instrument for your students. This may be the most important part of the course because you are teaching students to think critically about the information they see, hear, and read on the Internet!
HOW TO BEGIN: VISITING WEB SITE EVALUATION WEB SITES
FIRST, you should make a list of the areas that are important in evaluating web sites after visiting each of the links below. In other words, you are answering the following question: What areas are important for students to consider when they evaluate web sites? This will become more clear to you after you read the remaining section.
NEXT, you should design and create a web site evaluation instrument for your future students in FrontPage. The design of this instrument is open-ended and SHOULD BE CREATED TO MEET THE NEEDS OF YOUR FUTURE STUDENTS. You are doing this project for your future students, not for me.
save as firstnamelastnamewe.html
example: raypastorewe.html
Some questions & answers:
Questions & Answers
What is this instrument thing?
This instrument is really not a thing or a technical device but a paper and
pencil assessment that a student would use to evaluate web sites.
Huh?
You are going to give the students a "handout" that will enable them
to sit in front of a computer and evaluate a web site.
What areas of the web site are they
going to evaluate?
You may choose any or all of the areas below. You may also choose
categories from your list in section one. You may also add your own
categories. At a minimum, your evaluation instrument should have
students think critically about the validity
and reliability of the
content. I think that students tend to believe everything they read and the
Internet certainly can be classified in this category. Following is a list
of some recommended areas:
These are only some general categories. You can add more categories or subdivide these into many areas. You will get ideas as you visit the web sites for this assignment.
How should this instrument be
designed?
You should construct a rubric in the form of a table with categories and a
rating scale for each category. The rubric should be designed to evaluate
a web site, however, it should not be too long or complicated because it will
bore or frustrate the students. Of course, this also depends on the level of the
students. I believe that students should be at each web site between 10 to 30
minutes while using your instrument.
What do you mean by categories and
rating scales?
Categories are the characteristics of the web site that you want student to
evaluate such as the areas listed above. Rating scales ask the student to
assign a value in numbers (1 to 10) or descriptors (excellent to bad) for each
category. USE YOUR IMAGINATION! Check out the models used in the web sites
which you visited for this assignment.
Should there be a overall rating for
each web site evaluated?
Yes, the students should give each web site an overall
rating. If that rating is in numbers, then the numbers should be given
some kind of qualitative meaning such as "good" or "bad" or
"site worth visiting" or "site not worth visiting."
How should we create this instrument?
You should create a web page in FrontPage using a table.
How will you assign points to this
instrument?
I will use the following criteria:
For examples of Bloomsburg University students' web site evaluation instruments, visit the student web pages at:
http://teacherworld.com/vlcstudentwebpages.html
Searching and Search Engines
Tuesday, July 30
Construct a web page for your students with the following information:
After examining the links on search engines in the course links section, construct a web page for your students with the following information (45 points):
5 search engines you would recommend for children. Give the name, address, and one-sentence description.
10 search techniques to your students to help your students conduct effective Internet searches.
Searching and Search Techniques-save as groupnumber.html
example: groupone.html
For discussion
What search tools do you use?
How do you use search engines? Does your school have a policy dealing with this?
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