Website Evaluation

I have used Schrock’s 5Ws (modified to suit my students) with Year 4/5/6/7 students at school. It was a real eye-opener for me to realise that students just don’t even think to check whether a website is relevant. I think what made me start teaching website evaluation was when, many years ago when I was doing a unit on Australian artists, a bright Year 7 boy found a website on his artist Tom Roberts and diligently started to take notes from it. He didn’t even notice that it was a genealogy website for a different Roberts family and that this Tom Roberts was born much more recently. Amazing!

One way that I have highlighted the importance of website evaluation and cross-checking information this year was with the site http://allaboutexplorers.com/about/

This website has been created by teachers and has questions on different explorers and two information sources for each – with information than doesn’t match. It also has three reading levels which was a plus. I tried using it in a few different ways but the I found the best was when I had one pair using one site, and another pair using the other. The pairs then had to come together to write their answers. I thought one group was going to have a complete meltdown before I told them I had been designed that way on purpose. A very useful activity, but I won’t be able to use it again for a few years.

Another aspect of website evaluation I think it is also important to note is that not all teachers can confidently evaluate websites. I am finding that when I go through website evaluation strategies, processes with students, I often have teachers commenting that they hadn't thought to look at websites in that way. That's not to say that I am an expert - definitely a learner as well. I guess I find it interesting that teachers, who so carefully select print texts, don't evaluate digital texts in the same way.