Imagine you are trying to teach your students how to find reliable information via the internet. What are some main points you would need to teach them?
I have often thought that effective practices can be boiled down to numbered lists or bullets. Am I mistaken in this regard? Is online research just a matter of following instinct, or are there specific principles that can guide the honest student to legitimate sources of information.
Let's make this post into a list. Think of two "principles" or "guidelines" for finding credible and reliable information online. They may be different at varying age levels, but if so, just note that in your comment.
I'll start. The online researcher should look for a variety of sources, including contemporary versus time-established; differing points of view; and scholarly work versus anecdotal opinion stuff.
How creative and insightful can you get as you expand this list?
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Tech Integration Teacher, What time is it?
7 years ago
16 comments:
The online researcher should learn how to use search engines the "right" way. The teacher can teach how to find exactly what the students are trying to look for by teaching them tricks on Google such as putting quotes around a phrase or using the advanced search.
The online researcher must cite all sources used. All also implies that students should use more than one source to get a variety of view points for what they are researching.
1. Is the post by a credited source (i.e. history channel vs. myspace blog)?
2. When was it posted? Is the information outdated?
For younger students I would encourage them to:
-look at where their information comes from (is it a magazine, newspaper article, discussion board, or wikipedia?)
-think about how recent their information is (for example, many students do country reports, but books at elementary school libraries are often not up to date)
-who wrote or published the information? (evaluate biases)
There are two big ones to add to that list that can make finding trustworthy sources easier. Searching effectively is using keywords to help the search engine find specifically what you are looking for. Adding additional words might stray from what you were originally looking for and lead you to questionable sites. The best sites have their keywords mapped on the search engines. Secondly, if a website says they have reliable information, they wont hesitate to tell you where they got it. If its untruthful, you will see no works cited. The people who made the website didn't come up with the idea expressed and being honest about where it came from will help you decided the veracity of it.
The online researcher should look for sources from different aged resources, such as articles written by adults, high school or college students. Unknown or unpublished articles are a good source of untapped information, depending on the information you are seeking. Just because someone's article or paper is not published in a popular journal doesn't mean it lacks good information that can be useful to the researcher. More research may be required to maintain credibility, but it may be worth it.
Students should look for information that is both primary and secondary. sources like pbs online offer extensive information on topics as well as having pictures, first person accounts and writings from the time to assist in education. I think this pure source of primary documents can be a huge aid in research.
If students are researching for a paper sutdents should look at different sources to make sure the facts are right instead of just relying on one source. Some information online may not be correct so it is always good to check different sources backing up your information. Another good tip in researching online is to look who wrote the work. If it is a student that wrote information online it may not be as reliable as a professor writing information online.
when you are researching you must look at who the author is and what base they are bring in to the article and what there credentials are. you must also pay attention to what souses were used in writhing the article if it is not a primary source.
I would add to that list with the guideline to take notes on what you research and learn how to search in specific keywords to what you are looking for. I would also add to look at opposing niewpoints on what you are reasearching, it may help you strengthen your on voice or at least be able to distinguish what is legitimate.
1. When students look for reliable sources online they should try and figure out which is good inofrmation and which is bad. I believe that when they look on any cite, especially .org cites they will find good valid information. They should not just take information from one cite though. They need to do their resarch and figure out which cites say the same information and even better descriptions of what is being said. If all else fails Wikipedia is always useful. Even though teachers usually do not like their students using this cite it is eitehr a good starting point if you are completely lost, or a good ending point to see what they say about whatever your looking up.
Ali McMahon
Students should check the domain name of the URL to see if the source is credible. For example, .edu means that it was published by an educational institution which therefore would usually make the information more reliable. Also, students should check to see when the web page was last updated because the more up to date information is the better. Otherwise, information may sometimes become outdated.
I believe it is definitely important for the student to check the author/publisher of the website to varify legitimacy of the information being presented. While Wikipedia is convenient, the information presented is not guaranteed accurate since anyone is able to adjust the facts.
Sites that appear educational, offering lesson plan options or "follow-up" options to a lesson taught to the student can be a valuable source, and may further the student's understanding of the researched subject. My high school encouraged it's students to use the academic sites the library paid for, that offered periodicals, scholarly journals, and/or published reviews to research an assignment instead of just "google-ing" information. If the students have access to academic search engines, I would encourage them to use such valuable guides.
Maybe students can look for videos or documentaries of whatever they are researching on. Of course, the student must check if those sources are reliable before incorporating them into their project.
I think aside from reading all of the information online, students can also watch interviews or documentaries. For example, in high school, I had to do a documentary for my media class and I chose to do a documentary on Filipino American Veterans. It is much more effective when students see actual people, like my grandfather, who were involved in important events like World War II. This is another good source students can use.
When researching, the student must look for credibility. This does vary depending on the grade level. For example, it might not matter to a fourth grader if the author of the source has a doctorate, but for the high school senior's research paper, things might be different. Students must make sure they can get all of the necessary information needed to complete a works cited page as well. It is necessary to know when your article was written, by who, and for what purpose.
It is easy to weed out what sources to use and what not to use as well. As a teacher, I hope to further explain to the students how to look for good sources using google searches with their key words or phrases and to know if a source is credible.
I would say the online researcher must be attentive to (1) the author's professional background and (2) how relevant it is to the content they are writing about. If those two are not a match, then it would be a sign to be skeptical.
I would say the online researcher must be attentive to (1) the author's professional background and (2) how relevant it is to the content they are writing about. If those two are not a match, then it would be a sign to be skeptical.
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