Re: [LM_NET] website evaluation (sort of the wikipedia conversation)

[Doug Achterman <DAchterman@SBHSD.K12.CA.US>]

If you choose not to have your students evaluate websites (and there are
a hundred reasons to make this choice), you can still give them practice
searching and sifting through a hit list by creating a custom search
engine.  Google's "Co-op"  (http://www.google.com/coop/) allows you to
enter in as many sites as you wish into a search engine.  Google creates
a link to that engine and also gives you code to embed it into your own
web page.  

This way, students get practice searching, but within a defined circle
of resources that you choose.  Training wheels for the web...

Doug Achterman
San Benito High School
1220 Monterey St.
Hollister, CA  95023
(831)637-5831 ext. 181
http://www.sbhsd.k12.ca.us/sbhslib/library.htm
******************************************** 
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
--Jorge Luis Borges
 


-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Simonetta, Marcia S.
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 6:02 PM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: website evaluation (sort of the wikipedia conversation)

I'm an elementary school LMS and, though I have some very nice website
evaluation posters, I have decided not to even TRY to teach website
evaluation. I just don't think 11 year olds are developmentally capable
of doing it. I've had 5th grade GT students look at the Burmese Mountain
dog hoax site and ask "where do they say it's a hoax?" Uh, they don't.
And I swear, MOST students in my 4th and 5th grade classes looked at the
tree octopus site incredulously, as if they could not believe they had
never heard of such a creature--but they were clearly willing to believe
one existed. No, I will let middle and high school librarians teach them
those skills.

What I'm telling them is that if they use Google, they have to go
through all the steps on the posters, and it's a pain and here's why.
BUT, if they use SIRS or another database, there is a staff of
professionals doing that work for them--they don't have to bother with
trying to decide authority, currency, etc... It's done for them. And,
really, wouldn't we all rather have someone doing the hard, frustrating
stuff for us? I know I would. (Of course, Wikipedia does not show up as
a SIRS hit.)

I'm not saying students don't need to learn those critical thinking
skills, I'm just saying 11 year olds and younger are not ready, and
cannot do it. It's too many steps and takes too much prior knowledge.

Marcia S. Simonetta
Library Media Specialist
410-887-1937
Seventh District Elementary School
Parkton, MD
http://teachers.bcps.org/teachers_elem/msimonetta/index.html
msimonetta@bcps.org

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