Evaluating Educational Web sites
 
Introduction: Evaluating Web sites is an important skill for all educators. With so much on the Web, we need to be able to sort through the garbage to get to the gems. We also need to teach our students to do the same. During this workshop, we will examine why we need to evaluate our sources, what tools are available to do that evaluating, and which tool is the best for your situation. Then we will do some evaluating. Most of what you need is right here on this web site. Enjoy!
 
Let's start by sharing stories and talking about time.
 

The evaluation process takes some practice, but once you have practiced, it becomes second nature. Here are a list of rubrics and evaluation tools that will guide you in your evaluation:

Take some time to look through the tools. Which one would work best in your situation? Why?
 
Now let's see Web evaluation in action. In a moment you will go to a web page that has ten writing resources on it. Seven of the sources, I have evaluated. Three are not evaluated. Look at the evaluation tool, then one of the evaluated web sites. Then look at my evaluation. Can you see how I used the evaluation tool? Now select one of the unevaluated sites and evaluate it, using the evaluation tool that I used. To start, click here. Share your findings with a colleague.
 
Now use the evaluation tool that you selected from above. Go to a Web site that you use often or look for one that you think you could use often. Now evaluate it. If you do not have a web site in mind, simply go yo Yahoo! or Google and search for one. Or try a site from the educational resources that I have collected. Evaluate one Web site and submit it to my Professional Development eBoard.