5th graders are beginning their work on website evaluation in conjunction with the UOIs "Who We Are" and "How We Organize Ourselves."
In the library, I have been using the website allaboutexplorers.com to teach the students about spotting real and fake information.
Focusing first on the explorer Sir Francis Drake, I designed a Seesaw activity which has the students evaluate information from two different websites about Drake. One of the websites (Enchanted Learning) has correct, accurate information, while the other website All About Explorers, does not. The following is what I assigned as a Seesaw Activity, along with an editable note for the students to write down the answers to their questions.
My first class had a tricky time figuring out which website was the real one, mostly due to the time constraint of our short class period. I also was purposefully vague in introducing the assignment and just let them read the directions on their own and then following the prompts. This turned out to be too much independence for them, so for my next class, I spent extra time introducing the activity and I also read aloud the information from the two different websites. Most of the kids in my first 5th grade class didn't have enough time to read both articles fully, which made it difficult to evaluate which website was "real." After reading aloud the information, I took the kids through the questions one by one and highlighted the two contrasting answers from each website. This helped them quickly determine an answer rather than searching around the sites and rereading the information.
All in all, it seemed that most of the kids figured out fairly quickly that the All About Explorers website was fake as they picked up inaccuracies in the texts: there were no computer discs in the 1500s, or, there were no amusement park rides in the 1500s.
This was a first look, introductory example of how we have to be careful when researching on the internet because many websites do not have correct information.
Next class, we will be following the second lesson from the All About Explorers website, "So How Do You Find the Good Stuff?" which goes into the publishing process of nonfiction books versus websites and the strict review process that happens with printed texts. I think this will be a great follow-up activity as at the end of my 5th grade classes this week I have thrown-in the prompt, "so why are nonfiction books automatically more trustworthy?" Some kids give me the, "what are you talking about?" face, while others sit back and clearly start thinking about the difference between the information you can find in books and on the internet.