Image Searches that are "kid friendly":

picsearch.com
www.pics4learning.com (This was a very popular choice since permission has been granted to teachers and students to use the images that have been donated to the site.)
www.shambles.net
www.dogpile.com
 

BrainPop's Internet video
Not a video, but an interactive site http://www.learnthenet.com  (Learn the Net)
It has an animated demonstration of ISPs, servers, network connections.
------------

Wikipedia - picture. Use "Internet" as your search term and it should come up on the right side
of the page.
-----------

make a model of the internet with cardboard boxes.
http://lib.surruralist.net/2007/05/22/boxesyarnweb/

------------------------
http:teachertube.com.  Type the term "Internet". 
 

False Internet sites

http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html

Introducing Web Evaluation Skills

I Read It on the Internet! -- Teaching About Web Literacy

Can you trust everything you read on the Internet? Can you trust anything you read on the Internet? Teach your kids which Web sites to trust! lessons on Web site content evaluation

Module Maker
 http://questioning.org/module/module.html
 Show you how to build your own Online Research Modules that will challenge your students to make up their own minds.

NMedlinePlus Tutorial on Evaluating Internet Health Information
"Evaluating Internet Health Information is a 16-minute narrated slideshow. The tutorial runs automatically, but you can use the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen to go forward, backward, pause, or start over. Using fictional "good" and "bad" Web sites, the tutorial walks the user though a comparison of the two, pointing out features to look for concerning the information provider, funding source, quality, and privacy. The tutorial uses plain language and narration and is appropriate for users at a broad range of reading levels."

How to evaluate a web source

Is It Worthy of a Citation?

Believe it or not, the Web does not always contain accurate information. In fact, every once in a while, you might come across something that (gasp!) is not true. Well, that’s to be expected, really – the Web is made by people, and people aren’t perfect, and people make up a LOT of coo-coo-crazy stuff.   Read the whole article

Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=328

 

Kids Search Engines

www.kidsclick.org. 

Search engine quizz

 QUICK - the Quality Information Checklist

Here are eight ways of checking information on web sites.

From Brette Lockyer
 Overnewton Anglican Community College

As well as teaching children about google, consider:
 
 http://www.kidsclick.org/
 www.yahooligans.com
 even www.edna.edu.au can be useful for kids.
 
Every online text, just like printed text, needs to be interrogated:  'what is the author trying to make me think or do?' rather than just locate information/websites, can students evaluate their authenticity and usefulness?
 
Using the google 'advanced search', and showing students, for example,   how to limit to .gov is worthwhile.  Before they come up with the list  they have thought more carefully about where information comes from, who produces it and why.
 
Have you checked out Jamie Mackenzie and his stuff on questioning then linked to searching?  The concept of working hard to formulate a question before searching is worthwhile.  www.fromnowon.org
 
 Some practical activities: pull up a website and demonstrate in front of the class what language/content demonstrates the point of view of the author.
 
Get children to complete a semantic grid/cross-classification chart on three different search engines or three different websites
 
Get children to recommend a 'website of the week' on a class topic,  preparing a talk to justify its usefulness.

Another 'quick' but interesting task:  use the 'image' search on google  - or try www.corbis.com.  ask the children to locate five different images of something, for example, an angel, or a waterfall.  Weave this search into another follow-up task, e.g., make a ceramic christmas angel, or write a poem about a waterfall.  ask them to justify their choices of images.
 

WELCOME TO INTERNET FOR EDUCATION 

A free, "teach yourself" tutorial that lets you practise your Internet Information Skills

Principles for Evaluating Websites
How do you know whether something you read on the web is true? You can't know, at least, not for sure. This makes it important to read carefully and to evaluate what you read. This guide will tell you how. By Stephen Downes

Boolean logic (how to get the best from search engines)
 http://www.surfline.ne.jp/janetm/boolean.html

I have been given this site by one of the teachers here and it looks quite
useful as a web-evaluation tool particularly for primary kids.

 http://www.hfht.org/chiq/Quick/docs/index2.htm

 There is a teachers' guide at the side, and links to other sites which
 look useful, such as

 The Librarian's guide to Cyberspace for Parents and Kids - Compiled by the American Library Association, it lists sites recommended for primary age
 children.
 It also publishes its selection criteria.
 http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/50.html
 http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/50.html>

 and
National Grid for Learning - A collection of resources brought together by the UK government to help raise standards in education and to support lifelong learning.
 http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/ <http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/>
 which has a schools link.  

 National Institutes of Health (NIH)
 Department of Health and Human Services
 10 Things To Know About Evaluating Medical Resources on the Web
 <http://nccam.nih.gov/health/webresources/>

Fake and hoax

Hoax sites and info literacy definitely looks real.
  http://www.thedogisland.com/index.html

work though examples, hoax and disinformation sites
  http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_web.html

 Web and Internet Hoaxes and Misinformation
  http://library.trinity.wa.edu.au/library/study/inthoax.htm

 And Evaluating Websites
http://library.trinity.wa.edu.au/library/study/evaluating.htm

We have a whole page of the ones I think are really good:
 http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/webeval/eval12.htm

 This page is part of a whole lot of information about students evaluating
online resources:
 http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/webeval

INTERNET: SEARCH: TECHNIQUE: Web Search Engines Comparison Chart

 Web Search Engines Comparison Chart

 <http://valencia.cc.fl.us/lrcwest/searchchart.html>

This is a great site:
  http://www.quick.org.uk/menu.htm
 Other web site evaluation links are on this set of links on my
 school site:

  http://www.sfc.wcape.school.za/Webeval.sfcj.htm

#######
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Searching/

  http://searchenginewatch.com/

  http://webquest.sdsu.edu/materials.htm

 Here are three books that I have. 

Google, Pocket Guide. Tara Calishan, Rael Dornfet, & DJ Adams. O'Reilly.
 2003. ISBN:0-596-00550-4.

Authoritative guide to Kid's Search Engines, Subject directories and
 Portals. Ken hHaycock, Michelle Dober, & Barbara Edwards. Neal-Schuman.
2003. ISBN:1-55570-451-4.

The KidsClick! Web Searching Skills Guide with CD-ROM. Jerry Kuntz.
 Neal-Schuman. 2001. ISBN:1-55570-396-8.

#########
Plagiarism

The Fromnowon site has a notetaking activity which is  good.  It also looks at recording keywords and searches and using different colours for direct quotes and summaries.  There are also other resources, and the site can be searched.

  http://www.fno.org/may98/cov98may.html

Websites of poor Quality for Research Purposes

 lots of examples
  http://andoverhs.anoka.k12.mn.us/imc/bogus.html   =20

 *******
 Take a look at the page I use for teaching evaluation to my high school students:

  http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/wchorror.htm=20


  http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110055/=20
 This LOOKS like a good site about World War II.  Even the address looks respectable.  The word library is even in it.  And it ends in .org.  So what's wrong?  Take a look at the "about" section to find out! If you get to the page that says ThinkQuest on the top - you will see a small link that says "click here".  That will take you to the WWII site. The "about" link takes you to the info about the 11 year olds that wrote the site.

 The site on the History of Baketball is a good one too.  There is absolutely no info on who is responsible for the info.

 ******
 One of my favorites is the Harper Lee site that is #1 on a Google search---look it over for yourself---this person has a passion for Harper Lee but credentials and authority are ?????

 *****
   There are some lessons online about evaluating websites. They include some examples of good and bad sites. One lesson is
  http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_web.html
 ******
 This is my favorite

  http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~abutz/

 It's the website of Arthur Butz who is a professor at Northwestern and the author of a book where he discounts the Nazi holocaust. I often use this to discuss evaluation of websites. He looks authoritative, after all he's a professor, but, I ask the students, is this generally believable? Can the information be replicated by other authoritative sources? Check the links to the site and see what kind of people are linked. (Lots of weirdos link to this site) Does that tell you anything? Why does the university allow him to continue; freedom of speech.
 *****
 Check Peter Milbury's website.  He has a web site evaluation piece that showcase all three types.  He's at Chico HS
 *****

1       Inappropriate content   The content of site is irresponsible, sexual or proselytizing, or is otherwise dealing with subject matter inappropriate for middle and high school students.  If a site in any way violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), it will not be included.
 2       Insufficient content    The site does not contain enough researchor original content.  Many sites are light on content and simply redirect visitors to other sites that may have content.  In other cases, the site may simply mirror the content of another site.  In this case, we will usually evaluate the original site for inclusion rather than the mirror site.
 3       Too commercial  Advertising is considered in light of the qualityof the content of the site.  Sites with some advertising are allowed if  the advertising does not overwhelm or distract from the content of the site.  For example, a quality research-driven site that contains a bannerad of an educational product is acceptable.  Sites with distracting flashing banner and pop-up ads are deleted.  Sites whose main purpose is to sell and advertise are deleted.  Banner and pop-up ads are prohibited.
 4       Prohibitive system requirements Some sites require special software or registration before viewing content.  Sites requiring extremely common plug-ins such as the Macromedia Flash Player may be  included, but sites that ask users to download special software or to go through a lengthy registration process are not allowed.
 5       Portals Portals lack original content and are mainly collections of links on a topic.  Typical portals are Yahoo! and Google, but any site that offers mostly links and little on-site content is considered a portal and is not allowed in WebSelect or WebFind.  We prefer to send patrons
 directly to useful content rather than to sites that merely redirect them to other sites.
 6       Niche audience site
    On these sites, the content is narrowly focused on a niche  audience; this includes sites that are primarily public relation vehicles for professional associations or organizations, or sites that are mostly  of local interest.  For example, a site about legal ethics and misconduct might be useful to students, but a site specifically about lawyers'  misconduct in the New Jersey Bar Association would probably not be used.
 7       Questionable authority  The site creators do not indicate where  they got their information and what their authority is to write about it, or the authors of the site are unknown.  Also, if the information is  incorrect in places, poorly written or formatted, or contains some other  errors that call the author's credibility into doubt, we will not use the site for WebSelect.
 8       Community site  The site offers online services rather than  information, is usually member-based and may include services such as  e-mail, home page, Web hosting, and chat room features.  For example, a site that offers information about the diagnosis and treatment of cancer  would be considered for WebSelect & WebFind, while a site that is  primarily an online cancer support group with free e-mail, message boards and a chat room would not be allowed.
 9       Curriculum/Teacher site The site is more curriculum and teacher  oriented than research oriented.  These sites will include lesson plans,  sample curricula, and tips for presenting material to students, and may  not include the material to be presented.  Sites for students often  include a teacher section, which is fine, but sites that cater exclusively to teachers are not allowed in the database.
 10      Duplicate       The site is a duplicate of an existing site or the site is page/link on a site already included.  Exceptions are made for  very extensive or difficult to navigate sites.  In those cases, coherent  subsections, modules, or even individual pages of the site may be  cataloged separately.
 11      Unreliability   The site cannot be counted upon to be accessible 
 on a regular basis.  Sites that have problems staying accessible are not 
 used.  Also, sites with broken internal links, missing images, or show 
 others igns that they are not being maintained are not included on 
 WebSelect or WebFind.
 12      No longer exists        The site, page, or document no longer 
 exists.  The Web is constantly changing.  When a site is removed we 
 immediately search for a replacement of equal or better quality to fill in
 any potential gaps in subject areas.
 13      Content 20
 out-of-date     The site contains dated information.  Sites in rapidly 
 changing fields such as technology, current affairs, or medicine are 
 carefully evaluated for their currency.  We especially seek out older 
 sites that show clear signs that they have been updated.  Sites with this
 sort of reliable maintenance are ideal for WebSelect and WebFind.
 14      Content 
 is too topical  The site contains content that is of passing interest but
 not long-term research value.  Many sites are on the Web for a limited 
 time in order to promote a conference, exposition, summit or other 
 time-limited activity.  This type of site's main purpose is to promote an
 event and the site becomes inactive or extinct after the event has passed.
  Even if this type of site has content, we are often able to find the same
 quality content on a non-topical site and add that to the product instead.
 *****
   One you might consider is bibleufo.com.  The website is based on 
 research being done by Patrick Cooke linking Biblical references and 
 aliens.  This is not totally farfetched and Cooke does have a certain 
 amount of credibility.  He appeared on a History channel program on this 
 topic, but the website is not organized very well.  This website could be
 used in certain cases, but precautions would need to be made.  I have made use of his historical references, however.

For those looking for a new Spoof / Hoax site.  This one is pretty
 good.

 <http://www.cicadaville.com/>

Website Evaluation

Try    http://www.lib.vt.edu/research/evaluate/evalbiblio.html
http://www.lib.vt.edu/research/evaluate/evalbiblio.html>

 Also I use the following in class as you can teach with it easily.
  http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/gayle/evaluate/evaluate.
 html
 

SEARCH ENGINES

From the University Library of the Netherlands
 http://www.leidenuniv.nl/ub/biv/specials.htm#Par139
 This is a collection of links to special search engines and searchable
 directories, which in a number of cases can be used as an alternative for
 the big search engines like Northern Light, Hotbot, AltaVista, Excite and
 Infoseek. Most of them are discipline- or subject-specific, others are
(collections of) national or regional search engines.

From Search Engine Watch
 http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html
 Internet search engines are categorized by topic in our searchable
directory
 of general and specialty search engines. Also listed are resources and
tools
 for exploring the deep web, performing advanced research, and for learning about using search engine tools and technology.

From the Philadelphia Enquirer
 http://www.joycevalenza.com/subguides.html
 Subject gateways, directories, guides, or portals are powerful research
 tools. The best of the breed are highly selective, offering short lists of
 high quality resources and links. They are generally collaborative efforts
 maintained by people devoted to organizing and selecting content and links
 in an area in which they hold expertise. Often these subject tools offer
 access to the invisible web-databases and unindexed sections of large web
 pages overlooked by general purpose search tools.

From the USQ Library
 http://www.usq.edu.au/library/faculties/sciences/facinternet/searcheng.htm

http://www.usq.edu.au/library/faculties/sciences/facinternet/subjectsites/de
 fault.htm
 Subject-specific search engines have compiled lists of quite often high
 quality resources on defined subject areas. These search engines are an
 excellent place to start if you need to find resources on the Internet.

 Beaucoup
 http://www.beaucoup.com/
 links to the largest collection of Search
 Engines on the WWW with access to over 2000 different general and
 specialist Engines

 LSU Library
 http://www.lib.lsu.edu/general/internet_search.html

 NABSS
 http://www.nabss.org/irsearch.htm
 SEARCH ENGINES FOR CHILDREN

 Web subject guides
 http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/websubj.html
 Library-Style Subject Guides | Academic Subject Guides | Popular Subject
 Guides | Web for Kids

From Lookfind
 http://www.findarticles.com/ Looksmart find articles
 LookSmart's FindArticles - search and read 5.5 million articles from over
 900 publications

 http://www.findarticles.com/ invisible-web net

HOAX WEBSITES

http://www.dhmo.org/

 http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.htmlhttp://www.dhmo.org/

 http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/sites/sites027.shtml

 California's Velcro Crop Under Challenge
 http://members.unlimited.net/~kumbach/velcro.htmlFeline Reactions to
Bearded Men
 http://www.improb.com/airchives/classical/cat/cat.html

 Real Aroma: Click and Sniff
 http://www.realaroma.com/

 Mankato MN Homepage
 http://lme.mnsu.edu/mankato/mankato.html



 http://www.svshs.wa.edu.au/library/pages/ThinkSmart/bogus_hoax.htm


 http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/webeval/eval12.htm
 

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