Technology is still going on strong. Today we learned all about how we can check the websites our students might use for research or any other thing. Although my teacher mostly talked about us as teaches using these different sites to evaluate the trueness of the sites I think this would be something very good to have students learn so they can check the trueness of the site for themselves.
So I tried a few out for myself and here is what I did.
On Discovery Education I used Kathy Schrock's Elementary School Level Evaluation. I choose this one because it is one I would use to teach my children to use.
So the name of the website I am going to evaluate is Merriam-Webster Online. It doesn't take too long to load and there are no big pictures on the page. None of the spelling on the page is incorrect. The authors name and website are not on the page but it does have ti linked to the Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. It doesn't have image maps. The information is all easy assessable to on the left hand side of the page. If I decide to go to another page it is really easy to get back to the first page by clicking either home or back. The page doesn't have a date of when it was created and there aren't any photos or sounds. The title of the page tells me the website is a Merriam-Webster dictionary online. There isn't a paragraph on the first page explain what is included in the site. I did find all the facts I was looking for on this page. I would not have gotten more information on an encyclopedia site. I also didn't really get information that was more helpful then an encyclopedia. The author doesn't say anything that I would disagree with and I do get lead to other pages with more information. I don't have any information on the page that is wrong and everything on the page helps me learn. I think the site is correct and very helpful.
On Wave.webaim.org I tried the site http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/volcano/.
Wave detected 6 accessibility problems. These 6 problems included ads posted at the top and bottom of the page, some link text not making sense to the system, some layout problems, having some test missing next to pictures, a heading problem, and an incorrect heading order. Most of those problems aren't really big problems or concerns about the actual info on the page that tells me about volcanos so I think the website has good information for a research paper.
This was a really good thing to learn and I will definitely pass this on to fellow teachers, parents, and students.
3 comments:
I really liked the WAVE website too. Though it might tell you about 'errors' that really aren't a big deal, I think it's cool that there is somewhere you can go to make sure the information is there, correct, and accessible. Though WAVE only tells you if it's accessible or not. I think that knowing if websites are valid or not is an important thing.
even though it had a few problems, i checked out the enchanted learning and really liked it too! I think the WAVE evaluator was a little picky about things like grammar and such, not so much content. I also like that you would like to focus on passing this information on evaluating on to your students!
I also want to pass on this information and these accessibility websites. They are good resources for students and teachers. I think that the WAVE website is good, but I agree that it found a few things that seemed kind of pointless and nitpicky.
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