Unit+3

Unit 3. Evaluating and selecting websites There is a huge number of websites on the Internet that have potential benefits for the language teacher. To be able to find the best requires teachers to evaluate and select effectively. There are six sections in this unit:
 * ==Part one of Using the Web==
 * 1) Some quick questions
 * 2) What are URLs?
 * 3) An evaluation criteria
 * 4) Evaluating websites
 * 5) End of level quiz
 * 6) Reflections and further reading

Some quick questions and answers
What is a uniform resource locator (URL)? This is another name for a web address. It usually starts //www//. What is the difference between a //.org// website and a //.com// website and why is it useful to understand the difference? A //.org// website is usually the website of a non-profit organisation, a //.com// is a commercial site. This knowledge can help when evaluating websites since you may have to pay for some services on a commercial site. Why is it useful to understand how URLs are constructed? It is useful to know how URLs are constructed so you can use it to help find what you are looking for, even if the link no longer works. How to do this is explained in more detail in the //What are URLs?// section. || ||

What are URLs?
=URLs= Have a look at the URL in the address bar of your browser. It will look something like this:

You can see that the address is split into different parts with forward slashes.

Let's have a look at another address, this one for the British Council's English pages on the Internet. This may look more familiar as it includes the familiar www and .htm (or .html)

This image shows how this web address is formed. The protocol bit ensures your computer is talking to the correct part of the Internet. Generally we don't even need to remember to type this in, the browser will automatically add it. When you enter this address the computer opens a file called index.htm. This file lives in a folder called english which itself is on a computer called britishcouncil.org which is on the World Wide Web. Why is this important? Well, like people who move house and their addresses change, so files sometimes move and old web addresses no longer work. As an example, try clicking on this link: @http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish.html || ||
 * It's like looking at a postal address on an envelope, with the different parts helping you, sitting at your computer, pinpoint a file on a remote computer.

This is a shame as this used to work and is a good website.
 * You should see a page which says Page not found.

However, all is not lost. What has actually happened is that the page has just moved location on the remote computer where it is stored and has a new address.

When this happens the pages will often be automatically redirected and you will never notice you are going to a new location. In this example, however, we are not redirected. || || What we can do though is try and 'strip back' this web address. Remember that the forward slashes are separate parts. If we remove the last part, in this example learningenglish.html we should see a different page. Try it now. If you've done this correctly you should see http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/ i n your address bar and you should see the BBC World Service website. Now try looking for the learningenglish link now (hint: use Control (Ctrl) F and search for "learning" to find the link). Click on that and you should be taken to the page we originally wanted: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/. We can now see the mistake in the address we tried originally - the real address doesn't actually have a .html at the end. However, because we were able to 'strip back' the address we still found what we were looking for. = URLs part 2 = In this section we will look at another part of the web address - the top level domains or TLDs. Don't worry about the terminology, that's not important, but it is important to understand what a TLD is. .org is a very common TLD and is short for organisation. Another very common one is .com. In the initial questions you were asked to consider why the difference is important. If we want to use the Internet with our students, we need to start thinking about evaluating websites. And one quick way to start this evaluation is to look at the TLD. What do you think? Do you think the information on a .com website would be as balanced as on a .org website? //.com// sites often contain lots of useful information and activities but remember that they are commercial sites - they are trying to generate income - so you may have to pay for some services and they may contain advertising.

There is more information on Wikipedia. Including information on country codes (e.g. .uk is from the United Kingdom) and generic top level domains (e.g. .com, .org). Note that the use of top level domain names is pretty much unregulated now. If I wanted, I could buy a website name with either .org or .com. However, this process is still a good place to start when evaluating websites. = An evaluation criteria =
 * As you can probably guess, evaluation of the web address is not the same as evaluation of a website. We need criteria to evaluate websites against.

Here is one set of criteria: Some of these headings may be self explanatory, others may not be, but check you can see them in
 * Accuracy and acceptance
 * Authority and coverage
 * Audience and relevance
 * Educational focus
 * Ease of use || [[image:http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/learningtechnologies/file.php/2/images/survey_156.jpg width="166" height="104" caption="Evaluation"]] ||

=Evaluating web resources=
 * The websites on this page are either specifically aimed at secondary students or may be suitable for use with them.

Choose at least three sites and have a critical look at them. Remember we are evaluating their usefulness in our teaching. The sites have not been listed in any order. If you find any of the sites slow to load, try another one. ||  || Here is the evaluation criteria again to help you. There is an example below the links. You may also find this framework for evaluating websites useful for making notes.
 * > BBC Schools ||> BBC learningenglish ||
 * > YouTube ||>  Video Jug ||
 * > Exploratorium ||>  Britannica ||
 * > Plan Planet ||>  Oxfam educational resources ||
 * > Wikipedia ||>  Hero Machine ||
 * > Yahoo! Kids ||>  British Council LearnEnglish Kids ||
 * > East of the Web ||>  Children's BBC News ||

An example
When you have finished, go to the //Website evaluation forums// to write your thoughts and read what other people have written about them. Also, watch one of the British Council's learning technology trainers comment on a couple of the sites. You will need headphones or speakers. These files are large but will open in a pop-up window so you can leave them and get on with something else while they are downloading. =Evaluating web resources= Choose at least three sites and have a critical look at them. Remember here we are evaluating their usefulness in our teaching. The sites have not been listed in any order. If you find any of the sites slow to load, try another one. ||  || Here is the evaluation criteria again to help you. There is an example below the links. You may also find this framework for evaluating websites useful for making notes.
 * Site: Oxfam educational resources**
 * Accuracy & Acceptance || Reputable company. Accurate information. ||
 * Authority & Coverage || Lots of resources on important issues. ||
 * Audience & Relevance || Aimed at promoting global citizenship. Aimed at school children and teachers although language may be difficult for some learners. No adverts. ||
 * Educational Focus || Lesson plans and resources for teachers on British curriculum subjects. Not specifically designed for English language teaching. ||
 * Ease of use || Some content is slow to load due to size. Requires Flash. ||
 * [[image:http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/learningtechnologies/file.php/2/icons/movie_run.png caption="Play movie"]] || [|An evaluation of www.planplanet.org] ||
 * [[image:http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/learningtechnologies/file.php/2/icons/movie_run.png caption="Play movie"]] || [|An evaluation of CBBC's Newsround] ||
 * The websites on this page are either specifically aimed at primary students or may be suitable for use with them.
 * BBC Little animals activity centre || Clifford ||
 * Enchanted learning || Cubeez ||
 * Puzzle Maker || Game Goo ||
 * BBC Story Time || British Council LearnEnglish Kids ||
 * Genki English || Fisher Price ||
 * Phonetics Focus || Yahoo! Kids ||
 * Starfall || Switchzoo ||

An example
When you have finished, go to the //Website evaluation forums// to write your thoughts and read what other people have written about them. Also, watch one of the British Council's learning technology trainers comment on a couple of the sites. You will need headphones or speakers. These files are large but will open in a pop-up window so you can leave them and get on with something else while they are downloading.
 * Site: Enchanted learning**
 * Accuracy & Acceptance || Factual and accurate. ||
 * Authority & Coverage || Biased towards US audience – focus on US festivals and geography. ||
 * Audience & Relevance || Aimed at children and teachers. ||
 * Educational Focus || Explicit educational focus with information on popular topics such as animals, dinosaurs etc. ||
 * Ease of use || Contains subscription information at very top which distracts from content – you need to scroll down to get free content. Basic page which downloads quickly. Contains a search facility. ||
 * [[image:http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/learningtechnologies/file.php/2/icons/movie_run.png caption="Play movie"]] || [|An evaluation of www.cubeez.com] ||
 * [[image:http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/learningtechnologies/file.php/2/icons/movie_run.png caption="Play movie"]] || An evaluation of www.enchantedlearning.com ||
 * [[image:http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/learningtechnologies/file.php/2/icons/movie_run.png caption="Play movie"]] || An evaluation of www.ishari.tv/flash.html* ||
 * Note that this site was no longer available as of September 2009. However, please view the movie as many of the issues with this site are common to other sites.