Return to Social Studies Module Overview

Title:  Accessing and Evaluating Web-Based Information

Context:   This module can be completed in one 75-minute class period.  A computer classroom with web access is necessary.  Addresses ISTE Basic Technology Standards 1.2.4, 1.2.7, 1.3.1, 1.3.3, 2.3.2, 2.1.10.

Description:  This module introduces students to concepts and approaches related to accessing and evaluating the authenticity and validity of web-based information of use in social studies teaching and learning.  It uses the existing Widener Library sites as references for criteria and processes for evaluating web information, and incorporates lecture, demonstration, and discussion of three articles about web information issues in social studies teaching.

Learning Goals and Objectives:
 

• Apply understanding of web browser functions and alternative search tools
• Analyze, compare, and evaluate the origin, authenticity, and validity of social studies relevant information found on the web

Study the PowerPoint slides, “Web Resource Evaluation Techniques” from the Widener Library site: http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webeval/eval1198/index.htm

Review and bookmark the Widener Library “Evaluating Web Resources” site:
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webeval.htm

Bookmark the Widener Library “Evaluating Web Pages:  Links to Examples of Various Concepts” site: http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/examples.htm.  Then visit and evaluate one site from each of the first three link lists, using the three steps from p. 3 of “The Web as a Research Tool:  Evaluation Techniques”, and the appropriate check list from the “Evaluating Web Resources” site above.  In each case note how the site is an example of the relevant issues:  “Authority and Accuracy”; “Objectivity”; or “Currency and Coverage”.

Study  Minkel, Walter, Lost (& Found) in Cyberspace. School Library Journal, 43(3), pp. 102-105.

Study Kleg, Milton“ Technology and the Darkside” in Martorella, Peter (ed.), Interactive Technologies and the Social Studies, pp. 71-90, especially the section “Utilizing the Darkside”, pp. 84-88.

Study Risinger, C. Frederick (1998).  Separating wheat from chaff:  Why dirty pictures are not the real dilemma in using the internet to teach social studies.  Social Education, 62(3), 148-150.

Major Learning Activities:

 Essential Web Browser Functions.  Using Netscape 4, explain/demonstrate:

•  Bookmarks
• Go (URL history) menu
• Back/Forward buttons
• Print menu

.com  Sponsored by a commercial enterprise attempting to promote or sell products.  Sometimes contains news information from online newspapers or news magazines.

.edu and .gov  Purpose is to present factual information.  Often sponsored by educational institutions or government agencies.

.org  Usually sponsored by an organization attempting to influence public opinion.

URL has embedded “~” (tilde).  This usually signals a personal home page of an individual who may or may not be affiliated with a larger institution.

Web Searching.  Explain and give examples of two basic kinds of web search tools:

Catalog, or subject tree, or directory:   like Yahoo, Yahooligans, Magellan, with categories and menus, like a library card catalog

          Search engine – database of text on the web:  AltaVista, Infoseek, HotBot

               automated (use robots or spiders)
               not at all selective (huge databases)
               not evaluated

Which should you use? Depends on need.  Subject directories like Yahoo have distilled useful sites
in education.  Search engines are inclusive and tend to generate much junk.  (Tie in ideas from Minkel article on using subject directories first)

Search tricks:  emphasize use of quotes for phrase searching; Boolean operators

Demonstrate and Discuss Two Example Web Searches.  Demonstrate searching on the same topic (an historical figure, like Dred Scott, or a topic, like civil war or nuclear disarmament) with both an index (Yahoo) and engine (Infoseek).

Evaluating Information Found on the Web.  Present key ideas from Widener Library sites:

• Authority
• Accuracy
• Objectivity
• Currency
• Coverage

Remember importance of:
    Author’s credentials and expertise
    Identification of institution/organization with which author is affiliated,
       and link to their statement of purposes and principles
    Date of most recent update
    Intended audience
    Purpose of information (URL keys):
       persuasion/advocacy
       inform
       promote/sell
       news
       personal

Examples of Controversial and Contradictory Web Information.  Conduct an example search on “Hitler”, “gun control” or other topics using Infoseek.  Examine information found, using the “Guide to Evaluating a Web Page” format to assess the information.  [Could do this in small groups of two or three, with searches from a list of suggestions, or using their own ideas, with reports/discussion in whole group.]  Emphasize that a goal of social studies, critical thinking, can be promoted through evaluation of web (or other sources of) information, and should be “built in” to lessons and units.

Discuss Kleg and Risinger Readings.  Focus on the issue of how quality of information from the web might relate to goals and processes of social studies curriculum and instruction.  This could be done with two or four small groups, each taking an aspect or focus question regarding one of the readings, and reporting on it to the whole class for further discussion.  Some starter questions might be:

• Is there a real danger in exposing students to what Kleg calls the “dark side” (hate and anti-hate communications) of the web?  If so, what is (are) the danger(s) specifically?
• Risinger contends that sexually-explicit material on the web is not as important a problem as the potential misinformation there.  Do you agree or disagree?  Why?
• What specific instructional strategies might be used to teach information evaluation skills?
• How might social studies teachers assess whether students actually have and use information evaluation skills?

The performance assessment for this lesson will be in two parts:

• Based on the reports from small group work, success will be judged on the extent to which the groups used specific web evaluation criteria and key information about the web site as they evaluated the results of web searches
• Based on small group reports of discussions of the Kleg and Risinger readings, success will be judged on the extent to which students ground their positions with reasons and evidence, and their relating web information issues with the purposes of the social studies.

• “Web Resource Evaluation Techniques” from the Widener Library site: http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webeval/eval1198/index.htm
• “Evaluating Web Resources” from the Widener Library site: http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webeval.htm
• “Evaluating Web Pages:  Links to Examples of Various Concepts” from the Widener Library site: http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/examples.htm
• Minkel, Walter, Lost (& Found) in Cyberspace.   School Library Journal, 43(3), pp. 102-105
• Kleg, Milton“ Technology and the Darkside” in Martorella, Peter (ed.), Interactive Technologies and the Social Studies, pp. 71-90, especially the section “Utilizing the Darkside”, pp. 84-88
• Risinger, C. Frederick (1998).  Separating wheat from chaff:  Why dirty pictures are not the real dilemma in using the internet to teach social studies.  Social Education, 62(3), 148-150