Information literacy is a set of skills that allow people to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information. These skills are important for students to develop so they can validate information from the internet. The document provides tips for evaluating websites, such as checking the domain name and extension, looking at authorship and links, and examining the content. It directs readers to additional resources on information literacy.

1. Information Literacy: How can we
help our students (and ourselves)
become discerning users of the
Internet
Ellen Phillips
Instructional Technology Specialist
Queens Office of Educational Technology
NYC DOE

2. What is Information Literacy?
• Information literacy is a set of skills that
enable individuals to recognize when
information is needed and to have the ability
to locate, evaluate and effectively use the
needed information.

3. Information literacy
utilizes critical thinking
through its skills of
evaluating information

4. Information literacy also incorporates and
supplements other forms of literacy such as:
• Computer literacy
• Media literacy
• Research literacy
Information literacy can be applied in any
subject or area of study.

5. Why is information literacy important
for our students?
True Story
Fourteeen year old: “I’m working on a history
paper about how the Holocaust didn’t
happen.”
Teacher, after long pause: “Zack, where did you
hear that the Holocaust didn’t happen?”
“The Internet. It’s on a web page at
Northwestern University.”

6. Seeing is no longer
believing.
We need to help our students
develop skills that help them
validate information,
whether text, images or
audio.

7. How much do YOU know about
information literacy?
Take the information literacy
quiz to see if you are:
Somewhat savvy (0-3 points)
Moderately savvy (6-8
points)
Downright Nerdy (10 points)
Information Literacy Quiz from
Novemberlearning.com
Each correct answer is worth
1 point.

8. 1. Do you recognize the domain name in URL?
The domain name is found after the http://and www. To the first forward slash /.
For example in the URL www.novemberlearning.com, novemberlearning.com is the
domain name.
2. What clues in a Web address might indicate you are on a
personal web site?
Look for a tilde “~” or the “%” sign or a personal name “jdoe” or
the word “user” after the domain name and the first forward
slash “/”.
3. Why might you use quotation marks when conducting a search?
Use “quotation marks” to ensure your keywords appear in
your search results in the order you have specified.

9. 4. URL is an acronym for…
Uniform Resource Locator
5. Identify three Boolean search terms.
And, Or, Not
6. How do you find the owner or publisher of a web site?
Go to www.easywhois.com and enter the URL of the site you
would like to research.

10. 7. Identify threse extensions and what they represent:
.org organization .com company
.sch School (outside the U.S.) .k12 Most U.S. schools
.edu Higher education in the U.S. .gov U.S. Government, add
Country code for outside
Higher education, not U.S. U.S.
.ac Usually with a country code i.e.
“.ac.uk” .net network
.mil Military .co Company

11. 8. How do you find out who is linked to our school’s website?
Go to Google and do a site: command search.
9. How do you find the history of any given website?
Use The Wayback Machine
10. How do sites get to the top of a result list in ?
One factor used to rank sites on Google is popularity.
The more links to a site, the higher the ranking.

12. What to look for when Reading a URL
• Do you recognize the domain name?
• What is the extension in the domain name?
• Are you on a personal page?

13. “Pubweb” means public web server. The name following This is the intro
This is a clue that this is a personal posting. The ~ tells us this is a page of the site.
Directory for abutz.
http://pubweb.northwestern.edu/~abutz/di/intro.html
“northwestern.edu” is the domain name.
The site is from Northwestern University. “di” refers to the
“edu” is an extension for U.S. higher learning. next subdirectory
or folder
The tilde is the second clue that
This is a personal posting. A
tilde indicates a personal directory.
Hyptertext Transfer Protocol
Is used to format and transmit data
over the web.

14. Country Codes
You can find a complete listing of country codes at:
http://www.theodora.com/country_digraphs.html
http://www.redcoat.me.uk
http://www.state.de.us/facts/ushist/revfacts.htm

15. Examine the Content
1. Is the information on the website useful for
your topic?
2. Are additional resources and links provided?
3. Is the site current? Do you know when it
was last updated?
4. Do you think the information is accurate?
5. Does the information contradict
information you have found elsewhere?

16. Evaluate the content on these sites.
www.frogsonice.com/froggy
www.exploratorium.edu/frogs
www.frogville.com

17. Using Google, conduct a search for
keyword: Martin Luther King
Look for
www.martinlutherking.org
Where is it ranked in the
search results?
WARNING: Some of the websites we will
be exploring contain offensive material.

18. Ask About The Author
1. Is the author’s name provided?
2. Is there a contact person or an address
provided?
3. Is there biographical information provided
about the author?
4. Does the author seem knowledgeable? Is
he/she an expert in the field?
5. What kinds of results do you see when you
do a search on the author’s name?

19. The Wayback Machine
www.archive.org
Look back at the history of the website.
See how it has changed, what has been
added and what has been deleted.

20. www.easywhois.com
Who owns the domain?
Who owns HarryPotter.com?

21. Look At The Links
• What are the URLs of the forward links?
• Are any of them links to academic sites?
• Do the domain names change?
• Are all the links by the same author?

22. Forward Links go from your page to a
You link to.
Check for forward links at:
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

23. Back Links go from another site to your page.
You cannot control who links to your site.
Go to Google. Type in “site;www.dhmo.org”
to search for back links.
1.Who is linked to the website?
2.Why are they linked?
3.What do other sites say about the material on
the site?

24. Choose ONE of these sites:
All About Explorers:
http://www.allaboutexplorers.com
Victorian Robots:
http://www.bigredhair.com/robots/index.html
Dog Island
http://www.thedogisland.com/

25. Consider the following questions:
How can you apply R.E.A.L. techniques to vet out this site?
READ the URL
EXAMINE the content.
AUTHORSHIP.
LOOK at the LINKS.
How do you think the website design contributes to each site’s
appearance of legitimacy?
Based on your experience with this site, what problems do
you think your students might have conducting Internet research?

26. For more information, go to
http://novemberlearning.co
m/resources/information-
literacy-resources