Dangers of Searching on the Internet

I have always known there are not credible or reliable sources online. When you type a word or phrase into a search engine you will probably end up with a few sites that aren't credible. Last week we talked about the ways in which we can critically analyze websites to determine their credibility. We talked about checking the URL. If it is a .com website it means that it is a commercial site where they are trying to promote or sell something. These are not as credible as they are biased and more for commercial use. If the URL contains a .org these are more reliable than .com because they are developed by organizations. However, you are likely to get a bias opinion because it is an organization advocating for something in particular. If the URL contains a .gov this is a government website and is reliable. This website will contain facts and not fiction. URLs that contain a .edu are education websites and can be reliable. With any website it is important to check when it was published and when the last time it was updated. If it is older then it is probably not as credible as newer websites. The exception to this is websites that doesn't contain information that will really change such as historical events.
Checking to see if a site is credible or not is pertinent to teachers as we need to check and double check the information we are telling our students. We have to make sure that the information we are gathering is accurate so we do not give our students incorrect information. This will create unnecessary confusion for students. It is our responsibility to make sure we do thorough searches to find the best information. Using operators helps return a better search for the specified topic. The operators are as follows:
+ no variation
- except this/these word(s)
~ synonym
OR x OR y
. . #'s (ex 1800.. 2000..)
* blank/space for a word
" " no variations