Evaluating the Web & Homework is more than busy work....

There is always a debate about whether or not homework is essential to learning. From my perspective homework can be a very important step to one's learning process. It is for me, although I really, really hate doing homework.

A couple of years ago I had a rather detailed homework assignment for one of the courses I was taking. At first, I thought that the homework was really unnecessary - it was just "busy work". 

The assignment was to quickly write down the steps I use to evaluate online materials - in other words, whether or not the website can be trusted. Then to go online and find five resources that I would use, and why I would use them. 

Really? I teach this stuff - do I really have to do this? 

Yes.

What I discovered was what that it's not as simple as I thought. Sure, there are the common sense checks, such as: 

• Who's the author?
• Credentials?
• Can the information be verified?
• How current is the information?
• Are opinions clearly identified?
• Who sponsors the website? 

But today, there is this new phenomenon - social media, blogs, and wikis. 

Can those questions above be applied to these types of websites? I think that they can, but there are other questions one needs to ask as well. 

Social Media questions: 

• Can the identity of the source of shared information be verified?
• Can the information on the profile page be verified?
• Can institutions and/or companies be identified?

Blog questions:

• Is the blog posting signed by an identifiable author?
• A guest author?
• Who are they? 
• Is the blog posting cited on other blogs? (Use Technorati - a blog search engine - to find out.) 
• Do new postings appear fairly regularly? 

Wiki questions: 

• Can one identify all of those who are able to edit or add content?
• Who are they?
• Are there guidelines for contributors to follow?
• Is the wiki moderated? That is, is there an editor? Who are they? 

As one can see the questions are very similar to the basic questions one uses to determine whether or not a website can be trusted; they are just a little more detailed. They dig deeper. 

So, does this teach me anything about homework - yes, I still hate it, but once again I did learn something new and that is always wicked awesome.