Critical Evaluation of Websites Lesson Plan for Middle school

Link to Ken's powerpoint presentation

IMSA's evaluation Wizard - step by step evaluation tools

Website Investigator

Marilyn Arnone and Ruth Small developed an instrument for elementary children to evaluate Web sites. The study focused on three essential questions. Why visit? Why stay? Why Return? The premise of their study was based on the concept that the motivational quality of the Web site would answer their questions. The instrument was tested by 21 educators in conjunction with an evaluation of a children's television show and its companion Web site.

Website Investigator

Know the grammar of the internet.

1. Read URLs

2. check the links

3. truncate web addresses

Check the Sourcing:

Patsy Cline music deemed dangerous to women

Even though it was helpfully labeled "satire," a major newspaper columnist ran a story citing this

Vicente Fox's MBA

Note how mistakes are repeated in old media

The famous Chinese movie title fiasco

See an e-mail joke list joke become fact in The New York Times and elsewhere

o o o o o Sites That Deal with Hoaxes

Urbanlegends.about.com

Snopes.com

Vmyths.com

Hoaxkill.com

NMSU's Susan Beck & the Web info evaluation guide

Virtual Chase's checklist for evaluating information

Lets be serious to a moment. . .

Martin Luther King

20 Days in the spring of 2003

Little Known facts about AIDS