About critical reading ....

Hoax websites (such as The Tree Octopus site) can be effective tools  
for teaching critical reading and thinking skills. A few years ago  
when I was coordinating the NIFL Technology Training Special  
Collection, we created a WebQuest called Websites ... Which Ones  
Should You Trust? I just checked and the WebQuest is still posted. It  
walks students through the process of asking a series of questions  
(Who is the author?, Is the information accurate?, Is there bias?,  
When was the website made?) to help them develop a set of criteria for  
judging the reliability of online resources. Each question also offers  
activities using legitimate and hoax websites. The link below will  
take you to the part of the site that is designed for students. Once  
there, you can click on the link For Teachers in the upper right  
corner to learn more about using this WebQuest with your students:
http://www.altn.org/webquests/websites/index.html

Back when I was teaching elementary students in a computer lab I  
collaborated with another teacher. His eighth grade students were  
learning beginning web design. My second grade students completed a  
survey that his students had developed and answered a series of  
questions about themselves (number of siblings, favorites, etc.). His  
students then used their answers to create individual websites for my  
second graders. I was delighted to find that the second graders were  
very critical readers when it came to reading about themselves. Many  
of them were amazed that the websites that had been created by the  
eighth graders contained so much misinformation (It says blue is my  
favorite color but it really is red; I don't have a younger brother;  
My favorite food isn't pizza, etc.). They saw the errors about what  
had been written about them immediately so it was a very pointed way  
to get them to realize that everything they read online isn't  
necessarily true. With older students you'd want to expand on this and  
have the critical reading and thinking extend beyond basic facts,  
perhaps using student-created wikis and blogs.

With such easy access to free, online resources and so much of it  
produced by non-professionals (websites, podcasts, wikis, blogs,  
etc.)  it is very important to provide students of all ages the skills  
they'll need to be critical readers and thinkers.

Linda

Linda Perry
Beyond The Text, Educational Consulting
http://web.mac.com/linda_perry/
linda_perry at mac.com


On Jul 30, 2008, at 1:28 PM, Wendy Quinones wrote:


> Hi everyone and Gina especially,

> I for one cannot imagine a life without reading books for pleasure.   

> At any one time, I geneally have 3 or 4 books going at a time, plus  

> at least one book I'm listening to.  I HATE reading on the screen,  

> although I have to do a lot of it.  That's when I have trouble  

> concentrating in a linear manner for any length of time, unless I'm  

> reading what I am writing at the time.

>

> I went to the "Tree Octopus" site, and I have to say that most of  

> the students I've had in the last few years would have fallen for it  

> totally.  It just doesn't seem to matter how many times we tell them  

> to apply reason to the internet -- especially if it looks as  

> professional as that one did, they're going to buy it.  I did an  

> exercise once with a "medical" site that promised a journal of a  

> man's pregnancy along with other absurd things, and although  we'd  

> had a lengthy discussion of how to judge a website's truthfulness  

> (and this spoof site had red flags galore), none of the students who  

> got that as their assignment spotted  it as a fake.  We have our  

> work cut out for us, friends!

>

> Wendy Quinones

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Technology and Literacy mailing list

> Technology at nifl.gov

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/technology

> Email delivered to linda_c_perry at sbcglobal.net


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/technology/attachments/20080731/3b7f2876/attachment.html