These students have grown up (still growing up) realizing that you can't always trust what you see online. Sure, there are the fake pictures and videos to worry about, but it's the fake information that can be really detrimental. So if a student needs to research a topic for a project, how can they tell if they've found a good source or a fake one? That was our focus today.
After introducing the six criteria we look for (Domain, Top-Level Domain, Author, Date, Verified Sources, Lateral Reading) each student selected an informational site to evaluate. Most picked an article from BBC, Nat Geo, CNN, etc. but a few opted for "Dog Island" or "Help Save the Tree Octopus", which were designed to "trick" students with this type of assignment. The pictures on the tree octopus site are hilarious!
Once the site was selected, the students opened up a Google Slides template, which included one slide per criteria, plus a few questions you would ask when evaluating that criteria. The students answered each question for their site and took screenshots as "evidence" of what they found. Finally, the students rated the site for each criteria on a scale from 1 - 5.
After introducing the six criteria we look for (Domain, Top-Level Domain, Author, Date, Verified Sources, Lateral Reading) each student selected an informational site to evaluate. Most picked an article from BBC, Nat Geo, CNN, etc. but a few opted for "Dog Island" or "Help Save the Tree Octopus", which were designed to "trick" students with this type of assignment. The pictures on the tree octopus site are hilarious!
Once the site was selected, the students opened up a Google Slides template, which included one slide per criteria, plus a few questions you would ask when evaluating that criteria. The students answered each question for their site and took screenshots as "evidence" of what they found. Finally, the students rated the site for each criteria on a scale from 1 - 5.