***This activity is most powerful after the students have completed the rubric development and site evaluation phases of this unit.

I. New Hartford, Minnesota

You've never heard of it? Not surprising since this city doesn't exist. Dr. Don Descy, a professor in media literacy at Mankato State University (Mankato, MN) has created this site to make a strong point about the importance of the evaluation of web-based information. Many students are drawn into the Internet by the polished, glitzy look of what they see. The information "looks" official, so it must be correct.....well, not exactly.

I've created a sneaky process that lures the students into the evaluation process by using a rubric-based system that usually catches them being "lazy".

Here are the basic steps:

• Create evaluative rubrics for educational and community web sites.
• Students use rubrics to evaluate several sites in each category (turn in to teacher)
• "Caught'ya" - the Teachable Moment
• Read several of the evaluations
• Reveal the truth (you can be creative and have students locate New Hartford on a map, or use the Internet to find it's location_)
• Students immediately describe their response
• Discuss other methods of evaluation and the need to critically anaylze all information (cross-reference, ask questions...

Table of Contents --- Encyclopedia --- Rubric --- Teachable Moment 

Resources--- Student Responses

 

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