Librarians and educators need to be able to illustrate to students and users alike that websites cannot always be trusted to provide truthful and accurate data. This page provides examples of websites that are full of lies, inaccuracies or false information - either for amusement or for more worrying reasons. The list does not include phishing sites however; these are intended to fool a person into believing that they are visiting a legitimate bank site for example; there are already plenty of links to these online already.
"Reading Rants, a website featuring out of the ordinary booklists for teens, has been an online presence since 1998. Written by Jennifer Hubert and designed by Andrew Mutch, Reading Rants has become a popular book review source for teenagers as well as their grown-ups. In May 2007, Andrew transformed the original website into an interactive blog, where teens can not only respond to Jen's reviews but write their own. " (thanx Andrew for sharing this one)
"Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts. In all there are 35,000 websites that have been reviewed and approved by Sweet Search. In addition to the general search engine, Sweet Search offers five niche search engines. The niche search engines are for Social Studies, Biographies, SweetSites (organized by grade and subject area), School Librarians, and Sweet Search 4 Me (for elementary school students)."
Bookwink's mission is to inspire kids to read. Through podcasting and web video, they hope to connect kids in Grades 3 through 8 with books that will make them excited about reading. The videos are approximately 3 minutes long and are updated monthly. Each video booktalk is about a different topic, and additional read-alikes can be found on the Bookwink website. You can look for books by subject, grade level, author or title. They are constantly updating the book lists with our newest favorite books.
The Commonwealth of Learning has made the book Introducing Copyright available through download from its website. The book assumes no special knowledge and avoids technical language as much as possible. Introducing Copyright explains copyright protection and what it means for copyright holders and users. It introduces digital rights management, open licenses, software patents and copyright protection for works of traditional knowledge.
Use this free, interactive tutorial to improve your Internet research skills: Tour the best of the web for mathematics. Discover how to search the internet effectively. Judge which websites are worth using....
Is a collection of classic and original children's audio stories. Every other week a new story is added by storyteller Alan. All audio stories are FREE!! The stories can be listened to right from The Story Home website or by subscribing to The Story Home on iTunes.
Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts from the Web for any topic you specify. For instance:
* Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (we call them "Squares" for fun).
* Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in.
* See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square.
* Save and share Squares with others.
The Open University library website is a gateway to a wide range of online information resources. It also provides information about the services and resources at the Open University Library building in Milton Keynes.
"The internet catalogue for students, teachers, administrators & parents. Over 20,000 relevant links personally selected by an educator/author with over 30 years of experience."
Andrew: "Hey guys-hope you are all doing well! I am just catching up with some mail and came across this awesome collection of "best practice" ideas from many school librarians on everything from growing readers to adapting the library to web 2.0 strategies and thinking."