Delicious!

This week in class we completed a Mapping project, learning about the validity of a website. What a coincidence!! The library assistant at the middle school and I were just working on a lesson plan to teach students to look for the validity of websites! I even told the library aide last week that I wasn't real sure how to do this and that I would have to do research regarding this issue.

Well, the quiz we took at http://www.novemberlearning.com/ was very eye opening!! I am sad to admit that I only got five completely right making me somewhat savvy, (the lowest possible level). But, I learned so much!! For example; how to view the history of a website, see who is linked to a website, see who the author is, and what all of the endings in url addresses mean. (I knew most of them, but not all) I will be taking all of these cool tools and knowledge back to school to create a lesson for our students! In verifying one of the selected websites, I found many teachers and schools linked to the website, but also a few validity check websites. This did throw up a few red flags, because are they invalid or people frequently use this site to teach how to check for validity? I also confirmed the author and viewed the history of the website. In comparing the different search engines, Google offered the best results when searching for my selected website vaguely. When searching specific all of the search engines were the same. There were some that had a ton of advertisements! This can be annoying, because when clicked you can be thrown into a website that you were not trying to go to, but I'm sure it is a good way to pay the bills for these search engines.

I think it is imperative that we teach our students online knowledge and skills! We have so many students that tell us that wikipedia said it, so it must be true!! My stomach knots up each time this happens. It is just a reminder that it is important for us as educators to teach our students how to validate websites to ensure accuracy of information. If we are not teaching the students how to critically review websites, than who is? Will they just get these skills on their own? Well they would probably be "somewhat savvy". Which means believing incorrect information, sharing incorrect information, and quoting incorrect information.

I love http://www.delicious.com/!! What a cool website!! I have been able to save so many useful websites to my account throughout grad school!! I keep forgetting it is there and save websites at school to my browser. I need to go back and update it. I added our professor as a "friend" of sorts and wow!!! There are so many quality resources available for me to browse and view! What a great resource!! I also tried out http://www.diigo.com/. I like that I was able to link it to my delicious account and I when I add it updates both. A few different features; I can make lists, categorize photos and notes.

A way we are going to utilize one of these awesome cloud technology bookmark systems is to have our eighth graders create one to store their websites for their Holocaust research paper. This year the teacher only wants to use our databases for research. I told her that was great, but that I really thought we needed to utilize delicious to help the kids keep track of their sites and to be able to work at home and school without the possibility of missing a character in the url when writing it down. She loved the idea and we will be starting soon!!

By the way, last week I mentioned a trading card project, and the project was a great success!! I will post the students creations soon!!