Session3

=Week 2 Online (Part 1)= This week, we will be focusing on finding resources effectively on the Internet and evaluating them. Part 1 of this week's online class is below. You will see the link for part 2 at the bottom of this page. Chapter 2 in the November text introduced us to several great suggestions related to searching. While reading chapters 3-5 in the text, you'll find many great strategies to think about and try as you find resources on the Internet. Chapter 3 teaches you how to use REAL to evaluate sites. Chapters 4 and 5 teach us more about search strategies. I highly recommend you sit at the computer while you practice the strategies he describes.

==During the first part of Week 2 Online, we will learn more about "searching smart" and then discuss how to evaluate sites. There are 4 steps on this page - the first part of week 2 online. After watching the video below, scroll down to the rest of the information. After completing this page, click on the link at the bottom of this page to move onto part 2 for week 2 online. ==

1. I'd like to highlight the following quote that begins on the bottom of page 22 and continues onto page 23. "What this means is that the results of your search do not necessarily have anything to do with the quality of the information. A site at the top might be there based on how many links are coming into it from other sites. Popularity does not equal the best quality" (November, 23, 2008). We cannot rely on Google to do everything for us. We still need to practice good searching strategies and evaluate the information we find. To begin this week, please view the following presentation about "Searching Smart". (I used Jing to create the presentation. You'll have to scroll down a bit to see the screen - you only need to see the search window for Google. There is audio and video (my screen capture) so make sure you can hear me talking!) =media type="custom" key="9230990" width="30" height="30"=

2. It's time to begin thinking about how we will teach our students to search more effectively. From Kindergarten to High School, students can search for information on the Internet! If we start the conversation young, then imagine how good they will be at it once they are on their own in college!! Below are 2 ideas for using search strategies with your students. First, click on the "Four NETS for Better Searching" link and view Bernie Dodge's searching tips. This is a great way to teach students how to use Google Advanced Search! Go ahead and give it a try!!!

Four NETS for Better Searching

Try this Custom Search (below) that I created through Google Custom Search (link to Google Custom Search)
I want you to search for information on the history of the Olympics (just to experience using a custom search). Type your search terms in the search box below and then click "search". You will notice that you only search sites that I programmed into the custom search. Try to create your own for your own students! (Click on the "Google Custom Search" link above.)

media type="custom" key="6091613"

===4. Let's apply some of our reading. In chapter 3, November discussed using the REAL strategy to evaluate websites. I've broken you up into pairs. What I'd like you to do is use pages 31-43 in the November text to evaluate the sites below. Once you have looked at the sites and evaluated them using REAL, type your thoughts in the table below your sites. Both you and your partner(s) will be adding ideas to that table. Keep your thoughts short and to the point. I present each group with a scenario and question. You do not need to answer that question, just evaluate the sites. (You'll see how easily the students can get distracted by doing a search on the Interent. These are some of the sites that came up when I did a search for the topics below! Remember to also think about "other" items on the pages - ads, links, distracting items, etc.)=== ===There are MANY other resources on the Internet related to evaluating websites. One that I like to share with my students is Kathy Shrock's website. In addition, when I did a Google search for "kathy shrock" and "evaluating websites", I came up with MANY "hits". Give it a try. Add items to our EDTEC 448 Google group if you would like to share the resources.===

Group 1
Your students are learning about the periodic table. Have them do some research on an element. Where can they get the most appropriate information about the different elements?
 * 1) @http://www.chemicool.com/
 * 2) @http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos
 * 3) @http://www.uky.edu/Projects/Chemcomics/
 * 4) @http://www.chem4kids.com/files/elem_intro.html
 * 5) @http://www.popsci.com/files/periodic_popup.html
 * || Your experiences with using REAL || How could you adapt REAL to use with YOUR students? || Are these sites appropriate for your students to use for research? ||
 * Jen || I have been using REAL to some extent for awhile. I have always tried to evaluate the content of a website and look where the information is coming from. However, through reading November and the thorough explanation of REAL, I have learned additional strategies for evaluating sites. For example, I looked at URLs in the past, but I was examining clues in the words presented and not the punctuation such as a ~. Additionally, I had never heard of easyWhois before, but I think this site is a valuable tool when questioning the validity of a source. || It is important that students evaluate sources that they use for research. However, many of them don't know how. I could use a version of REAL with my students to help them with this process. Specifically, I would like to create a one page document for my students entitled, "how to search the internet better." Here I would provide them with the steps to REAL and specific tips about interpreting URLs and evaluating information and authors. || I applied REAL to these websites to evaluate their use for student research: Read the URL--November says that generally .com is a site to be weary of, while .edu is generally more reliable. According to that thinking, #3 seems to be the best site. However, when you look further at the address in #3, it appears that this site is a comic type project, and thus perhaps is not good information for researching an element. The URL examination is not conclusive, so I went to each site to Examine the content. After examining the content, I eliminated 3 and 5 as good sources because 3 is a site organizing comic books and 5 is advertising a poster and has limited information beyond this. Then for the remaining sites, I examined A and L. All sites seem to have valid authors and recent updates. #1 Chemicool may be my pick as the best source due to the level and type of content. #2 was a creative approach to the content and provides good videos for students to embed into a project, however they would need to search further for information on the element. Also YouTube is blocked for students in my district, so only I would be able to access it in class. Lastly, #5 Chem4kids has good information, but depending on the level of the course, may be simplistic. ||
 * Mary || **R**eading the URL is easy - it still astounds me that people are not doing this in the first place. However, I would have ruled out the YouTube site, which actually has some really nice resources on it (and because reading the URL lets me know instantly that my kids cannot use it at school). **E**xamining the content - again, it astounds me that people are not doing this. **A**sk about the author, this one became a little bit tougher for me. I mean, really, if you're feeling good about the information, most people would not question beyond that. The periodic table from Popular Science did not have an author, is sponsored by DOW - I would guess that this is a reliable site. When I followed a few elements, I discovered that almost each link is from Theodore Gray, but he works for Wolfram Alpha - hardly an source worth questioning. **L**ook at the links, this one can be useful and silly, in my opinion. Almost all of the links on the reliable sites are keeping you on the same site - it is a periodic table, almost each link is to another element. It took a few clicks to leave a few of the sites. I think most of us are probably sing at least three of these tools, if not all four (again, for me, if the other three are working out, I am not typically doing a lot of searching for the author). Overall, the process was easy. || I would emphasize **R** and **E** to them. I would encourage them to also **L**ook at the links and the author, but I strongly feel that for many of my students, they do not think critically enough about content. If it is written on the internet, then it is fact for them. For **A**, honestly, I would encourage them simply to ask, period! While I want to build students who can search independently and responsibly in the future, I want them to remember that there are content experts available to them in-person, as well. Too often, students begin searching on the internet and get lost - it does not occur to them to ask for assistance, and simple e-mail to a professor or teacher could answer their question quickly, and easily. || Obivously, the uky site was not appropriate. I almost didn't click on it at all, but wanted to be sure that I didn't miss anything. ChemiCool and PopSci (Popular Science) are sites I have used before, and though you might not expect it, I have also used Chem4Kids as a linked resource on my class site (when I had one). I teach chemistry to lower level students, and the site has some good explanations of things for them (the problem is that they seldom explore on their own). The YouTube site is also appropriate, but I could not leave my students to their own devices with it - they would move to inappropriate videos far to easily, each video has unsolicited commentary and advertisements as well (the videos at ChemiCool are embedded, and safer to use). I would project the YouTube site for my classes and choose the videos to display myself. ***You could also embed the particular YouTube videos that you want your students to see in a class wiki/blog. This would help isolate the video that you want them to see! (Great question to ask in the synchronous online class!) ||

Group 2
Your middle school students will research the events that took place at Pearl Harbor; write an in-depth article as though they experienced those events firsthand; and discuss what lessons can be learned from Pearl Harbor.
 * 1) []
 * 2) []
 * 3) []
 * 4) []
 * 5) []
 * 6) []
 * 7) []
 * || Your experiences with using REAL || How could you adapt REAL to use with YOUR students? || Are these sites appropriate for your students to use for research? ||
 * Megan || I guess I’ve been doing my own version of REAL since I started using the internet back when I was a y2k researcher. Like Karen said though, the A part doesn’t usually mean a whole lot to me. I usually go from R to E to L. I always check out links- especially when I visit new webpages. || I don’t have my students do a whole lot of research. We don’t write reports, but if I’m out one day, they can use REAL to find ways to do something in Photoshop that they might normally need me for. My web design students do a little more research because they must include information on their webpages. REAL is very time consuming but I think it’s important to teach the kids how to figure out if a source is credible. I might develop an abbreviated version of REAL (not as many steps for each letter) and ask my HS students to use some common sense. || I tried the NatGeo link but it didn’t take me to anything about Pearl Harbor; it just took me to the National Geographic homepage. So I wouldn’t use that particular link for this project, but the NatGeo site in general would be appropriate for MS kids. Like Karen said, the 1-3 and 7 seemed useful and appropriate for MS kids. It seemed like the ibiblio.org site had credible and useful information but was written above a MS student’s level of comprehension and did not contain any images. That page and the Library of Congress //looked// fake/not credible to me just because the site was created in an old table format and looked like one that someone with only basic html coding knowledge would create. No frills (which is fine) but it looked like a personal site. When I truncated the LOC page, it looked much more professional. The appearance (in my mind) matched up with the .gov extension of the URL. #5 might be confusing for the MS kids because they might think that they were on an actual site sponsored by the US Navy. I didn’t see any ads on the sites, but I checked them from work so they are probably blocked. So if the kids were only using the sites at school, I wouldn’t have to worry about the ads. ||
 * Karen || REAL is not too different from what I normally do when examining internet sources. The URL can definitely tell you a lot, especially when it has a ."edu" or ".gov" extension. I find that I usually truncate a URL if I am not sure what the website is, and that often helps me decide if the site is trustworthy. I do not typically look for authors, since most of the time, the author's name means nothing to me! Now, I can see some value in that, since you are able to see if it is a company that controls the website and then investigate if they have an alternative agenda. It is quite a tedious process though. Examining the links is a good strategy that I don't typically use and I enjoyed the exercise in which we looked at back links. It is something that I feel I can use if I am ever in doubt about the validity of a site. || I think that many students might be overwhelmed by REAL. It can be VERY time consuming to check every site thoroughly. I feel that students can be taught these skills by looking at a site such as the Tree Octopus webpage as discussed in the November text. By demonstrating each of the 4 steps of REAL on a site that is less than trustworthy can open students' eyes to the need to check their sources. Obviously, some websites can be trusted without having to use REAL to check their validity. I think it would be a great idea to keep a class list of websites that are good resources, and add to it all year long so students can see what good websites look like and have a starting point to begin their searches. || After visiting the 7 sites above, I think that they all have certain qualities that would make them valuable for this assignment. I found the first three and the last website to be very user friendly and written in language that middle schoolers would understand. The Library of Congress page (#6) and ibiblo (#4) might be a little above a middle schooler's level of thinking, but they are still valid and relevent sources for a high schooler perhaps. The Navy website (which is not affiliated with the US Navy) (#5) still had great visuals for the students to examine, and these pictures were all credited to reliable sources. The thing that I was a little wary about were all of the advertisments on these sites. Especially the one for mormon.org on the Eyewitness to History site! Even National Geographic had some ads and games that you could click on as a distraction. Ibibio and Library of Congress seemed to be the only sites that did not have ads, but they were also the sites that were geared more toward adults. Great observations! the ads are definitely something to try to stay away from....you never know what could pop up. Also - the Navy information - I don't know how reliable it is since it's not a "navy" site. It's important to teach the students how to tell these things. ||

Group 3
Your elementary students want to learn about different dinosaurs and learn why they are extinct. ***I like how you adapted it to your students' level. Links - 2 is all you get is my favorite!** || After I analyzed these sites, URL's, and authors, I've come to the conclusion that only 1, 4, 6, 7, and 8 were credible. They were by BBC, National Geographic, and other collegiate/higher learning institutions. The other sites seemed to be made my students or other companies that I wouldn't want my students going to. However, my students would have a hard time searching through the credible ones. I thought the national geographic looked about the best. The BBC website I thought was great because I was one click away to finding out details about different dinosaur Right now, my student's wouldn't have been very successful with these, but with some REAL training, I think some would have managed fine. || E- Look at games on site together and try to find one to address their goals, then play it. A- I'd have to do a lesson on authors first, and talk about book, magazine, and web authors, but then we could look at those. Maybe that would be something to go along with a lesson already being taught by the typical classroom teacher? L- We'd hav to click on some and see if there were any other fun sites they'd like to try. Billy Bear's site would be a great one for that activity. || The national history, Academy of National Sciences, and Dinobuzz site could provide useful information for older students writing a report about dinosaurs and their extinction. Though the Berkley site (Dinobuzz) was made in 1995 and last updated in 2005. It almost looks like a class project created by the author. None of those site would interest most of my students, though, due to the high volume of text. *Good - I wanted you to point out the high volume of text. We really have to be careful not to overwhelm students with the text on a page.
 * 1) Dino Directory @http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/dino-directory/
 * 2) Dinosauria Online []
 * 3) Billy Bear's Land O' Dinosaurs []
 * 4) Discovering Dinosaurs []
 * 5) Taxonomy of Barney @http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v1i1/barney.htm
 * 6) DinoBuzz []
 * 7) Walking With Dinosaurs []
 * 8) Dinorama []
 * || Your experiences with using REAL || How could you adapt REAL to use with YOUR students? || Are these sites appropriate for your students to use for research? ||
 * Phil || I'm almost embarrassed to say it but really the only way I've been using REAL is to examine the content and to find out if the author or owner was credible. I've never really read URL's (but ever since I've read these first 4 chapters of November I have already found myself reading URL's, but still no expert). As far as links go, I know not to go too crazy with them, and I think that I have decent judgement when it comes to them. || I have been thinking about this a lot. Next September I want to put a "Computer Word Wall" next to my computers. Words such as"links, websites, URL's, etc." I want to have more direct instruction. Once those base words are taught, I plan on making a REAL sign next to the computer, but more "kid-friendly." Like **R**ead the URL, **E**xamine the website, **A**uthor of website, and **L**inks, 2 is all you get." I would try and explain this poster with them and see where it goes from there.
 * Jessica || Asside from checking authors, I feel like I've been naturally REALing for a while. Thought I have looked to contact support staff on site a number of times, so I suppose I have done the A set before as well. || R- Reading a URL to practice letter recognition.

Dinosauria and Billy Bear's Land O' Dinosaurs lacked a cohesive page set up, thought there were little distractions and that would be nice for my age of learners. With one on one assistance, my kids might be able to play some of the games on Billy Bear's site. Also, Billy Bear had a parent page talking about Internet safety, which was very nice for the author to include. ||
 * Leslie || Okay, so I have to admit that I've never used the REAL strategies. Over time I've learned things like extensions, but I had no idea about back links and forward links. Dare I admit that I didn't even know about using quotation marks and the plus sign to search more effectively. That being said, chapters 3-6 were very eye opening to me. I feel like I've just learned so much! || I will have to start teaching REAL strategies in my classroom next year because applied technology is being cut from our school. It will become our responsibility to teach computer skills. I love Phil's idea about having a word wall using technology words. I also think it would be important to teach the children how to "search smart". At a certain point they would be ready to learn about quotation marks and plus signs. Jessica had a good idea about connecting book authors with web authors. Another lesson my kids could learn is "looks are not everything." ***It's just going to take a lot of reinforcement at this age. However, this type of learning can be so easily integrated into a lot of work that you already do in the classroom. Any website can be quickly "assessed" in a 1-3 minute scan of the site before you discuss any content. Have the kids come up with the good/bad that exists with that site! || I felt that none of the sites would have been appropriate for my kids. There was too much going on. Too much text, too many pictures, too many menus, too many advertisements, etc. My kids just aren't ready to navigate through so much with limited reading abilities and limited computer abilities. I did get excited when I was on the National Geographic Kids site because I was going to play a game that looked age appropriate. But, before I could get to the game 2 ad windows popped up and then somehow I was taken away from the game link. And you never know what will be advertised. I've had games open on my smartboard, in front of the whole class, and had advertisements with women in bikinis playing. I wasn't able to find the game in the end. If I was going to use one of the sites, I would need to create a virtual index. ||

Go to Week 2 Online Part 2