Fake websites, Spoof websites, science spoofs, commercial fake sites Introduction to fake websites Librarians and educators need to be able to illustrate to students and users alike that websites cannot always be trusted to provide truthful and accurate data. This page provides examples of websites that are full of lies, inaccuracies or false information - either for amusement or for more worrying reasons. The list does not include phishing sites however; these are intended to fool a person into believing that they are visiting a legitimate bank site for example; there are already plenty of links to these online already. Fake websites - scientific and commercial All of the following websites are, to the best of my knowledge fake sites, spoof sites or parodies of 'real' sites. Sites are arranged in subject groupings, with what I consider to be the most credible examples at the top; hopefully this will help when you come to choose examples for yourself or students. This page contains examples of scientific and commercial sites. Dihydrogen Monoxide Genochoice
Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask 1. What can the URL tell you? Techniques for Web Evaluation : 1. Before you leave the list of search results -- before you click and get interested in anything written on the page -- glean all you can from the URLs of each page. 2. 2. 1. INSTRUCTIONS for Truncating back a URL: In the top Location Box, delete the end characters of the URL stopping just before each / (leave the slash). Continue this process, one slash (/) at a time, until you reach the first single / which is preceded by the domain name portion. 3. Check the date on all the pages on the site. 3. 1. What kinds of publications or sites are they? Are they real? 3. Expect a journal article, newspaper article, and some other publications that are recent to come from the original publisher IF the publication is available on the web. Look at the bottom of such articles for copyright information or permissions to reproduce. 4. 1. a. Type or paste the URL into alexa.com's search box. b. 1. 2. 5. 1. 2. WHY?
Valid Internet Sources for Student Research Not all online sources are created equal. While there are scores of legitimate sources online – including whole encyclopedias and many scholarly journals, there are also many that are much less credible. When a student cites a Web site in a report, it’s important for teachers to know the difference between content written by a professional (who did proper research himself) and “crowd-sourced” content. Crowd sourcing is when information gets posted on the Internet by people who claim to know the facts. In many cases these writers get things wrong, pointing students down the wrong path. To help you stay a step ahead of your students, EducationWorld will update this article from time to time as new sites go online. Wikipedia: The biggest and most successful of all the crowd-sourced sites, Wikipedia.com is essentially an encyclopedia written by random people on the Internet. Validity: Wikipedia is not a proper source for citations or any real research. Yahoo!
Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus Help Save The ENDANGERED From EXTINCTION! The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus Rare photo of the elusive tree octopus The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it. Why It's Endangered
Evaluating Internet Resources How do I evaluate the quality of websites? How can I teach students to evaluate websites? Where can I find checklists for evaluation? Evaluating Internet Resources There's lots of good information on the Internet, but you will also find opinions, misconceptions, and inaccurate information. How do you judge the quality of Internet resources? Read Evaluating Information: An Information Literacy Challenge by MaryAnn Fitzgerald. Do you believe everything you read? Look for what Wikipedia calls the "verifiability" of information. Read Wicked or Wonderful: Revisiting Wikipedia by Annette Lamb. Misleading Websites Some websites were designed to be intentionally misleading. Read How to Spot a Fake Website by Garen Arnold (2009). Use the following websites to explore the issue of Internet content. Fake news has become a popular form of satire. The Onion The Daily Show from Comedy Central Colbert Report from Comedy Central A few websites are addressing the issue of misleading information. Try it!
MAVAV | Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence Welcome To The White House Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie Welcome to the AFDB Website This site is dedicated to spreading the word about the Aluminum* Foil Deflector Beanie and how it can help the average human. Here you will find a description of AFDBs, how to make and use them, and general information about related subjects. I hope that you find the AFDB Homepage to be an important source of AFDB know-how and advocacy. What Is An AFDB? An Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie (AFDB) is a type of headwear that can shield your brain from most electromagnetic psychotronic mind control carriers. What are you waiting for? REBUTTAL TO THE MIT ANTI-AFDB STUDY: Rahimi et al.' BEWARE OF COMMERCIAL AFDBS: Since you should trust no one, always construct your AFDB yourself to avoid the risk of subversion and mental enslavement. AMIGA AND LINUX USERS: It is advised that you get a copy of MindGuard for your personal anti-psychotronic needs.
Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation Home › Classroom Resources › Lesson Plans Lesson Plan Student Objectives Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Extensions Student Assessment/Reflections Students will Use research-based comprehension strategies to read and evaluate websitesPractice analysis by comparing hoax and real websites and identifying false or misleading informationApply what they have learned about hoaxes by creating an outline of their own hoax website and evaluating the outlines of their peers back to top Session 1 Session 2 Project Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus onto a screen. Session 3 Session 4 For more practice with identifying credible websites, have your students take the tutorial at Vaughan Memorial Library: Credible Sources Count! Have students evaluate how well they are now able to read websites using the new comprehension strategies on the What I Learned self-evaluation sheet.Collect both sets of student Is This a Hoax?
Lesson Plan IntroductionWhen it involves information, someone once said, "Believe very little of what you hear, half of what you read and most of what you actually see for yourself." We live in a world of information. People use the world wide web as a major source of information. Subject: Information Technology and ANY subject area.Topic: Research MethodsGrade Level: 6 - 12Student Lesson name and URL:ctap295.ctaponline.org/~bgurnick/student Standards AddressedList the California State Standards your lesson addresses.Students will demonstrate able to analyze the potential validity of information presented on web pages. Language Arts- Writing - Research and Technology (Grades Nine and Ten) From Research and Technology Standard 1.5Identify complexities and discrepancies in the information and the different perspectives found in online resources. Instructional ObjectivesInsert your learning objectives here. Introductory Activity Examine a preselected website. Enabling Activity(ies) Culminating Activity
Library Media Center / Evaluating Websites & Resources Can you believe it? Evaluating Resources to Determine Credibility and Authoritativeness Although there is a significant amount of excellent free information available on the Internet, there is also quite a bit of misinformation. Anyone can publish anything on the Internet. This offers wonderful opportunities for people to share information, but also results in many web pages that contain incorrect, misleading, or biased information. Find out about your topic in books, print encyclopedias, and online subscription databases before you search the Internet for facts. Website Evaluation Guides and Tools: Use these to help you determine whether or not the information on a website is correct. Let's examine some websites: Compare these two websites on Ancient Egypt: Tutorial on YouTube about evaluating websites (there are quite a few, but this one was relatively short and to the point) Evaluate the reliability of the information on websites with a "What's the SCORE?"