Web 2.0 Resource & Tools Evaluation for Education

EVALUATING WEB 2.0
RESOURCES & TOOLS FOR
EDUCATION

Why Evaluate Web Resources?
The Web has spawned a plethora of information which can
assist in educational delivery, the problem is determining it’s
authenticity and accuracy and evaluating the benefits of usage
with regard to educational outcomes.
Criteria are needed to assess the suitability of web resources
and tools for use in an educational context.

Some of the key criteria to evaluate both
web 2.0 tools and web resources are:
•
•
•
•

Relevance – in relation to the student cohort and
curriculum
Accessibility – technically and contextually
Credibility and Authenticity - is the information
reliable and unbiased
Efficiency – does the tool / resource provide
learning outcome efficiently

Relevance
Web 2.0 tools and resources need to be evaluated
as to their appropriateness for the desired
learning outcomes and that they meet the
learning goals of a given cohort (Coiro, 2011).
Outcomes need to consider not only curriculum
content but also other desired outcomes such as
the encouragement of critical thinking and
collaborative learning (Grosseck, 2009). Web
resources used should ‘activate more than one of
the multiple intelligences’ (Nelson, 2007)
Web resources need to be evaluated from a
cultural perspective as to whether the content has
meaningful associations for the learners as well as
reflecting ‘multicultural teaching and learning
principals’ (Gorski, 2000)

Relevance (continued)
Rubric tools can be useful in determining and
ranking site relevance and providing the educator
with an objective framework on which to base
decisions.(Taylor, 2013)

Accessibility
Evaluating web resources for educational
purposes should not be solely the responsibility of
the educationalist, it should also involve student
input and feedback. (Hwang, Huang, & Tseng,
2004) and tools such as the EWSE (Educational
Web Site Evaluator) have been designed to assess
not only accessibility from a technical perspective
but also from a perspective of educational
relevance to the user (Cheng-Kui Huang & Huang,
2010)
Accessibility needs to consider technical issues
such as browser incompatibility, platform
independence or the need for specialist software
to access tools or sites (Gorski, 2000)

Accessibility (continued)
One cannot assume all students have the
necessary software or hardware to access
resources and therefore learning activities
should not be designed that could
marginalise individual students or
cohorts.(Selwyn, 2010)

Web resources should meet W3C
standards for accessibility. They should
provide access for screen readers such as
Dragon, provide the ability to increase font
size and colours should meet contrast
standards.

Credibility and Authenticity
It is important to determine the credibility
and authenticity of websites and this can be
achieved in a variety of ways. The credentials
of the author(s) should be verified, this is
often be achieved through a web search or
library search. Author bias should be
investigated and any affiliation with groups or
causes (Gorski, 2000).
The extent to which the site has adhered to
WC3 standards or taken accessibility into
consideration can also indicate legitimacy, as
can be the use of referencing and linking to
source materials.(Berger & Trexler, 2010)

Credibility and Authenticity
(continued)
Other indicators of authenticity are that
the site is regularly updated and that the
information is not linked to the
advertisement or promotion of a product
or service.

Efficiency
Many educators are keen to adopt the use
of technology, however, frequently do not
identify whether using it either adds value
to the learning or indeed is an efficient
method of delivering the learning. A matrix
identifying why a given tool is useful and
how it is best used is essential (Grosseck,
2009)
A face to face discussion may be of more
benefit and efficient than using a discussion
forum so it is important to understand how
and where the learning occurs(Boateng,
Mbarika, & Thomas, 2010).

Efficiency (continued)
Using a blog to gather student evidence of
reflective learning may be an effective tool
but requires evaluation against non
technology methods used in the past
(Bennett, Bishop, Dalgarno, Waycott, &
Kennedy, 2012)
As the number and range of new
technologies increase, it is difficult for
educators to gauge their actual value in
practical terms (Burden & Atkinson, 2008)
however, there is extensive research
available on the ‘affordances’ of educational
technology and the evaluation of web tools
and resources should leverage off this data.

References
Bennett, S., Bishop, A., Dalgarno, B., Waycott, J., & Kennedy, G. (2012).
Implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: A collective case
study. Computers & Education, 59(2), 524-534.
Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and
Teaching in a Digital World: Santa Barbara.

Boateng, R., Mbarika, V., & Thomas, C. (2010). When Web 2.0 becomes an
organizational learning tool: evaluating Web 2.0 tools. Development and
Learning in Organizations, 24(3), 17-20.
Burden, K., & Atkinson, s. (2008). Evaluating pedagogical 'affordances' of
media sharing Web 2.0 technologies. Paper presented at the Ascilite 2008,
Melbourne.

References
Cheng-Kui Huang, T., & Huang, C.-H. (2010). An integrated decision model
for evaluating educational web sites from the fuzzy subjective and
objective perspectives. Computers & Education, 55(2), 616-629.
Coiro, J. J. (2011). Using Websites Wisely. [Article]. Educational
Leadership, 68(5), 34.
Gorski, P. (2000). Toward a Multicultural Approach for Evaluating
Educational Web Sites. Multicultural Perspectives, 2(3), 44-48.
Grosseck, G. (2009). To use or not to use web 2.0 in higher education?
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1(1), 478-482.
Hwang, G.-J., Huang, T. C. K., & Tseng, J. C. R. (2004). A group-decision
approach for evaluating educational web sites. Computers & Education,
42(1), 65-86.

References
Nelson, K. J. (2007). Designing internet-based activities. In Teaching in the
digital age: using the internet to increase student engagement and
understanding Thousand Oaks,CA: Corwin Press, pp.1-17.
Selwyn, N. (2010). Degrees of Digital Division: Reconsidering Digital
Inequalities and Contemporary Higher Education. [Article]. RUSC: Revista
De Universidad Y Sociedad Del Conocimiento, 7(1), 33-42.
Taylor, L. C. (2013). iRubric: Evaluation of Web 2.0 Tools. . Retrieved
12/12/2013, from
http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=N5XA4A&sp=yes

Web 2.0 Resource & Tools Evaluation for Education

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