Ict seminar ppt

CRITERIA FOR SELECTING ICT
RESOURCES ___ACCURACY,
CREDIBILITY, CURRENCY,
COVERAGE,OBJECTIVITY,
APPROPRIATENESS, COST AND
COPYRIGHTS

 There are many general web sites that outline basic
standards for evaluating Internet information; however, as
teachers, we believe that an educational web site and its
information need to be given a specific set of criteria for
evaluation.
In using the word criteria, we are referring to the
standards that help us, as teachers, to determine whether an
educational web site is valuable.

Our criteria will be a concise guideline of identifiers that
will enable viewers to critically examine educational web
sites.
Teachers need to be meticulous in their evaluation of web
sites because they will be passing on web site information to
impressionable young minds.
There is one resounding difference between educational
materials published on the Internet and educational materials
found in more traditional sources such as journals and
textbooks.

Materials found in journals and textbooks have been
meticulously scrutinized for credibility and accuracy. But,
Internet resources are often not subject to such scrutiny.
Misinformation and technical difficulties can cause a
great deal of distress for not only the students but for the
teachers as well. For this reason, the major issues
educators should focus on when examining the content of
educational web sites, are discussed below.

Accuracy, as it pertains to content, has two definitions.
Accurate content means that the information conforms to a
certain standard or truth. Secondly, accurate content should be
grammatically and typographically free from errors.
To determine whether the content is accurate, the web site
should state the educational background of the author. The
author’s name, credentials, and contact information should be
listed on the web site.
Also, the user should look for other articles written by the
author. The author’s position or place of work will also tell a
great deal about the accuracy of the author’s work.

Affiliation with a known and respected government
organization or educational institution is a good indicator that
the author’s content is accurate.
With the available web design technology, it is simple to
design web sites that divert the user completely away from the
content of the web site.
According to Ed’s Oasis (1997), an educational web site
needs improvement if the “high-tech features on a site distract
from the site’s purpose.”
The main focus of any educational web site evaluation
should always be the accuracy of the information regardless
of how well a web site may be designed.

The web site should clearly state what its intended
purpose is.
The purpose of the site should not be influenced by the
bias of the author.
The information gathered from one source could be
compared to other sources and a choice could be made
based on this final comparison
Accurate content should be free from grammatical and
typographical errors.

The majority of books and journal, magazine, and
newspaper articles have been filtered or reviewed by
editors, peers, or critics, unlike the information found on the
Internet.
This means that not only could Internet information be
inaccurate, it also means that the information could have
grammatical and typographical errors.
According to Harris (1997), “whether the errors come
from carelessness or ignorance, neither puts the information
or the writer in a favorable light”.

The credibility, or the believability or trustworthiness, of
an educational web site must always be carefully
scrutinized and analyzed before considering the page
beneficial and useful for educational purposes.
Although personal opinion may enter into ‘credibility’,
we believe that following an objective set of standards will
alleviate this dilemma.
A major factor is whether a person has the appropriate
credentials to author an educational web site.

There are specific pieces of information, like a stated name,
email address and credentials an author should include on the
web site to increase that individual’s credibility and give the
user confidence in the site.
A stated name, particularly if it is well recognized, will give
the user the opportunity to look for other published research
articles and educational web sites done by the same author.
If there is this other information available by the same author,
possibly on the web site itself, the author gains credibility with
the user.

 Teachers are more likely to use the information they find
on an educational web site if the author has the theoretical
and practical credentials.
The author should also include an email address or phone
number especially if they wish to have users leave comments
or questions regarding the site.
 Although a credible author should be constantly revising
and editing the informational content in the web site, the
transfer of these revisions may not happen as quickly or
accurately with an incompetent web master.

The author should take into consideration any queries
about the web site’s content.
That allows the users to ask questions and provide
suggestions for updating the content.
By inviting the comments and suggestions of others,
the author is indicating that he is interested in
maintaining the most credible and up-to-date content
possible.

Teachers want to be able to provide the most current and
accurate information possible to their students.
As web sites can be quickly and economically updated in
comparison to textbooks or other print resources, they can be
the best source of current information.
According to the Oregon Public Education Network (1997-
2000), the information is current if it “tells you when it was
first published, including the year; tells you when it was last
updated and how often it will be; [and] tells you what was
last updated”.

Coverage, as it involves making information available in an
appropriate manner as well as the accuracy of the research and
development of the subject involved, is very important when it
comes to educational web site development.
According to Jacobsen & Cohen (1996), the evaluator will
want to “determine if [the] content covers a specific time period
or aspect of the topic, or strives to be comprehensive”.
There are classroom situations when a teacher will want
specific information on a topic and other times when a teacher
will want comprehensive coverage on a topic.

Furthermore, if the author has cited their sources properly,
then “students can consult these sources to find additional
information about the topic and compare the author’s content
with other works” (Schrock, 1999).
Properly cited sources allow the students to access a larger
information base that will increase the overall coverage of the
material.
Also, some classrooms may not be fully equipped with
computers so if a majority of students do have smartphones,
they will all be able to do the activity.
Being able to access a technological tool on different
platforms allows students to access them outside of the
classroom to enhance their learning.

The curriculum teachers are required to use in their
classrooms are supposed to be objective or without a
particular commercial, political, gender or racial bias.
This allows the teacher to dismiss all or parts of the
information on the web site or, in the least, allows the teacher
to address the bias in a classroom discussion.
When creating an educational web site, authors should
consider their goals before the site is built.
Educators must consider objectives and goals with every
lesson they teach; therefore, they must also take into account
the goals and objectives of an educational web site.

Hypothetically, if a web site claims to be based on
approved curriculum, yet its goals and objectives do not
coincide with the curriculum’s goals and objectives, the
teacher should question the motives of the web site.
If the educational web site is based upon personal opinion,
the author should make it known to the reader.
Overall, the web site’s content should contain a neutral or
positive tone; there should be no evidence of hate or
disrespect towards one particular person or group .

This does not necessarily mean that the information,
because it is a personal opinion, should be discounted.
According to Kapoun (1998) “sound opinions based
upon logic, research and study, and experience are very
valuable. However, to be an alert reader, one needs to
know where fact ends and opinions begin”
Teachers need to be alert readers, on behalf of their
students, to properly evaluate the objectivity of an
educational web site’s content.

A practical hint in analyzing a web site’s objectivity is to
look at the web address or URL (uniform resource locator) of
the web site. The URL/domain can tell a user about the
organization that published the web site.
 The organizational source of the website will reflect of its
content type .
Commercial web sites in North America often include
‘.com’. Web sites including ‘.ca’ are often the property of
Canadian commercial businesses.
Many commercial sites that include ‘.com’ or ‘.ca’ have
been developed for the purpose of selling or promoting a
product or product line.

When using information from a ‘.com’ or ‘.ca’ web site, it
would be prudent to find other sources of verifiable
information because the scope of their information will only
go as far as promoting their own product.
Web sites published by non-profit organizations often
include ‘.org’. Web sites maintained by the American
government include ‘.gov’. Many educational institutions in
North America will include '.edu’.
The accuracy and validity of web sites published by
established educational institutions have been closely
scrutinized which means the information will likely be
objective.

Technology can be confusing at times, especially for
people who don't have a lot of experience using technology
tools.
Younger children, such as elementary school students are
being introduced to many new things in life, and technology
could be hard for them so it's important to use a tool that is
simple to use and navigate.
Most collaboration tools such as backchannels are
typically easy to understand, navigate and use which is why
they are becoming more effective and common tools found
in classrooms.

If an assignment requires something more in depth, such
as embedding codes, it can frustrate students and take away
from learning.
There are two major factors, academic level and well-
matched information, materials and activities, authors of
educational web sites should consider when dealing with
audience or the group of users the web site is targeting.
 If the web site plainly states what the targeted grade
level is, the teacher will know immediately whether the
web site’s content will be useful in the context of his or her
classroom.

The web site should contain content and activities that
match the academic level of the web site’s target audience.
According to the Ed’s Oasis web site, if “the reading level
is too high or too low, or the activities are either too
complex or too simple” then the web site is not as strong as
it should be.
In planning for instruction, teachers recognize that
students learn in different ways. Similarly, a good
educational web site should also recognize that students
learn in different ways.

Technology in the classroom should always be free
or of low cost.
With free or low costing technology, students will
all be able to participate and not feel left out because
they can't afford to download a certain app or buy a
specific technological device.
When technology is free, students will be able to
access it anywhere, from school, to home or to the
public library.

Copyright, as its name suggests, includes the right to
prevent others from copying one's work. This means
that, whatever content the author created cannot be used
or published by anyone else without the consent of the
author.
The aspect of copyright that is crucially being tested
here is a set of principles that are known as “fair use” or
“fair dealing”.
Fair use/fair dealing is what allows a doctoral research
student to quote sections of several published (and
copyrighted) texts in her thesis.

In other words, fair use/fair dealing is a set of allowances to
what would otherwise constitute copyright violation Open
Educational Resources — Licensing and Copyright Open
Educational Resources (OERs) are characterized by the fact
that their copyright scope is limited by means of an open
content license.
The “all rights reserved” model of traditional copyright is
replaced with a more generous “some rights reserved”. In the
schooling context, an open content license enables the
recipient of an educational work to freely use, distribute (and
in some cases modify) the material.

Copyright vests automatically in most countries
around the world, whether or not the creator of an
educational work wishes to exert copyright in its
entirety.
What this means for education, unfortunately, is that
all traditionally produced, printed textbooks, are to a
large extent “locked.” Even digital resources such as
those available on the Internet are restricted.

The promise of the OER is that permission to use, even
modify, is granted to anyone who wants it.
In the traditional scenario, the promise of the Internet is
thwarted: for instance,
blind users, cannot necessarily convert a text file into an
audio file in order to access it;
teachers in poorly resourced schools cannot necessarily
distribute copies of a textbook without paying heavy fees;
schools which operate in a particular local language cannot
simply translate a book or an essay that they wish to use in
education.
All of these situations, however, could be – and are – averted
with OERs.

 To Conclude,when deciding what type of technology to
implement into a classroom setting, the management or the
teacher must consider several different criteria.
However , any technological tool used in a classroom must
be effective. Students need to learn 21st century skills, which
requires technology literacy.
But the reality is this, that , with the enormous amount of
information and web sites available on the Internet, teachers
may feel overwhelmed when it comes to evaluating web sites.

Ict seminar ppt

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Ict seminar ppt