Thursday, September 4, 2014

A Google a Day Keeps The False Information Away

     A Google a Day is a website that helps students learn about proper researching techniques. In class on Tuesday we experimented with this helpful learning tool! What I learned on a google a day will be really helpful in the future!

     When you pull up a google a day, you see 3 images with text descriptions. These images and descriptions explain the game. After you click the "start playing" button below the text and images you are asked a couple of questions which you ar then to go research the answer to. If you research successfully you advance to the next question and the process repeats until you have correctly answered all the questions. I found that this website was fun because I was researching topics I had never even heard of! It was also frustrating at times because the site took a long time to load. From the website's "tips and tricks" page I learned that to find information about an exact word rather than a synonym or plural form of the word you can add a plus sign in front of the word. This trick will really help to narrow down the search results when I'm researching later on this year.

     In addition to the tricks I learned for A Google A Day accuracy, authenticity, and reliability are very important to keep in mind during the research process. Authenticity is the quality of being real and original. Accuracy is the state of being true and correct, and reliability is used to describe how trustworthy and dependable the source is. It is important to know these words so that you can avoid finding false information. In class we looked at the website for the pacific northwest tree octopus Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. This site failed to be accurate, authentic, and reliable. The information on the page was not accurate, and there was no evidence of who created the website, therefore it is unreliable. Websites like this should not be used as a source in schools.

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