Evaluating+Websites+or+How+Not+To+Be+Fooled+By+Misinformation

Kathy McClelland - Lesson plan for spring 2010 ** With more than 350 million documents available on the web, finding relevant information online can be a daunting task. Students must be able to critically evaluate the information they find. **
 * Website Evaluation or How Not To Be Fooled By Misinformation **

= **Step 1**: Brainstorm with class what makes a good website? I’m looking for the following: = · Quality of the design, layout, and text · Quality of the images, including the photographs, posters, magazine covers · Inclusion of e-mail address as contact information · Fact that it is updated regularly · Copyright mark · Links to legitimate organizations · Links from other websites (link:website name in the Google search engine)

= **Step 2**: In student pairs, examine the following four websites and evaluate them based on the brainstorming criteria. =

· Republic of Cascadia · Dog Island · Dogs and More Dogs – NOVA · Women in Ancient Egypt

= ** ** Step 3: ** Each student will find three websites on a topic of great interest to him/her – a really good one, an OK one, and a “not so good” one. The student will show these to his/her partner and tell why he/she ranked them as he/she did. ** =

= ** Assessment ** : **What have you learned?** = What have you learned to look for when you evaluate a website? What are some of the differences and similarities you noticed between real and hoax websites? How can you tell if a website is a hoax? Ask yourself: Why was the website published? (to entertain, to inform, to explain, to persuade, to sell, or some combination of these?) How wil you conduct research on the internet differently in the future?