Evaluating Sites
When you search for information on the internet, it's extremely important to evaluate all of the sites that you use. Is the information factual? Who is writing this information? Are there other sources that corroborate the information? Is the site biased and is that a problem? These questions just scratch the surface of all the things to consider when evaluating resources.
Ultimately, it's not about one-word answers to these questions. It's about putting every resource into the proper context. For example, a site can be very clearly biased but still contain 100% factual information. In that case though, while you may be getting accurate information, you are probably not obtaining information about the whole picture. You'll need to look for other resources that could give you equally factual information from different perspectives. After you've gathered information from a variety of resources and critically analyzed each one, you will have a sense of the full scope of the topic and will be able to draw your own informed conclusions.
Bearing in mind that all of these are just ways to get started with evaluating websites and that you should not use just one of them, here are a few frameworks and/or rubrics that you could use:
When you search for information on the internet, it's extremely important to evaluate all of the sites that you use. Is the information factual? Who is writing this information? Are there other sources that corroborate the information? Is the site biased and is that a problem? These questions just scratch the surface of all the things to consider when evaluating resources.
Ultimately, it's not about one-word answers to these questions. It's about putting every resource into the proper context. For example, a site can be very clearly biased but still contain 100% factual information. In that case though, while you may be getting accurate information, you are probably not obtaining information about the whole picture. You'll need to look for other resources that could give you equally factual information from different perspectives. After you've gathered information from a variety of resources and critically analyzed each one, you will have a sense of the full scope of the topic and will be able to draw your own informed conclusions.
Bearing in mind that all of these are just ways to get started with evaluating websites and that you should not use just one of them, here are a few frameworks and/or rubrics that you could use:
Group Activity
Take some time exploring these sites with your group of 2-3 other classmates and discussing the following questions in your group:
After you discuss with your group, we will open the discussion to the whole class. Each group will share their thoughts about how to best evaluate websites when conducting mathematical research and the class will develop its own framework/rubric for evaluating these sites.
Once we've created the class framework for evaluating mathematical sites, we'll get back to the original question: what is zero? A number? A concept? Both?
Take some time exploring these sites with your group of 2-3 other classmates and discussing the following questions in your group:
- Which questions from these frameworks do you think are the most important to consider when you are conducting research?
- Which ones are the least important or could be ignored in certain cases?
- Do the frameworks need to be different when you are trying to research the answer to a mathematics-based question?
- Which questions from the above sites are the most important when researching math topics?
- Are there questions you need to consider for math topics that are not on the sites listed above?
After you discuss with your group, we will open the discussion to the whole class. Each group will share their thoughts about how to best evaluate websites when conducting mathematical research and the class will develop its own framework/rubric for evaluating these sites.
Once we've created the class framework for evaluating mathematical sites, we'll get back to the original question: what is zero? A number? A concept? Both?