Can I Trust the Information?
Objectives - ISTE NETS for Students #3: Research and Information Fluency
"locate and evaluate information from a variety of sources and media"
Materials
Directions
Use the following tutorials with students to help them develop skills for finding authors and publishers of Web pages.
In the Author Challenge and the Owner Challenge, students are introduced to URL truncation, browsing, looking for copyrights and other source clues on a variety of Web pages. In addition, both activities emphasize the concept of authority--does the author have the qualifications to write this information, or does the owner have qualifications to publish the information--both important tests of credibility that may be taught in elementary school.
There are a number of other indicators of credibility (freshness, links, evidence, etc.) which should be introduced in middle school. Acknowledging the source of the information is a first critical step toward being a skilled investigator.
