Best and Worst WebQuests

The best to me was the Ice Cream Webquest because it had a great color scheme and it grabbed my attention very well; also it is a very fun topic that will make it intersting in itself. Also the oricess is mapped out well with the steps explained well. The next best one was "Where is My Hero." This one was interactive and had a fun topic. Also, the topic itself promotes good people skills. The worst were would have to be "Grow Schools Green" because it is bland and it isn't very appealing to make students interested in it. The next worst would be Underground Railroad because it isn’t interactive enough and the way it is written just seems like it was thrown together and not enough thought was put into it. The best and the worst just simply mean to me which ones have the most thouoght put inot them and which ones jump out at me and are appealing, are interactive and have good links to the necessary information, and the ones that are written well for the students to understand what their task is.

Worksheet for Webquest

Social Networking for Sex-Offenders

This article talks about the law passed in Illinois that put an end to registered sex offenders from having social network pages such as Facebook and Twitter. Magid uses very good evidence to support his argument; he says that only very few cases where adults have sexual relations with a teen, and he also says that most of the kid online behavior is kid-to-kid. Magid, the writer, chose a very touchy subject to write on, and to most people it would seem absurd to even write about much less support, but he does both. I commend him for his resolve and he uses very good evidence to back up his argument. While he does present good evidence for his position, I have to disagree with his position. I think that the more access to minors you take away from a predator the better society and minors will be protected. In the past week we have seen through Penn State that sex offenders need to be stopped and limiting their social media access can aid this.

Wikipedia, Good or Bad?

When I began to read this, one thing that stuck out to me was that no one ever really praises the idea of a free encyclopedia so that people will be able to learn better. Almost all of the feedback is negative and talks about how uncredible the articles are because anyone can add things to Wikipedia. Another thing that I learned is that people actually post innacurate information just to prove that Wikipedia isn't a credible source, and they call this "Wikiality." Another thing I learned is that the one of the ways teachers might be able to use Wikipedia in the classroom is by using it as a starting point to jump into more intersting topics. A fact that really entrigued me is that Wikipedia is constantly changing and evolving and it also is a great tool to get to credible sources because of the Hyperlinks to credible sources when the Wiki article has its sources listed. Another intersting topic that I took form this is that there are some areas where a Wiki article is better than a is better than a regular encyclopedia because it is better research because of the hyperlinked footnotes and the debatable topics referenced right below it for essay access to learn about it. The one question I do have is How do you totally get rid of false information while still allowing open access to anyone?

This sight here What is Research? is a grea sight for to look at. It talks about the crediblity of Wikipedia from a guy who has wrote on Wikipedia a few times.

Citations

Crovitz, D. & Smoot, W. (2007, November 21). Wikipedia: friend, not foe. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/archival/EnglishJournalArticle2.pdf

http://whatisresearch.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/wikipedia-criticism-and-why-it-fails-to-matter/

Wikipedia Worksheet

I chose to do an American Revolution Wikipedia page and there weren't any cleanup banners on the page. The whole page seems to be well oraganized and it is written in a neutral position and no one is picking a side to try and build up' it is made up of mostly facts. It also provides all of its references and and the information seems to be there and actually in depth. Almost all of the sources are reliable sources from reliable places. One of the discussions did give light to the fact that one of the sources might be unreliable when he mentions the writer mentions about it in the Standing Army section. Overall I would to rate this article as a relaible source because a lot of the sources were from education sites.

What is Wikipedia

"Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization." If someone was to ask me how reliable could Wikipedia since anyone can edit it, I would answer it by having vey good editors and by having members and people who post things that are reliable. The creators of Wikipedia rely in the concept of having a lot of people view the pages will weed out the false information. Larry Sanger left Wikipedia because he thought more authority should be given to experts. On a Wikipedia page vandalism or abuse would be in the form of false information or something else degreading to that topic or page.Statistics listed in the 3rd paragraph reveal that at the time this written Wikipedia was making huge strides and getting a lot bigger. The reason is so successfl because it is always there when someone is doing research therefore it is a great place to start your research and therefore a lot of people use it. Because its a nonprofit organization and perhaps they don't want to change from that. The Wikiscanner helps witht he reliability of Wikipedia by identifying the IP addresses of anonymous writers who were editing for personal gain.