Internet-Research


 * __Internet Research__**

The Internet is a tremendous resource for information. Students and teachers will find a treasure chest of information, but they will also find a mountain of faulty or unreliable data. There is so much information now, that we are noticing a problem that has been waiting for the right time to surface. We have been giving children information for sometime. We have been teaching children how to find information almost as long. However, we haven’t been teaching children how to determine the validity of data or the credibility of sources of information. Many of our younger children believe that if it is written down, it is reliable. When they get a little older, they begin to consider the publication. If it is in the library, newspaper, a magazine it must be correct. Previously this was a safe, although inaccurate, assumption. Until recently, there were so many obstacles to getting published that we incorrectly assumed any one who could get a book published must be an expert on the subject. Consider the tradition of debate over many topics in our culture. There are legitimate books, published through main stream publishing companies, that each detail research and studies supporting every side of issues like gun control, abortion, capital punishment, etc. You just have to look at authors like Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh to recognize the importance of critical analysis of a publication or article. If you were to read the science textbooks we use you would never guess that there is a debate within the scientific community concerning the validity of Darwin’s theory of the origin of life. How often have you read in the newspaper or heard the news that another textbook, usually a history book, is full of errors. With the growth and prominence of the Internet, anyone can become a published author. Consider, for instance, the article written about the holocaust. We cannot even assume that the pages available on collegiate or educational servers are all reliable.

How do we prepare our students to wade through a sea of information and separate the accurate from the inaccurate? The answer is simple. Teach them to question. The reading skills that we have taught for years and years address these issues. We just have to have the students apply them to everything they read. What is the difference between fact, opinion, and propaganda? What is the author’s point of view? How does this information compare to data that I have learned from other sources? Does the author use facts to support their ideas or do they use opinions and generalizations? We need to promote some new practices that we used to think only applied to specialized individuals. Check the sources of authors to find out if they actually exist and are accurate. Are their sources reliable? Where did they get their information? If your author did not get the data first hand, did their source get the information first hand? Do you trust information from your friend; who got it from their friend; who got it from their friend; who got it from their uncle; who got it from a second cousin once removed; who overheard a conversation about an article that the person’s wife read? Even if the original source was reliable, how much has the data been distorted after it has passed through so many people?

For more information on determining the reliability of information http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/internet/research.htm#evaluate

The answer was simple, but the application of the answer is much more complicated. We have to encourage students to question, not copy. They cannot simply accept answers; they must consider them. This is our charge. The knowledge that we have accumulated has grown so large that we cannot pass it all along through school. We have to teach how to find information. The “new literacy” as some are referring to it is no longer how to read and understand. It is now how to consider, beyond the text, the facts and opinions given. Despite the label, this is not new. It is becoming more and more important that we apply it to every situation in which we are receiving information.

Lets start with some ways to check the source of a web page. Look at the URL of this site about the holocaust. http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~abutz/di/intro.html


 * The term //edu// means the web site is managed by an educational institution. ||


 * The ~ (tilde) before the name indicates that you are looking at a personal page. ||


 * The term //pubweb// means that this is the portion of the web site designated for personal sites. ||

We also need to teach kids how to look at bias within the page. Are the documents that the author has links for all written by the same person? Maybe they are even by the author of the original page. Can you trust information from someone who uses their own information to verify what they have to say?

You should also ask yourself who is interested in this page? Why are they interested in it? Altavista.com has a search feature that allows you to see who has links to a web page. In the Altavista search field type linkto: then without any spaces paste the URL of the web page into the search field. Click Search and you will see the web pages that have links to that web page. Check those pages and others relating to them to find out how they use the information on that page.

These questions need to take a prominent role in the education of our students. They are now a part of learning how to conduct research.

__Scavenger Hunts__
An easy and comfortable way for teachers to start children on the internet is with an Internet Scavenger Hunt. Internet scavenger hunts are like electronic worksheets. They typically have a series of questions. At the end of each question, the teacher has placed a link to a page that holds the answer to the question. Students read the question, click the link, find the answer, and then write the answer on a sheet of paper.

This structure isn’t the ideal setting for students to exercise their critical thinking skills. It typically doesn’t involve the students in the process of evaluating the web pages. It does, however, start the students using the Internet as a source of information. Another benefit of using this type of structure is that the teacher begins to use the Internet and evaluate web sites before your students do. Create a Scavenger Hunt 1. Conduct research to find web pages that have information pertinent to your topic of study. 2. When you find an acceptable web page, add it to **favorites** (Bookmarks if your still using Netscape Navigator). 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have found plenty of web pages to cover your whole unit. 4. Open a blank document in Microsoft Word© or Microsoft FrontPage© (District computers ordered before 2001 probably don’t have FrontPage©). 5. Type the title of the scavenger hunt. 6. Type the first question in the blank document. 7. Bring up your browser and go to the web page that has the answer to your question. 8. Click the mouse in the **location** bar one time to select the URL. 9. When the entire URL is highlighted, push **__Ctrl__** + **__C__**. 10. Minimize the browser window and restore the window with the document that you want the link in. 11. Move the insertion point to the spot where the link should go and push **__Ctrl__** + **__V__**. 12. Push **Enter**. This is all that you should need to do in any MS Office document. 13. Repeat steps 6-12 for each question. 14. When you have finished the scavenger hunt (if you are using Microsoft Word©) Click on **File**/**Save as html** or **Save as Web Page** depending on the version of Word© that you are working using. FrontPage© users simply click on **File**/**Save**.

__Webquests__
A webquest has many of the benefits of an Internet scavenger hunt. It provides enough structure that teachers and parents can feel fairly secure about the web sites that their children will see. The big difference is that a webquest is a project (with a task or product) and the resources the students will need to complete it. The webquest generally begins with an explanation of the task. Many times, the webquest will break the project into segments. Each segment will have links to information that the students will need to complete the task. The students then gather information and use it to produce something. This rarely involves the evaluation of websites by students. It does give students structured practice at gathering data and using that data for a purpose.

1. Open a blank document in Microsoft Word© or Microsoft FrontPage©. 2. Type the title of the webquest. 3. Type an introductory paragraph that explains the task. 4. Break the task up into logical, manageable sections. 5. In each section define the purpose of that section, give the students a task that contributes to the ultimate product, and give the students links to web pages that have important information. Follow the directions for copying a link from a browser to place the links on the webquest. 6. The final section should make sure that all tasks have been included in the final product or contributed to the product in a significant way. 7. When you have finished the scavenger hunt (if you are using Microsoft Word©) Click on **File**/**Save as html** or **Save as Web Page** depending on the version of Word© that you are working using. FrontPage© users simply click on **File**/**Save**. If images are used in a webquest or scavenger hunt, they need to be .gif files or .jpg files. Don’t use clip art, because the chances are they won’t show up when someone opens the file on another computer.
 * __Create a Webquest__**

How to Copy a Link from an Internet Browser
1. Go to the web page that you want to add to a document. 2. Click the mouse in the **location** bar one time to select the URL. 3. When the entire URL is highlighted, push **__Ctrl__** + **__C__**. 4. Minimize the browser window and restore the window with the document that you want the link in. 5. Move the insertion point to the spot where the link should go and push **__Ctrl__** + **__V__**. 6. Push Enter. This is all that you should need to do in any MS Office document. 7. If you are using Composer, Highlight the text that you pasted. 8. Click the **link** button and click the mouse in the **Link to** field. 9. Push **__Ctrl__** + **__V__** 10. Click **Apply** and **Close**.

__Using Search Engines__
This involves students finding web pages on their own to gather data for a project. Students need to evaluate sources when they use this structure. Some teachers aren’t comfortable with letting students conduct their own searches, however, as the use of technology becomes more common, this will become the standard procedure that teachers plan for. Be careful when typing a URL in the address bar. Many sites (especially porn sites) try to get more visitors by making their URL very close to a more popular site’s URL. Example: whitehouse.**gov** (White house information), whitehouse.**com** (former pornography site); ebay.com (sales and auction), eboy.com (pornography) [|http://www.fossick.com] [|http://www.vivisimo.com](Be careful! **vivsimo**.com is a different search engine. It might have inappropriate terms.) [|http://www.google.com] [|http://www.altavista.com] http://www.mooter.com/ http://www.kartoo.com/