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Once you have found information that matches the

topic and requirements of your research, you should

analyze or evaluate these information sources.

Why?

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Why Evaluating Information Is Important?

Evaluating information encourages you to think

critically about the reliability, validity, accuracy,

authority, timeliness, point of view or bias of

information sources.

Evaluation is closely associated with critical thinking.

Beyer (1985) argued that evaluation is equated with

critical thinking.

Most theorists, describe critical thinking as including

evaluation among several other higher-order thinking

processes (Cromwell 1992).

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Another model of thinking

skills is that of Benjamin

Bloom and his colleagues,

popularly dubbed

“Bloom‟s Taxonomy.” It

includes, from least to

most sophisticated,

knowledge,

comprehension,

application, analysis,

synthesis, and evaluation

(Bloom et al. 1956).

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There are Many Types of Information:

Books, both in-print and published electronically (e-

books).

Journal Articles, both in-print and electronic.

Newspaper Articles, both in- print and electronic.

Websites.

Other types, including social media, wikis, Wikipedia,

podcasts, newscasts, videos, etc.

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Use

CRAAP to

Evaluate Information

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1.Currency: The timeliness of the information

When the information published or posted? Has the

information recently been revised or updated?

Is the information current?

Are the links functional?

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2. Relevance: The importance of the

information for your needs.

Does the information related to your topic?

Who is the intended audience?

Is the information at an appropriate level?

Is the information compatible for academe research

paper?

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3. Authority: The source of the information.

Who is the author/ publisher/ source/ sponsor?

Are the author‟s credentials or original affiliations

given? What are they?

What are the author‟s qualifications to write on the

topic?

The source of the information, is there contact

information, such as a publisher or e-mail address?

Does the URL reveal anything about the author or

source like .com/ .edu/.gov/ .org/.net

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URL is an acronym for uniform resource

locator, or the website address.

Understanding the structure of URLs can

give you a lot of information about the

authorship and credibility of the website.

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Here are examples of some first level

domain names:.com = Commercial

.gov = Governmental

.int = International

.edu = Educational

.mil = Military

.net = Internet resource

.org = Non-profits

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4. Accuracy: The reliability, truthfulness, and

correctness of the informational content.

Where does the information come from?

Is the information supported by evidence?

Has the information been reviewed or refereed?

Can you verify any of the information in another

source or from personal knowledge?

Does the language or tone seem unbiased and free of

emotion?

Are there spelling, grammar or typographical errors?

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5. Purpose:The reason the information exists.

What is the purpose of the information?

Is the information fact, opinion, propaganda?

Is the site free of advertising?

Does the point of view appear objective and

impartial?

Is the purpose to inform?

Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious,

institutional and personal biases?

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If you think that your source DOESD NOT

pass any element of the CRAAP test, it

should NOT be used.

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In the 21st century classroom, students are able to

use Internet to access the information by using free

Web. The free Web is the part of the Web that is

accessible by search engines.

A search engine is an information retrieval system.

It is the most common tool used to locate information

on the Web.

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Before you use

Internet as a resource,

think about:

CRAAP first

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Wiki/Wikipedia:

• Wiki is a type of website while Wikipedia

is website that uses the Wiki format.

• Wikipedia is arguably the most popular

Wiki in the world.

• Wikipedia emulates an encyclopedia

while other wikis may contain other types

of information.

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Most academics consider Wikipedia the enemy, so they

do not allow them to use it in their research. But

students do not know how Wikipedia is helpful because

these following reasons:

Wikipedia is vetted by volunteer academics.

Everything must be cited, and if there is not

cited, these information is removed.

Wikipedia is one of the most common sites on

the Internet.

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How wikis can be used in classrooms:Create online text.

Try creating to choose own

adventure.

Create an online presence

for schools.

Create digital portfolios for

both learners and

educators.

- Create collaboration

opportunities between

classes across schools and

across the world

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Studies about using of Wikipedia as

a teaching tool:

• Piotr Konieczny has studied the advantages of

using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, an activity

that is a simple addition to the teaching, and

contributing to societies through service

learning and participation in an online

community of practice.

• Based on his five years of experience in

teaching with wikis and Wikipedia and holding

workshops on the subject, he discussed the

most effective

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Why teach with Wikipedia?

Konieczny, 2012 pointed out why teach

with Wikipedia, and how it can be used as

an educational tool, with benefits for

students, educator and the larger

community.

Moreover, he emphasized some several

advantages of working with Wikipedia for

students:

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Increase student motivation in assignments, make a

very pertinent observation and editing Wikipedia

provides a much less artificial and much more

rewarding option.

The Wikipedia assignment has a potential to be more

enjoyable than most other traditional assignments.

Students learn the difference between essay like and

fact–based, analytical, encyclopedic writing style, and

encyclopedic style, similar to papers, thesis or

research reports, so this style is very useful in

developing critical thinking and improving the

understanding of course materials.

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Konieczny, 2012 pointed out why teach with

Wikipedia, and how it can be used as an

educational tool, with benefits for

students, educator and the larger community.

He emphasized some several advantages of

working with Wikipedia for students:

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Students strengthen their ability to search for reliable

sources and evaluate them critically.

Students will be able to more critically analyze the text

on the Web site in their future activities.

Students can interact with other group members and

learn how to work in a real time, real world

collaborative community of–practice environment.

Students can improve their new media literacy and

gain insights in the creation process of texts.

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Wikipedia can be beneficial for an

instructor?

The instructor is assisted in the task of

assessing students by other editors from the

Wikipedia community. In Fall 2011, the

Wikipedia Foundation begun developing an

“Education Program MediaWiki Extension” to

give instructors an extra set of tools that not

needed by regular Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia

was developed with the goal of group

collaboration facilitation.It can be used for free

and without having to secure permission.

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Assigning Wikipedia articles as

coursework is beneficial for the

Wikipedia community because

these following reasons:

More content is created which is in a more

specialized and academic topics.

The content created is reviewed by course

instructors.

Wikipedia content is freely available to the

entire world and widely used.

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This site provides a good example of

educational wikis.

How to use a Wiki?

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Advantages of using Wiki in classrooms:

Wikipedia is not just words, but it encourages

students to create chart and graphs to illustrate

important concepts such as population growth.

Anyone can edit and it is easy to use and follow.

Teachers can view „recent changes‟ on the student‟s

Wikispaces which assists the assessment

processes.

it is a flexible tool which can be used for a wide

variety of applications.

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Students are able to develop communication skills

within classes using computers.

No need to wait for a publisher to create a new

edition or update information.

It provides opportunities for active-learning activities

in classrooms.

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However, there are are some advantages

and disadvantages of using Wiki in

classrooms:

Requires Internet connection to collaborate.

Information can become disorganized. As a wiki

grows, the community plans and administers the

structure collaboratively.

Wikipedia is not a scholarly source.

Don‟t use wikipedia pages, and definitely don‟t put

then in your bibliography.

It is a user edited site meaning that anyone can

add or delete information

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While Wikipedia seems like a

comprehensive source, it can‟t be

considered reliable due to its ability

to be edited by anyone. Statistics

could be out of date and concepts

presented unclearly because of the

continuing changes in water

conservation research. The

Wikipedia community of users may

not be presenting the most up to

date information. As such, we need

to be careful when considering this

site as a resource.

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Conclusion:

There are many resources of

information as well as World

Web that it offers a lot of

information whether reliable or

unreliable, so it is necessary to

evaluate what we find from

information.

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References

Beyer, B.K. 1985. “Critical thinking: What is it?” Social Education. 49:270–6.Bloom, B.S., M.D. Engelhart, E.J. Furst, W.H. Hill, and D.R. Krathworhl. 1956. Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: David McKay.

Cromwell, L.S. 1992. “Assessing critical thinking.” In Critical thinking: Educational imperative, ed. C.A. Barnes, 37–50. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Konieczny, P. (2012). Wikis and wikipedia as a teaching tool: Five years later. Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3583/3313.

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/lls/students/research_resources/evaluate_info.html

http://www.post.edu/maincampus/library/Evaluating%20Information%20Sources.pdf

http://library.uaf.edu/ls101-evaluation

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3583/3313http://wikiatuni.wikispaces.com/Advantages+and+Disadvantages+of+Wikihttp://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-tips-for-effective-use/