1. Identifying High-Quality Websites
8th Grade

2. Introduction Who can publish information on the Internet?
When can you trust what you find on the Internet?
What criteria can/should be used to evaluate websites?

3. Key Vocabulary Trustworthy: accurate and dependable
Evaluate: to carefully examine something to figure out its value
Criteria: standards on which you base a judgment

4. Can Anyone Be an Author?
The Internet has made it easy for anyone to become an “author” and publish information for other people to read.
What are some of the differences between how books are published and how a website is published?
Book authors are experts in their field.
Editors review a book before it is published.
The author and publisher are listed on a book.

5. Evaluate the Website
Is the site's purpose commercial, informative, educational, entertainment?
Who posted the information? Who is the author of the website? Is the website an individual's? Or is it part of a larger site? What do we know about the author/publisher? Is the organization reliable/trustworthy? Is the information biased?
When was the information published? Updated? Is the information time-sensitive?

6. Trustworthy? Reliable?
We’re going to look at some websites related to year- round school. Which ones can you trust? Why?
dec12/scholars_08-21.html
rrounded.htm

7. Answer these questions:
Is the site's purpose commercial, informative, educational, entertainment?
Who Posted the Information? Who is the author of the website? Is the website an individual's? Or is it part of a larger site? What do we know about the author/publisher? Is the organization reliable/trustworthy? Is the information biased?
When was the information published? Updated? Is the information time-sensitive?

8. Wrap Up
How do you whether you can trust the information you find on a website?
Why should you be careful to evaluate websites before using their information in research projects?
Do you feel confident that you can apply what you learned today to sites that aren’t just for school research? What is one example of when you use a website to get information outside of school?

9. Questions?