URLs
The term URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a fancy way of saying the website address. By looking at the URL, you can usually tell a few things about the site before you ever visit it. The first indicator would be the last three letters of the address line, which tells you the domain designator. "The most common designators are: .com (commercial site), .gov (government), .net (networks, Internet service providers), .edu (higher education institutions), and .org (non-commercial organizations)." (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 216). The next thing that may be an indication would be the actual URL itself. For example, if I were to tell you that for more info about an upcoming event you could visit http://cahawbachristianacademy.com you could likely make the safe assumption that the event would be located at or sponsored by Cahawba Christian Academy. Also, by looking at this URL, you could also see that this location is a christian school. Not all website URLs will be as "reveling" as this one example, but there are many companies and organizations that chose a URL centered around the name of their company/organization so that people can easily find them by doing a simple search in a search engine.
Search Engines
There is so much information available on the internet that companies have developed special searching programs, called search engines, to help us locate things. According to SearchEngineWatch, the most popular "Major Search Engines" are Google, Yahoo, and Bing; while the most popluar "Metacrawlers" are Dog Pile, Vivisimo, Kartoo, and Mamma (Roblyer and Doering, 2013). A metacrawler is "a program that uses more than one type of search engine at the same time to locate things" (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 219).
The ability to effectively use a search engine can be very beneficial. It can save you time, verses digging around in multiple websites to find the information you are seeking; help direct you to places you may not have considered as a source before, especially if you use a key words search; as well as allow you to possibly find the correct URL for a company or organization that you didn't have a direct link to before.
Favorite Sites
Choosing only two favorite sites as a teacher is quite challenging. The first one that I would recommend to any teacher is http://www.superteacherworksheets.com. This site has so much to offer a teacher of all ages! It has worksheet links for any subject you can think of, but my favorite part is the Generator section, which allows you to create many different types of worksheets specific to what you need. This website has all that Roblyer and Doering (2013) ask for in a website, including good structure and organization, clear text and/or graphic links, good visual design, and easy navigation.
My favorite wiki site is https://wesleyan-6th-grade.wikispaces.com/6th+grade+home. This site has great structure and organization with the menu on the left with links directly to each section. The text is clear, and the design is simple to follow. This site contains a calendar that allows the students to know what is going on each day, as well as additional details about each event if they want to know more.
Website Evaluation
Below is a video of a How to Guide for Website Evaluation for Middle School Students.
I agree that search engines are a big time saver, especially when using keyword searches. I also like to use subject index searches, which use lists of topics provided by the search engine. These searches can help identify keywords by starting with a broader initial search. (Roblyer and Doering, 2013)
ReplyDeleteI liked your video choice. It was very clear an straightforward, and I think it would greatly help students in "being able to evaluate information critically and to look for indications that content is accurate and reliable" (Roblyer and Doering, pg.255).
ReplyDelete