Research+Sources+Evaluation

I am working with a high school health teacher on a project where the students research a disease and then they use the information they find to create a brochure like you would find in a doctor's office. In the past when students did this project, they ran into several sites that were created by people with an interest in the condition because they have it or a loved one does. They are not medical professionals. While this does not necessarily mean their information is wrong, it does mean that they often have some links to disreputable sites. Also, they are often not updated regularly. Once the creator of the site goes through treatment, they do not update the site to reflect new research or treatments. I realized (when I finished, of course) that a very similar project had been done as an example by Dr. Lamb. Mine focused on the high school age student. I also tried to create something that made the student use some higher level thinking to make their evaluations.

[|Website Evaluation.pot]

I used the template to evaluate websites on a health issue. I think it really expanded what had been a "cut and paste" project into something deeper.

[|1st Sample.ppt]

Since I chose to do something that promoted information literacy, the obvious modification was to make the evaluation tool for other formats. I did it for books, but it could also be applied to articles or whole databases.

[|Modified template.pot]

Another adaptation would be to change the purpose of the evaluation. For example, they could evaluate sites for entertainment purposes or they could use it in a web design class to evaluate peer's sites. This would help them to realize that you use different criteria based on why you are using the site. The template could also be modified for a project on evaluating forms of propaganda.