Website reliablitiy

To help students determine which sites are credible, there are numerous steps they should take. The first step involves checking the authority of the site. They look at who the author or organization of the site is and check what the site ends in such as .com, .org, and etc. By checking this, students should be able to determine right off the bat that the website about explorers is invalid because it was created by teachers to inform kids that not all websites are reliable. The second step would be to check the technical and visual aspects of the site. This step involves students looking at the format of the page and determining if it is well organized, the pictures are meaningful, or if spelling and grammar are correct. This was evident on the websites about dihydrogen monoxide and the tree octopus. The dihydrogen monoxide page was unreliable because it wasn’t very organized and cluttered, along with other factors. One reason the website about the tree octopus wasn’t credible was because it contained fake pictures of stuffed animals. The third step would be to check the content of the site. During this process the students should check if the content is factual, if the content is up-to-date, or if the information is useful towards the site’s purpose. The website about Martin Luther King portrayed this because the links weren’t about what they stated and gave very bias, false information. To help the students remember so many steps and ways to determine the quality of a website, I would give them a check off sheet to follow that they could use throughout the year. This way, they can refer to it until they begin remembering various techniques of their own and hopefully can learn how by the end of the year.

Technology in Schools

This reading impacts my thinking about technology’s role in teaching and learning in many ways. First of all, it makes me contemplate what the most effective way to teach children is and the content that we are teaching them. Since we are in the Knowledge Revolution, part of me feels that we should completely change our way of teaching. I feel that technology is changing so fast that by the time we would teach students how to use any form of technology, it would already be outdated and they would have to learn to use a different version. In order to help students adjust to so many changes, I think that as educators, we should spend more time helping kids learn problem solving skills, creativity, and more general area concepts. In doing so, students can think their way through any challenges about future technologies or jobs that we don’t even know about yet. I also feel that we should deviate from making students memorize facts when they can just look information up online. We should integrate technology into the classroom and begin to teach students more about how to find reliable information, repair computer problems, and various ways of communication. The book also mentions how homeschooling and earning degrees online is becoming more popular. I don’t agree with this and feel that we should keep the traditional classroom setting for young students. There are so many advantages to schools that children need to have, such as learning socialization skills and other values like leadership. Another reason I feel that it is important to maintain the traditional school structure is because what if students or families can’t afford the technology to educate themselves. Schools, however, have this same dilemma and many would have a hard time purchasing and updating all the technology.


In the future, I think it will be essential to integrate technology with the basic subjects. Schools can’t ignore teaching technology to students because it is involved in almost every aspect of life. To teach students such skills, I will teach the basic subjects and work in mini lessons to make sure they learn as much as they can. Not only will their homework involve using computers, but during my lessons I can also work in the Smart board or other online sources. I feel this is how I will incorporate technology because I feel that there simply isn’t enough time to teach kids everything that is being stressed these days, such as healthy lifestyle habits, social skills, emotional well being and many more. By working technology into the lessons, the students will be able to learn more on a continual basis throughout the whole year. As a teacher, this will also require some extra work on my behalf. To keep up-to-date with modern technology, I will most likely attend workshops or look up additional information to keep up with the latest improvements.