1. Name: Fiona B. GriswoldCooperating teacher-librarian: Kathy Wickline<br />Date: November 3, 2010School & City: Unity Junior High, Tolono<br />Lesson Title: Website Evaluation: <br />Instruction and Practice<br />Grade level: 7thLength of lesson: 1.5 hours (including guided practice)<br />Purpose: Instruct students in how to evaluate a website to determine whether it is a good (reliable) source of information by asking themselves Who? What? Where? When? Why? and provide a tool students can use to help determine the quality of a website. <br />Learning Outcomes: <br />Students will be able to identify questions (based on the 5 Ws) to ask and/or qualities to look for when determining whether a website is a good (reliable) source.<br />Students will be able to use the tool provided (Website Evaluation Checklist) to determine whether a given website is good (reliable, authoritative) as indicated by the point total it receives for the criteria examined.<br />Illinois English Language Arts Learning Standards: <br />4.A.3c: Restate and carry out multistep oral instructions.<br />4.B.3a: Deliver planned oral presentations, using language and vocabulary appropriate to the purpose, message and audience; provide details and supporting information that clarify main ideas; and use visual aids and contemporary technology as support. <br />5.A.3a: Identify appropriate resources to solve problems or answer questions through research.<br />5.B.3a: Choose and analyze information sources for individual, academic and functional purposes.<br />Standards for 21st Century Learner:<br />1.1.5: Evaluate information found in selected sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context.<br />1.1.8: Demonstrate mastery of technology tools for accessing information and pursuing inquiry. <br />1.1.9: Collaborate with others to broaden and deepen understanding.<br />1.3.4: Contribute to the exchange of ideas within the learning community.<br />2.1.4: Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information. <br />2.1.5: Collaborate with others to exchange ideas, develop new understandings, make decisions, and solve problems.<br />3.2.1: Demonstrate leadership and confidence by presenting ideas to others in both formal and informal situations. <br />3.2.2: Show social responsibility by participating actively with others in learning situations and by contributing questions and ideas during group discussions. <br />3.2.3: Demonstrate teamwork by working productively with others.<br />NETS-S Standards:<br />3. Research and Information Fluency: Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students: c. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks and d. process data and report results.<br />4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students: b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project and c. collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions<br />Materials Needed By Librarians:<br />Computer<br />LCD projector <br />Blank Inspiration(visual learning software) page<br />PowerPoint presentation on website evaluation <br />Web page with job roles and links to practice websites on Lincoln<br />Website Evaluation Checklist answer key for each practice website<br />Wireless remote presenter<br />Materials Needed By Students:<br />Computer<br />Access to web page with links to practice websites on Lincoln and description of “jobs” within each group<br />Website Evaluation Checklist<br />Pen or pencil<br />Instructional Procedures<br />As students enter library:<br />Welcome students as they enter the library and instruct them to go to their language arts computer, log in, then move their chairs so that they can see the projected slides.<br />If needed, reassign students to different table to make sure that every group has at least 3 participants (now or when we start task).<br />Focusing event: <br />Begin by telling students that we are going to be talking about how to decide whether a website is a good source of information, whether for a class project (like the Leaders’ Forum) or for another purpose, but first, want to see what they think.<br />Ask question, when you look at a website, what sorts of things do you use to tell you whether it’s good or not?<br />Fiona solicits answers/clarifies responses while Kathy uses Inspiration to create an idea web (pretest for evaluation project). Once students are out of ideas, Kathy prints page and opens PowerPoint presentation.<br />Input from Librarian: <br />Fiona and Kathy take turns presenting the information contained in the PowerPoint:<br />Fiona introduces the difficulty of sorting through the billions of sites on the Web and the lack of control of who gets to publish what on a website. Also contrasts this to print publishing where there are editors, publishers, fact checkers, etc. <br />Kathy introduces the five W’s (Who, What, When, Where, Why) that will help students determine whether a site is good enough to cite.<br />Kathy discusses authorship and authority (Who?): what this is and what students should look for in deciding who authored a site and whether they are knowledgeable about their subject. <br />Fiona discusses “What?” by helping students consider the way a site is designed, whether it has advertising and what the domain of a site can tell you. Ask students to guess what each domain might mean and what sorts of sites one might find there.<br />Kathy covers “When, Where and Why?” by discussing whether currency (updated) information is important; why it’s important for a website to cite where its information and images came from (give credit to original author or artist); and why one site is better than another: does it have information that other sites don’t? Is one more complete than another? Kathy also points out other sources of information besides websites.<br />Fiona sums up the presentation by emphasizing why it is important to evaluate any information found on the Web, no matter what the topic or purpose.<br />Guided practice: <br />Students return to their assigned tables and receive instructions on the website evaluation exercise.<br />Referring to the Website Evaluation page on the UJHS Media Center site, tell students that they are going to work as a team to practice evaluating a website about Abraham Lincoln. Each member of the group will have a job, as outlined on the project page.<br />Give students instructions: group will work together to answer the questions on the page. Once all questions are answered, then they will assign points and add for a total for that site.<br />At the end of the period, presenter and pointer from each group will tell the class the results of their evaluation (whether a site is good or not, based on its score) and will highlight the elements of the site that most contributed to that decision.<br />Check to make sure each group member has a role.<br />As students work, Fiona, Kathy and classroom teacher(s) will work with their assigned groups to answer questions, make sure they are on task, and help clarify any questions about the evaluation checklist.<br />When all groups are finished evaluating, call presenters/pointers up one group at a time to share their findings. Kathy and Fiona will facilitate/clarify as needed.<br />Closure: <br />After presentations and with any time remaining, tell students that they can search for possible websites to use as their source for their World Leader. Tell students that once they find the best site to use as a source for their person, they will complete the same checklist and hand it in to their classroom teacher. <br />Distribute the checklist to each student or give class set to the classroom teacher (as they prefer). <br />Check for understanding:<br /> <br />Evaluation of student learning for this lesson will be accomplished in three ways:<br />Informal discussion/questioning during the presentation and as students are completing the evaluation checklist.<br />How the groups evaluated their websites: did their final evaluation closely mirror the key created to help guide the process? Did they focus on important elements of the site or did they miss important clues as to their site’s quality?<br />The final evaluation piece, which will likely occur the next day, in which students are asked to list what they should look for when evaluating whether a website is a good source (as a follow up to the initial idea web activity that started the lesson).<br />What’s next? <br />Students will be in the library again later this week to do online research on their person for the World Leader’s forum. They will be able to use the skills learned in today’s lesson to find the best website to use as a source for their project and will have another opportunity to complete and hand in the Evaluation Checklist for the website that they eventually select and cite in the Works Cited page for their project. <br />