Website Evaluation

*You may have to copy and paste the websites as I wasn't to hyperlink them myself.

1. Introduce website evaluation by showing students a website that is obviously not good, example:

http://chasemor.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/baddesign2.jpg

Discuss why it's "not good" with students: there is too much going on, who is the author? what is the site for? Talk about how easy it is to make a website look very good. The talent to make a website does neccisarily come with the ethical sense of responsibility required to make a good source of reliable information for the public

2. Show students some criteria for judging a website.

http://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/cms/lib3/GA01000373/Centricity/Domain/1962/Website%20Evaluation%20Rubric.pdf
>Thisresource could be pulled up and filled out on one students iPad as a group collaborates, then sent digitally to the teacher for grading.

3. Have students pull up 3 websites and full out the rubric for each website in their collaborative groups. Give students 15 minutes per website.
New Hartford, MN

http://descy.50megs.com/NewHartford/newhtfd.html
<br>TheWhite House


http://whitehouse.gov1.info/ and http://whitehouse.gov

The Pacific NW Tree Octopus
http://zapatopi.net/tree-octopus
Source for the three websites : ElementaryLibrarian.com

4. At the end of time have students share their findings for one website with the class. Evaluate and provide feedback on all three website rubrics and return to groups. After returning website rubrics digitally with comments pull up websites on interactive whiteboard and talk through the rubrics for each one.

5. For groups that provided particularly good answers have a group representative approach the whiteboard and argue the point of the site that they found reliable or unreliable and tell why or why not.

6. For extension, have each student pull up one of their favorite websites on their ipad mini and put it through the rubric. Have students independently access the site to wrap up the activity.