Level: Grades 7 to 10
Overview
|
This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.
To open the lesson kit for printing, click here.
To print only this page, use the "printable version" link at the top of the page.
|
In this lesson students apply the "5W's of Cyberspace" to sources of information they find online. Assuming the role of a student researching a science project, students must authenticate the information in an online article about the artificial sweetener, Aspartame.
Learning Outcomes
Students will:
- understand the importance of authenticating online resources
- recognize the signs of bias and omission in information
- use a template to authenticate Web sources based on site authorship or ownership, content and currency
- use meta-information search techniques to validate online information
- understand the structure of uniform resource locators (URL's) and how URLs can be used to determine authorship and credibility
Preparation and Materials
- students will need access to the Internet in order to complete their assignments
Photocopy:
Procedure
Assign note-takers to tally student responses on the board. Ask students the following questions:
- How many of you use the Internet for research and homework?
- How would you rank the Internet as a homework resource, compared to the school library, and public library? (Point for comparison: In MNet's Young Canadians In A Wired World (YCWW) survey, 44% of students turned to the Internet first as a source for homework, compared to 19% who would choose a public library and 16% who would choose a school library.)
- What are the advantages of the Internet over more traditional resources?
- What are the disadvantages?
- What is the difference between publishing material on the Internet, and publishing material in books? (Traditional publishing incorporates a series of "gatekeepers" such as editors, proofreaders and fact checkers. On the Internet, authors can bypass these gatekeepers. As long as you have the technical know-how to create a Web page, you can publish your thoughts online.)
- How much of the information you find on the Internet do you think is true and can be trusted - all of it; most of it; some of it; none of it. (Point for comparison: In the YCWW survey, 3% of students believed that all the information was true, 37% believed most to be true, 48% believed some to be true, and 6% believed none of it to be true.)
- Do you ever do anything to confirm that the information you have found online is true and can be trusted?
- For those of you who answered "yes," what do you do to check that the information you find on the Internet is reliable? (Point for comparison: In the YCWW survey, the most common responses were: check the author or source, 51%; judge for myself, 50%; ask a teacher, 47%; look the information up in a book or magazine, 39%; or check with a friend, 38%.)
It's important that all of us - adults and young people - to learn how to tell whether online information is accurate and trustworthy.
Distribute the student handout The Five W's of Cyberspace and review the main points with students.
Activity
Evaluation
