critical web evaluation reflection

I received good feeback from my group members, Allison and Katie. They liked how my website was not a hoax website, but a website from the Shakespeare Oxford Society, a legitimate group. The society claims that Shakespeare did not write his plays, but a man named Edward de Vere did. Katie said she thought it was a good idea that I had my students evaluate a website from a real organization so they could reach their own interpretation on whether it was valid or not. They also discovered that the website I used doesn't work anymore, which is unfortunate but is an example of how the Internet is constantly changing and sometimes websites are not reliable.

I will use the Internet Workshop because it teaches students to consider the author and purpose of a website when doing research for a paper or project. The debate over the "true author" of Shakespeare's works is a real issue and students could actually do research on the topic for an English class. I want my students to be able to evaluate a site so they don't believe everything they read and then use incorrect or invalid material in a paper. These critical web evaluation skills are important in an English class because of the amount of research that goes into English essays.


My group said that the quote is true. We discussed that students often don't know where to look when beginning to research a topic. They need to know how to eliminate sites that aren't valid or appropriate. Also, anyone can create a website and write whatever they want. The freedom of thought is a good thing, but the unregulated and uncensored nature of the Internet can pose a hazard to students. If students have the appropriate critical thinking skills, they can avoid the bad aspects of the Internet and use the good, valid websites for their research.