Website Evaluations

I never have really taken the time to evaluate websites, so I was grateful that we took time to look at different websites and actually fill out evaluation forms.

The evaluation forms were for the most part helpful. I particularly liked the midlink magazine web page evaluation form and the form that looked at links. As I filled out the midlink magazine web evaluation, I particularly enjoyed being able to tally up a score and looking at the score chart at the bottom to determine if it was a good website. Also, it was easy to read and the criteria was clear. The form that looked at links was helpful in checking the accuracy of a website. I liked how the form had you go to www.altavista.com where people can check to see what sites are linked with the one be evaluated. I have never seen this before and I thought it was interesting to see what other sites are linked with it. The evaluation for of a website by Kathleen Schrock was easy to read and I liked how at the end you can write a paragraph about the website. However, I found it not to helpful with the website I looked at because many of my answers were not just yes/no answers. I like scales that I can actually rate rather than yes/no because many times things are inbetween. The cyberguide form was also hard for me because it was just yes/no questions and I could not rate inbetween.

From doing these evaluation forms, I found that finding updates and the creators of websites is sometimes difficult to find. Others are really easy to find at the bottom of the website. Also, as I was filling out my evaluation forms, I discovered that websites tend to have a lot of links that may or may not work. This is why the creators need to constantly check their websites to make sure their links are working.

Besides finding these things, I think these evaluation forms really help you decide whether the website is worth taking time to look at and use information from them. Many times, we just google sites expecting to find great sites in the first few options, however, sometimes that is not always the case. I want to teach my students how to evaluate and practice evaluating myself to find website that will be benefical to my students and that are credible.

On the other hand, I may not use an evaluation form to when going to websites such as government direct website (i.e. .gov) or ones that come from a direct source of knowledge such as a university. These websites are generally credible because they are constantly doing the research and are update often with they latest research. I do think that using the evaluation forms for most websites that do not come directly from the previously mentioned website are valuable.