Explanation & Elaboration
Activity 3
Step 1-Stay in your groups and as a group look at some other criteria for critically evaluating web content. Look through the following tools and compare them to the criteria that your group had initially developed. With this information, make any changes to your evaluation tool that you think would appropriate.
This article from George Mason University
Kathy Schrock's 5 W's
The CRAPP tool
Critically Evaluating Web Resources
Evaluating Resources tool.
Step 2-At this point move out of your groups and back to your workspace. Using your group's revised web evaluation tool, evaluate the website, "Do Cell Phones Belong in the Classroom."
Post your answers the following question on the Google Doc:
- Was the tool sufficient to evaluate the site and get a good understanding whether or not the site was sufficient to fully and accurately address the issue of cell phone usage in school? If yes, explain. If no, then what else would be needed?
Step 3-In your new groups, go back and look at the original website, "Do Cell Phones Belong in the Classroom." With what you now know, evaluate this site again but with a more critical eye using the questions on this Google Doc to guide you:
- On the original cell phone website, does the information show bias? How can you tell? Why would the author of the website choose to present the information this way?
- Is there any information or points of view that are not expressed? What are they and why would the author leave these things out.
In your groups, search for other websites or information about the topic of cell phone use in schools. Here are other examples of articles regarding cell phone use in schools that students could use, or they could research their own.
- "Should Cell Phones be Allowed in School?"
- "Why Cell Phones Should not be Allowed in a School Setting"
- How does the information in your original site fit into the big issue of cell phone use in schools in terms of social, political, or historical contexts? What new understandings of the issue do you have now that you didn’t have before your search?
- How are these sites similar to yours? How are they different?