What's the best way to teach students how to recognize accurate information online?
How would you accomplish this? What skills do you think are most important? Given the fact that educational resources are not unlimited, additional education in one area may require cuts in another. Are there any aspects of the current system which have been rendered obsolete by the Internet?
Or do you think I'm wrong and that nothing special needs to be done?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$15 Answers
1)
Find sources yourself first.
When a teacher knows several reputable places to find acceptable sources specifically for the assignment before giving out the assignment, he/she will be able to guide the students down the proper path. You don't necessarily have to tell a student "go here", but rather by sourcing information yourself first, you'll be able to suggest a direction.
2)
Develop a list of "accredited sources".
I use to build curriculum binders. These binders would have everything from handouts to overhead sheets, to CD's burned with movies, etc. Everything that I needed to teach was contained in large, carefully refined binders.
When all of the research assignments were composed, I would create a long list of "accredited sources" that gave students a starting point to form their research. This long list contained sources for each assignment. Kids still had to research, but they knew that if they researched using my list, it would give them a good starting point. If used alone, this list would garner a "B" grade list of references. To get an A, a student had to find great sources on their own.
3)
Early in the year, teach a unit on research.
Even though this may not be in the curriculum, showing students what you expect along with samples from previous "A" reports goes a long way. Part of this unit should be on "trustworthy and untrustworthy sources". Untrustworthy sources include TV, magazines, the Internet, etc. I would require that any reference from an untrustworthy source either be "double referenced" from a trustworthy source or "triple referenced" in the same medium if the reference did not come from my list of "accredited source" websites.
0)
To preface, I'm not a fan of labels, but for easy illustration.... here's an extra tip on how to work with enriched or remedial kids.
For kids who are on a modified low program, let them struggle a bit but don't let them get frustrated - give them the sources that you've found for the assignment. I always liked to give low kids heavy essay type assignments a day early. I trained their parents to pay close attention to "early" assignments because often an extra little bit of help at home to prepare for an assignment with the help of parents really went a long way. It taught these kids that preparing early and reading ahead is important for them.
For kids who are on a modified high program, I would tell them that they could not use sources from my accredited list. This made finding sources difficult but more importantly, forced these kids to break out on their own to find compelling research and be able to back it up.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
In general however here are some tips.
Look for attribution. To make something truly authoritative you need to know more than who wrote the article. You should see who published it, where the author is from and at least some mention of the author's credentials.
Look for ads. Ad can indicate a conflict of interest or an alternative agenda beyond simply offering information. This is one reason that so many medical librarians hate WebMD. The ads on the side for medically-related things, especially prescription drugs demonstrate that the web publisher is getting money from these companies and could then be tweaking the truth to make these companies sound better.
Look for citations. The web allows anyone to be a publisher and pass information on to everyone. This also means that a lot of half baked ideas get out there. If there are claims of facts or findings and no citations, consider it a questionable source.
Finally, be critical of the packaging. If the webpage looks like it was created in 1992 (read blinking things and tiled backgrounds) proceed with caution. Group who are looking to pass on good, vetted information understand that a webpage is a marketing tool and its design requires significant consideration.
Many courses in evaluating information, web theory and teaching information literacy.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
It doesn't hurt to fool them a little bit either, to call them out on possible misconceptions.
Some very innovative educators have made "fake" pages designed to help teach kids these very skills.
For science research, the Dihidrogen Monoxide Research Center at
http://www.dhmo.org/
is great. I have used it before when student teaching.
DHMO is a fancy way of saying "water," and the site presents facts, all true, in such a way that makes you think that DHMO is a dangerous chemical. Looks all professional with logos and everything.
You present the site, have the kids look, then ask them how many people think DHMO should be banned? Then you reveal it's water, then go into good vs bad Web sites.
Another one for history/geography is a site called "All about Explorers," which is peppered with inaccurate info and designed to be a teaching tool for good vs bad Web site info. A lot of the lies are pretty obvious, but you'd be amazed at how kids often pull and recite info uncritically, not really stopping to look if the info they're gathering makes sense.
http://allaboutexplorers.com/
http://www.allaboutexplorers.com/about.html
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/courier_times/courier_times_news_details/article/28/2009/june/09/site-helps-kids-determine-whats-real-vs-whats-fake.html
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Excellent suggestion, especially the fake page customized for the assignment. My middle-school history teacher pulled this one off in the pre-Internet days, using "Body Rituals of the Nacirema" as the scholarly source.
https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html
Excellent - very creative - unfortunately probably not utilized enough by curriculum builders.
nice examples. this is a great idea to add to the lesson
The first thing I focus on is recognizing trusted sources from unreliable ones. Lots of students love using Wikipedia, but I would never allow Wikipedia to be a primary source for an assignment. I taught my students that Wikipedia is a great starting point for research and how to check the sources in each entry for accuracy. I also showed them how easy it is for anyone to edit the content of a page, making it completely inaccurate.
I also stress the importance of double-checking important information and that the more sources you can find to back up something, the better. We also touched on what resources are the best and which to avoid altogether. Although this seems very basic, I found that a lot of students simply don't know how to search properly, which led to less-than-stellar research results.
I think, above all, it is good to instill a little cynicism in today's youth so that they learn to check out things for themselves instead of naively believing everything they read or hear.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
This idea of checking things out for yourself, finding alternate sources, searching for different viewpoints - then developing one's own sense of recognition of trusted information can apply to all of us but certainly is an important concept for students.
You're right about Wikipedia, and I especially like your showing students how easily it can be edited by anyone.
http://lii.org/
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You are right that skills must be developed; but, I am not sure that they are new skills. It is part of a basic education to learn to compare, evaluate, follow up forwards and backwards, your sources of information. Everything is just a lot easier and quicker on the internet.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Using the Internet, they use a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Bing, etc), so should understand the basics of search. There are also sites at which a subject can be laid out, e.g. Wikipedia, and the need for students to do research may be thus limited.
Internet search strategy: accurate search terms are important for starting down the road to accurate information. Three or four terms might narrow down the number of hits to semi-manageable limits.
Internet search terms: Most search engines accept a normally phrased question. That might be a good way to go, but it’s better to reduce your question to a limited number of terms.
For example, your question to Mahalo might be searched as:search" reliable strategy. Quotation marks will keep the terms “internet” and “search” together, so you won’t get a trillion hits using Internet in the title; search terms are few. Try it and you'll be surprised.
Search results: Here is the nexus, of course. What is reliable and what is less or not reliable.
Your students know that anyone can put up a search page. Some people publish a string of outlandish theories, and who is to be the wiser? Well the wiser will check out the source. One surefire way to test reliability is the suffix of the website. Three suffixes are pretty surefire reliable. They are .gov (US government websites, e.g. whitehouse.gov); .edu (higher learning educational institutions, harvard.edu); and .org (usually non-profit organizations (redcross.org, mayoclinic.org).
This is not to say that .com sites are necessarily unreliable. Those that come up at the top of the page are, in most search engines, the sites that got the most hits by the search community, and have been accepted by a wide audience as reliable. Be careful of "sponsored websites" which are ads at the very top and at the sides of the results page, usually in a slightly different color). Of course they can be looked at, but your students should remember that they are primarily selling something.
Depending on the age of your students, you might introduce them to the commonly used Boolean operators, otherwise known as "and," "or" "not" "near." The usual given in most search engines is "and," so you don't have to put it in. Thus "chocolate AND chunk" brings us primarily hits related to chocolate chunk cookies. If you put in “chocolate chunk, the search engine will return “chocolate” AND “chunk together with a lot of cookie recipes.
The operator "or" brings up results of two search terms separately. "Not" cuts out terms you absolutely do not want searched. "Near" asks the engine to bring up results in which the terms are near each other. A cute video that explains these terms for your students is put out by Louisiana State University
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$There is nothing wrong with using the internet as long as you have the same info from lots of sources.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Internet Detective
and
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators from Discovery Education
I learned of both these resources by reading:
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
However, for college students, our search is limited to scientific articles, and these can be searched for in special databases like pubmed (www.pubmed.com) and highwire (highwire.stanford.edu) etc...
In addition, wikipedia has now become a good source for information because they improved their standards.
finally for accurate numerical information there is always wolfram (www.wolframalpha.com).
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$First, It starts early. Student will be better able to learn to find credible information online if they have developed their own individual critical thinking skills earlier - even as early as kindergarten, these skills emerge when nurtured. For those who know of Maria Montessori; her belief is that children are intrinsically motivated to learn to master topics and they do so best through experiential learning and the prepared classroom, not by being on a computer. Technology can support learning, especially in the higher grades, but it's not at the center.
Second, take a look at this video - created by students - it speaks for itself. From this presentation and the statistics quoted here - we have a long way to go before we have truly found a way to engage each individual student and technology in the productive way you refer to in your question.
Great question.
YouTube - A Vision of Students Today (Kansas State University)
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
"Homeschooling is a wonderful way to stay close to your children while helping them become well-rounded adults. It offers you the opportunity to tailor your children’s education to suit your children, your lifestyle, and your beliefs. Schooling at home also gives you a safe ‘home base’ for your children while they explore the people and places around them. With the ability to individualize your child’s education, you can truly foster a life long love of learning"
http://www.wikihow.com/Homeschool-Your-Children
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Your answers are following a pattern of being consistently irrelevant or at a tangent to the questions. What is wrong here?
the question is about "how to recognize accurate information online?"
Homeschooling has nothing to do with that. I would read the question thoroughly before answering which will help you provide a winning answer.
@robbrown - I took the liberty of nominating your answer for AOTD today.
I believe this is an important question today and responded with a good answer.
I wanted to answer the question based on my experience at home, but you have covered more than what I wanted to say.
this would be perfect for a How-To page!
There are some excellent ideas here. I was thinking in more general terms than on a classroom-by-classroom level, but I could easily see this entire approach incorporated into a formal curriculum.
i like the "double referenced" and "triple referenced" idea... great to make them always try for that reliable source, but also recognizes that sometimes there just isn't one single source that can be pointed to... nice