Determining Credibility

Wow – that crap detection video and article by Howard Rheingold was great! I can honestly say that I really had no solid idea how to detect the credibility of a site – my approach in the past has been to view multiple sites to see if there was common information and falling back on the idea that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably was. The first image that came to mind when I was reading the article was of a photo that of a shark jumping out of the water below a helicopter with a navy seal hanging off the ladder – it was definitely an eye catcher at the time! Having it associated with the National Geographic make it more credible and it quickly went viral as people forwraded the email to thier friends and family around the world. As to be expected it was identified as a hoax but these types of things spread so quickly these days by people who have take things at face value and don't critically evaluate the information that is on the web.   This was my introduction to digital editing of photos and I now find myself questioning before I accept a photo as fact.

From Rheigold’s video, the ideas about what to look for and how to determine the credibility of the site were extremely helpful for me as a teacher and parent as well as a learner. This is information that all teachers and parents should know as we guide our young people within the web environment so that we don't get duped into inaccurate information. We need to assist our kids through our modelling of checking out the facts but also asking the good questions about where they found their information.

1) Who is the author? Use http://www.easywhois.com/ to find out who owns the site
2) Does the author provide sources?
3) Search the names of the authors of the sources.
4) See if this site has been bookmarked on Delicious or Diigo

I see this form of teaching incredibly important for today’s kids as they must develop that critical thinking that will help separate the good information from the bad.  Lets be honest, there is SOOO much information out there and even google can get it wrong, sending us to sites that are less than accurate.   Its up to us as educators to provide these lessons for them as we cannot expect that the parents of our students have themselves developed this critical lens.

One other idea that occurred to me as I mulled this reading over what how people would view my own additions to the web. Would I make it through the filter or would my ideas be tossed aside as not credible?