Transcript Evaluating Web Sites

Diamonds In The Rough:
Evaluating and Using the Web
1/14/02
Lorrie Jackson
Lausanne Collegiate School
Why Evaluate Web Sites?
Who really owns and controls the Internet?
NO ONE!!
Without any type of quality control, we
must be critical of what see on the WWW.
For Quality…Think Cocoa P!
C = Coverage
O = Objectivity
C = Currency
O = Origin (Author)
A = Accuracy
P = Purpose
Let’s start from the beginning…
Coverage – How much info is there on your
topic and for what age? How
relevant/enlightening is it?
Objectivity – Do you sense a bias from the
author? Ads?
Currency ain’t just bucks, babe!
Currency –When was it last updated? Are
the links expired?
Origin – Who wrote it and are they experts
on that topic? Do they present credentials?
A&P…
better than the Pig any day!
Accuracy – Are there
grammatical or factual
errors. (caveat: some good
international sites have
errors from translation.)
Purpose – Why did the
author create the site?
(informing, persuading,
entertaining)
Extensions? They’re not just
for hair!
.com – commercial
.org – nonprofit
.gov – U.S. government
.us – state gov. (look for two
initials before dot)
.mil – U.S. military
.net or ~ – personal site
.edu – universities
Time to use what we’ve learned!
http://www.end.com/
~jynx/walrus
http://zapatopi.net/
treeoctopus.html
http://www.internet4classroo
ms.com/fact_fiction.htm
For Further Help in Evaluation…
Great evaluation tool for you and
for grades 7-12:
http:/lib.nmsu.edu/
instruction/evalcrit.html
Useful for evaluating healthrelated sites:
http://www.sph.emory.
Edu/WELLNESS/
instrument.html
Using the WWW: Basic Terms
Browser: Used to view web sites (Internet
Explorer, Netscape Navigator)
Search Engine: Used to search for relevant
sites
www.yahoo.com
www.google.com
www.askjeeves.com
Search Symbols
Want the population of Egypt? Just typing
those 3 words in a search engine can get any
site with any of those words!
Use symbols to narrow
the search.
The Jackson 5 of Search Symbols
+ must include this word
+population +of +Egypt
- either word
-Holland –Netherlands
“” all words must be in this order
“population of Egypt”
Extra Credit:
What’s the difference between + and “” ?
And more…
-- exclude this term
+rubber +ducky –antenna
* Wildcard, any ending
type: duck*
and you get: ducky, duckies,
duck, etc.
So, Teach, what did we learn?
Internet = Trash & Treasure
(which is which?)
Remember Cocoa P
Skim extensions before
entering sites
Listen to your inner voice
Pick the right
search symbols
Thanks for your time!
go to www.lausanneschool.com/Technology/
techtuesdays.html for this presentation and other
training stuff
Questions? e-mail me by clicking here!