Using Website Evaluation

The activity on website evaluation was helpful to me as a student and as a future teacher. When doing research for papers or classes, I can use the evaluation criteria to test whether a site could have accurate or false information. I want my work to be credible; therefore, I need to know I am using credible sources. The guide we used during this assignment taught me the important aspects of good website. During the activity, the site I found is www.thedogisland.com which is a site that advertises a vacation spot for dogs. Since it is an advertisement, I was careful about believing the information from the beginning. After seeing how many criteria of a credible site this one failed, I knew it was most likely a hoax. Then, by looking at the site more deeply, I found a disclaimer that the site was made in jest, and the company does not exist. My suspicions were obviously correct, and this is truly a fake site. Through this evaluation, I learned what to look for before using a site and how some sites can look extremely credible if you do not follow these criteria. 

Most hoax websites are not as obviously fake or have a disclaimer like this site; therefore, as teachers, we should realize the importance of educating our students on using credible sites. You can give a quick tutorial on evaluation or give an activity such as the one we did in class. They use the web to get information for classes, homework, and entertainment, so students need to know how to evaluate a site in order to ensure their knowledge is credible. Also, if we do a web search activity in class, we should check the sites before hand to know that students are looking at appropriate and correct information. With all the information on the web, our computers at school should also have some sort of censoring device to make sure students cannot even access inappropriate information. However, some sites will fall through, thus as teachers, we must monitor their work and check each site cited/used for research.