1. For my websites, I chose the http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-02-24/moscow-meets-
picasso.html and http://twitter.com/educatedarts/status/13866119088.
While rt.com is a commercial news organization broadcast from Russia and Washington,
D.C., the page on twitter is connected to the University of California Press (UC Press
Arts, known as educatedarts on twitter), which is part of an educational institution. Both
rt.com and twitter appear to be well-known entities, so they have that in common.
Further, while the article and corresponding tweet were published in the past, both rt.com
and educatedarts appear to be updated daily. Rt.com does not cite an author for their
article, but educatedarts is handled by Heather of UC Press Arts. (Further investigation
showed that Heather is the Press Publicist for UC Press http://www.ucpress.edu/ blog/?P
=2345). However, it is not necessary to investigate, as it appears that UC Press is
responsible for the Twitter posts. Both rt.com and Twitter have “about us” pages, which
aids in lending credibility to the sites.
Neither the twitter post nor the rt.com story has footnotes or links to other sources, as
they are not academic articles. However, the rt.com story links to other stories in the arts,
which are interesting for the arts lover. Similarly, if one chooses to go to the educatedarts
page, one can view various Twitter postings made by educatedarts in relation to the UC
Press pages. The information from both pages appears to be valid and real, as it is time-
stamped. There does not appear to be any forgery on either of the pages. Using
Alexa.com, twitter is named the 7th most popular site in the United States, with 798,960
sites linking into it, while rt.com is listed as number 3,315 in the United States, with
1,804 sites linking in.
While I was unable to find rt.com on any other directory, it was listed in the Yahoo
directory under Russian television networks as Russia Today, which linked directly to
rt.com. As to Twitter, I was able to access it only via the Google and Yahoo directories.
Both sites seem to be credible sites for the purpose of the Picasso exhibit they are
speaking of. Educatedart from UC Press Arts is just about informing the community
about publications about art and history. I think it achieves this goal well and is a credible
source for these public relations bits. As for rt.com, it is an English language website in
Russia. For the purposes of the arts article I read, this news source seemed credible
enough. Thus, after evaluating both Web sites, I believe that they both achieved the
purpose needed by me, which was to inform me about that particular Pablo Picasso
exhibit.
2) As for a lesson plan in which I would teach students how to approach and evaluate
Web sites, I would choose 3 different categories of publications/Web sites for them to
view and compare. The three categories would be: news, entertainment, and
social/personal.
Just to get them started, I would circulate copies of newspapers, magazines for them to
look over and review in groups, while pointing out that most periodicals, including these,
have online counterparts. From the news category, I would have them view a hardcopy

2. version of a reputable newspaper, such as Washington Post or L.A. Times, and a news
magazine, such as Time or Newsweek. On the entertainment category, I would have them
view a hardcopy version of an entertainment newspaper, such as The Star, and
entertainment magazine, such as Teen People magazine. They would be able to view the
newspapers and magazines online, too. We would discuss differences between the online
and print media.
For the personal publication category, we would go to the internet and read some
personal articles from Blogspot or another website, where the members publish their
articles in a blog-type format. There are other websites, such as social networking sites,
which could also fall under the category of personal publishing. (However, some things
published by social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook are not personal, but
commercial, cultural or informational. Thus, in most case, social networking is really a
category in itself. For our purposes, we would be making a small niche for it here in
personal publications. Now, to making things even more complicated, there are bloggers
who work for the various news organizations, such as the NY Times, so some of those
bloggers are news reporters. We would keep that in mind as we analyze). We would
compare and contrast this personal style of publication with the others, in groups.
Each group would brainstorm some ways that these sources are different, such as the
intended audience and purpose of the writing. The groups would also brainstorm ways in
which to evaluate the credibility of the website, including such things as the timeliness of
the writing, whether the author has the qualifications needed to express a well-rounded
view of the subject written on, whether it is an unbiased view and how to determine that,
whether the article has been fact-checked by anyone prior to publication, how to tell
whether the information given is correct by comparing it with other sources on the same
subject.
This would be an introductory first day lesson, which would continue on for a second day
with actual research on an issue of the groups’ choice and a discussion of their results. On
a third day, the students would actually evaluate two Web sites of their choice and
compare the two using an agreed upon list of issues.