Information Literacy Quiz, November

In ETEC 524, at TAMU-Commerce, we are referring to Alan November’s website “November Learning” quite often. This week, we took an online quiz titled Information Literacy Resources.  I scored a 6.5 out of 13, which made me (according to the answer key) a Moderately Savvy individual. The answers to the questions were very educational. I did not know we could do so many things with search engines! For example, you can find who is linked to any website by doing a link: command search on Google. Type link: (followed by the website’s URL) in the search bar on the Google home page…. PRETTY COOL!

The class randomly analyzed websites and used what we learned from the November quiz to find if the sites were credible, or not. I chose:  http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ . At first glance, the URL does not seem too fishy. It is neither personal, nor super crazy. Next I used a link: command. After pulling up the websites that link to this page, and the descriptions of them, it was OBVIOUS my website was bogus. Many sites were psychic octopus sites, and vampire sites, and my personal favorite: www.pointlesssites.com/atoz.asp. I next used www.easywhois.com to find the author of the site. It is a person who used a free website host to build the site. This does not make it very credible! I also searched its history, and viewed snapshots of the site when it was first designed in 2003. The information is almost the same, but now the site announces that they are not affiliated with any educational or school association. I cannot find any purpose for the site except to spread useless information. They are not asking for money, just want people to stand up and protest for an endangered, fictional animal.  The current website actually has hilarious real activist accounts. Elementary kids have held demonstrations in Ohio, and a vehicle that has been structured after the imaginary creature (the same creature that is being pushed out by the overpopulation of animals such as Sasquatch).

I loved this assignment and have learned so much! I have pages of notes, and have already text messaged some fellow educators ideas for introducing these sites to their classes. This was a very fun activity and I found myself testing many sites, before I was done with this assignment. Alan November has a great site that I recommend to anyone who uses the internet, educators or not! Take the quiz, and read through the answers, play around with the suggestions and learn a TON!