Critical Analysis of Information #3

I had always been confident of the sources I have used in the past, but after completing the mapping activity I will look certainly look at websites differently. When I first opened the page “All about Explorers” everything looked in order. I picked Christopher Columbus to research and was greatly surprised to find out he was born in Sidney Australia in 1951. The rest of the article was the same, dates and facts which were not true. There was a reliable reference as to where the information came from, but the information presented was false. Then I checked the links associated with the website and about the fourth or fifth link began to state that you cannot always trust your websites. Actually this website has been set up as a lesson to teach elementary children the very thing I was checking out that not all websites are credible. I hope to soon become a librarian and I can use this website in a lesson to explain to students how to find reliable information. Now as I search on the internet I will look closely at the url to check for credibility and then go from there to see who is behind the information presented, who is linked to the website and what they have to say also about the information. I may have made unknowingly made mistakes in the past, but now I know a better and more reliable way to search for information.
As teachers it is our job to help our students develop good research techniques, inform them of what is available and how to critically evaluate the information they find to make good decisions. This is a tool they can use all their life and well as their job as the internet will always play an important role in our lives.
I had never used Delicious before so I am still in the beginning stages of getting everything sorted out. I liked the way people networked together and you could see others bookmarks. There were some websites others had there that I really liked. I need to go through my bookmarks and decide which ones I really use often and tag them. Right now I teach science and I could see grouping or “tagging” them all together so it would be easier to find the sites I need. I need to work with this system of bookmarking a little more before I introduce this to students, but overall I can see things being so much more organized and useable. Before delicious my bookmarks had no rhyme or reason.
Google reader is another new tool which I learned about this week. I am still working with this daily, but the thing I liked best is the information is current and not a year old.