A Tool For Learning

For the first few days of school in History class, we completed some activities which were meant to teach us how to search and use online resources responsibly. Because we will be using technology a lot throughout the year, it is important that are familiar with how to correctly use the internet to research information. Now that we have the skills to do so, we can properly use the internet as a tool for online learning.

Our first activity was called, “A Google a Day”, which is a website powered by google that tests your researching skills. It asks you a question that you must find the answer to by using the provided google search bar, and once you think you have the answer, you can submit it and move on to the next question. However, the questions aren't as simple as just typing in the whole question and getting an immediate answer. In fact they involve you to do many more than just one search. Using this website in class was a very fun activity, But at the same time it was a bit difficult. Because we often didn't know anything about the question being asked, we had to do multiple searches, finding out a little bit of information at a time, one search leading to another which finally led us to the concluding answer. And not all the time were the answers that we came up with correct, making us have to start back at the beginning.This activity was a good learning experience, and it involved careful reading of the questions, and precise research. We learned that to look up an answer to a question you may have, it is best to break it down, and search it peice by peice, using information from each of the searches to come up with a final answer , and that not all sources are reliable, for we sometimes obtained false information from a website.  

Our next activity involved us searching, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, and visiting a website called, “Help Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus From Extinction”. Using this website we learned how to evaluate websites, and to tell if a site is accurate, authentic, and reliable. If a website is accurate the information that is being given is correct. If a website is authentic then it is what it is said to be ,for example, the title isn't misleading to what the website is about. If a website is reliable, then the author of that site is an expert in what they are writing about, and the information can be relied on and used for research. We learned that to tell if a website is accurate you can compare its information against other trusted sites, and to tell if a website is reliable you can look for the author’s name and search him/her to see if they are an expert in the field that they are writing about, and the information that they are giving can be trusted to be true. The website that we explored about the tree octopus may have been authentic, but it wasn't accurate or reliable. This is because the title did match to what the website was about, but the information was false, for there is no such thing as a tree octopus, and the author was not an expert. It is a very important skill to be able to evaluate websites while doing research, so you can make sure all the information that you have collected is accurate. Overall, these activities that we did in class made us more aware of the correct way to do research, and how to evaluate our online sources, so that we can become more responsible with using the internet as a learning tool.