Tools for Teachers to evaluate websites

WWW.EDUCATORSTECHNOLOGY.COMTeachers Easy Guide onHow to Evaluate Webcontent for ClassroomInclusionTips for teachers on how to sift good web content from bad one Mohamed Kharbach 7/12/2012

www.educatorstechnology.comAbout The AuthorMohamed ( Med ) Kharbach is a Canadian Certified Teacher working atthe Halifax Regional School board. He has been teaching for nine yearsnow. He is also a master student in Mount Saint Vincent University,department of education in Halifax. He is working on a thesis about theeducational use of emerging technologies in education.Mohamed is also a SEO ( Search Engine Optimizer ) and web designer.He is the editor and owner of Educational Technology and MobileLearning where he writes about web 2.0 revisions and provides tips forboth students and teachers on how to better implement technology intheir classrooms.You can contact Med at : med@educatorstechnology.com

www.educatorstechnology.comIntroducationAs our students grow dependant on Internet being a primary source fortheir information, it becomes of urgent necessity that we, as teachersand educators, should know how to evaluate web content and deciphercredible resources from spam and irrelevant ones. Regrettably enough,some of the teachers who are using technology in their instruction stilldont come to grips with the mechanisms used to sift through internetcontent. There is a crude analogy to this situation . A teacher who doesnot evaluate the web content he shares with his students is like aperson driving a car without having a driver license, he can still drive hiscar but he does not know the real dangers he is putting himself to indoing so.Being able to evaluate online content is a skill detrimental to the 21stcentury education. Our students are digitally focused and they use Internetalmost on a daily basis . You give them an assignment or a classroomproject, the first thing they do is to check for resources online and ifthey do not know how to differentiate what is a reliable and credible

www.educatorstechnology.comresource from non credible ones they will simply fall easy preyto content scrapers and misleading information. Therefore, we need toseriously address this issue and try our best to make Internet thatilluminating source that our students can comfortably use in theirlearning development.Techniques of Web EvaluationBelow is a list of some of the best and most important techniques wecan use to teach our students about how to evaluate a web page.Please check the webliography links at the end of this post for furtherreadings.1- Scan the URLThe URL is the web address of the page you are reading. it has thisformat :www.name of the website.name of article you arereading.com. This is the first door we need to tap in to get a glimpse ofwhat the article is all about. Read the URL carefully and look for thefollowing :Does the URL have a domain name and if so is it appropriate for thecontent ? Students should know that a site that has a domain nameending with .edu is more likely to be relevant for academic andecucational content. Other domain names of interest are .com, , .gov,.org. This does not mean that other domain names are spam or wouldnot be irrelevant, we can also find good and credible content in otherdomains but this should be made clear to students.2- When you are on a web page, make sure you check for these : "about us", " Philosophy ", " Background", " Bibliography". This will giveyou an idea about the people behind that content.

www.educatorstechnology.com3- Look for the name of the author, or the name of the organization orinstitution, agency or whoever is responsible for the page.4- Check out if the page is dated and if so , is it current enough ?Undated factual or statistical information is no better than anonymousinformation. Be cautious when dealing with it.5- Look for indicators of quality information : are sources documentedwith footnotes or links ? Do the links work ? Are they reliable ? if thearticle is reproduced from another source then is it complete, notaltered, fake, or forged ?6- Try to figure out the purpose of the website ? Is it mainly commercial? is the author trying to generate revenue by recommending things,enticing, or selling products ? Is the website informative and providesdata and facts ?Evaluation CriteriaAccording to nmsu.edu, There are 5major yardsticks to keep in mindwhile trying to evaluate a website:

www.educatorstechnology.com1- Authority :The authority of a webpage can be established by finding answers to these questions :  Is there an author ? If so is there a way to contact him/her ?  Is the page signed ?  Is the author qualified ? An expert in his domain ? ( you can learn about this from his " about us " page if he has one.  Is there a link to the information about the author or the sponsor of the website ? If the pages does not include no author name of sponsor, then is there any other way to determine its origin ?2- AccuracyTo establish accuracy in a web page you need to ask yourself thesequestions :  Is the information reliable ?  Is it error-free ?  Does it include links to other resources ?  Is there an editor or someone who verifies and checks information ?3- Objectivity :To look for objectivity in a web age you need to ask the followingquestions :

www.educatorstechnology.com  Does the information show a minimum of bias ?  Is the author impartial in his reasoning ?  Is the page designed to sway opinions ?  How much advertising on the page ?4- CurrencyTo investigate about this feature ask the following :  is the page dated ?  How often is it dated ?  What is the last time the page updated ?  How current are the links? Have some expired or moved ?5- Coverage :to learn about a web page coverage you need to ask the followingquestions :  what topics this website cover ?  What is it that this page offer to readers ?  How in-depth is the material ?  What about the writing style, arguments, data , and facts included ? how are these developed ?

www.educatorstechnology.comMore evaluation toolsI have read several articles about this topic while I was working on thispost but I did not find anything better than the neat and clear-cutclassification of the web evaluation tools Cornell University Library hasprovided. Of course some of the things they included have already beenmentioned above but there are many more to learn about. Let mesummarize what they have written.Evaluation criteria according to Cornell University Library :  Author  Date of publication  Edition or Revision  Publisher  Title of Journal  Intended Audience  Objective Reasoning  Coverage  Writing Style  Evaluative reviews

www.educatorstechnology.comEvaluating Web pages : Questions to ask ? ( always according to CornellUniversity Library )  What can the URL tell you /  Who wrote the page ? is he,she, or the authoring institution a qualified authority ?  Is it dated ? Current, timely ?  Is information cited authentic ?  Does the page have overall integrity and reliability as a source ?  What the bias ?  Could the page or site be iconic, like a satire or a spoof ?  If you have questions or reservations, how can you satisfy them ?

www.educatorstechnology.comTwo Great tools to evaluate websitesI will share with you here two of the web tools I personally use toevaluate a webpage besides what I have already mentioned above: First off I am a Chrome user and this browser helps me a lot inevaluating internet websites. I have installed some extensions that Ican not imagine myself going online without having access to them.:2- Google Page rankThis is a sophisticated algorithm Google uses to classify websites from 0to 10 with 10 being the top. Any webpage with a Google Page rank of 3upwards is a great website and can be ( only can be ) reliable. The firstthing I do whenever I land on a page for the first time is to check itsGoogle Page rank. You can install its extension on your browser and willalways show the rank number of any webpage. Check this page todownload the extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Safari3- Alexa Traffic rankAlexa traffic rank is another great tool to rank websites. Advertisers useit a lot especially when looking for potential clients. Alexa rankswebsites according to their backlinks and page views. It starts with 26million down to 1 with 1 being the top ( Google has 1 in Alexa rank ).Any website ranked from 300.000 down can be ( only can be ) a goodresource. Again Alexa has an extension for both Chrome and Firefoxand it can also be used right from their homepage.

www.educatorstechnology.comWebliography :1- Cybrary Man links2- Finding and Evaluating Websites Assignments3- Evaluating Web pages4- Evaluating and Using Print and Media Resources5- Comparing and Evaluating Web Information Resources6- Check-list for Evaluating Web Resources

Tools for Teachers to evaluate websites

by Mohamed Kharbach on Jul 12, 2012

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