After taking the Information Literacy Quiz, I realized I am not very knowledgeable in information literacy. It is definitely a foreign language to me. The answers to the quiz are a great resource that I will continue to reference.
This mapping information activity showed me different ways to determine the credibility of information on the Internet. I analyzed the information on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website. This website appears to be a hoax because it has a gift shop and also fine print at the bottom that states the website is not associated with any educational organization; however, a student might not register these as red flags concerning credibility of information. I learned how understanding the different parts of the URL help determine the type of site and furthermore, its reliability. Then, I used AltaVista to analyze links embedded in the website and external links. This further supported my intuition that this website was a hoax. I utilized www.archive.org to see how the site looked throughout the years. This tool shows the website’s past information and who is behind the website; this helps gain a better understanding of the site’s objectives. Another activity not associated with the octopus website involved utilizing commands in AltaVista to conduct searches. This is a helpful tool; however, I need to become more familiar with the different commands. Also, I am not sure that using these commands promises reliable search results.
Now, when searching on the Internet, I will utilize these tools to help deconstruct the information I find and determine if it is appropriate for educational use. I admit that I am guilty of having used the first website that pops up on Google. Nevertheless, most papers and projects completed during my educational experience have required that the utilized information come from a scholarly source. In that respect I am confident about past information used. It definitely would have been helpful to know ways to deconstruct information on websites.
It is critical that future students learn skills to deconstruct information on websites because the Internet is now the main source for information, and a lot of the available information is misleading. It will be a great disservice to students if educators fail to teach these skills. Studying false or misleading information can result in bad decisions or confusion. Also, using inaccurate information for educational purposes can be a time-consuming error.
Delicious is a tool that organizes saved favorites. It is a similar but more technology advanced way of adding favorites to your favorites bar. Delicious helps categorize favorite websites and navigate through tagged sites with keywords. All saved favorites can be accessed from any computer. Also, Delicious makes social collaboration and linking possible; people can view and share one another’s bookmark collection for inspiration and develop a network.
When I am a teacher, I can use this tool to search for science lesson ideas. I can include keywords and a description to a tag that helps me easily navigate and also remember specific reasons why I liked the site. I can also see what other science teachers bookmark which will inspire ideas and help assess if educational material in my class is similar to other science classes.
In addition to Delicious, another social bookmarking application I explored was Stumble Upon. This tool shows me random web pages that relate to my specified interests. It eventually learns what I like and also allows me to rate and review websites. The first website I ‘stumbled upon’ was a website full of cute animal pictures. This is a really entertaining application that introduces you to new interesting websites.
No comments:
Post a Comment