Detangling the web

An example of the power of the Internet comes from my own educational history. A two month sojourn in Japan during my "formative years" instilled a lifelong interest in Asia, which culminated (educationally) in pursuing graduate studies in East Asian Languages and Literatures at THE Ohio State University (you have to be an Ohioan or have attended OSU to appreciate the THE ). To reinforce that my study was out of a sheer love for the material and I had absolutely no career plans driving my efforts, I will further note that my concentration was in Classical Japanese Buddhist Literature.

Although not the focus of my studies, many of my "favorite reads" were works by the poet Saigyo (佐藤義清), who began writing in the 1100s. Although OSU has an incredibly impressive library, delving deep into Saigyo's writings often required the beneficience of other universities sharing materials via interlibrary loan. Now, a casual search of the Internet reveals over 7,500 reference to Saigyo sites. Absolutely amazing, but how do we find the appropriate trees in this extensive forest?

My last post lists some links to sites that offer ideas on how to evaluate sites, and from these I have distilled ideas to come up with my own set of evaluation criteria that seem particularly applicable to the K-12 environment. For ease of use, I have grouped them into content, usability, and other.


The Top Ten

Content - Five Suggested Review Criteria

The site provides accurate information, and what you find on the sites matches your own previous knowledge or those of other teachers who are specialists in the research area.

Sources are referenced, so you know what individuals or groups are providing the materials on the site.

The sources are authoritative, either known experts in the field or the site is owned by a credible group.

Information on the site is current, and updated appropriately for the content. A list of the kings of England may not need to be updated regularly, but it seems like celebrity incarceration news must be updated hourly to remain accurate.

The site provides unbiased information that is free from intentional or unintentional skewing of information based on personal or group beliefs. Often, a visit to a whois engine provides valuable information about who has registered (owns) the site, which can help uncover any hidden agendas.


Usability - An Additional Five Criteria

Is the site appropriate for your students' age and educational level? Does it use navigation techniques they will understand, and is the content appropriate and comprehensible for them?

Is the site reliable? Do the links and multimedia content work, and is the site rarely down?

Is the site well organized, and the relevant material easy to find?

Does the site offer links to other sites with valuable content related to the research topic? Will a student researcher find this site a good starting point in developing a web of information?

Is the site functional with your district's technology infrastructure? The best site in the world isn't helpful if it requires special software, computer equipment, or has excessive bandwith requirements for it's multimedia content that aren't available to you in your district.


Other Considerations

In addition to the Top Ten above, there are four other considerations that may be appropriate based on the specific research and needs of your students.

Does the site meet a unique need? For instance, if your school's media specialist has arranged an author visit, does that author have his or her own web site you would like your students to consult prior to the visit?

Does the site address your students that have specific needs? Do you teach a visually impaired student that needs a screen reader to access web sites and, if so, has the site been developed with accessibility in mind (does it use ALT tags for graphics, and so on). Teachers of students with special needs can use the "Bobby" software to proactively evaluate site accessibility by clicking this link.

Does the site engage the student researcher with multimedia and other "wow factor" content, or is it just an electronic presentation of what would have otherwise been available in print?

Does the site provide free use of it's content for student reports and presentations, or does using it's content in this manner represent a copyright infringement? Sometimes this can be difficult to determine, but is important if we are teaching our students ethical use in the digital age. Some sites are helping by making usage rights more evident. For instance, the Saigyo photo above was taken from Wikipedia. When I clicked the photo, the site explicitly stated that the image was from the Wikimedia Commons, which is a "freely licensed media file repository."

Next up: A site evaluation using the criteria above.