08-28 Real or Fake?

Can we believe what we see online? How do we know if it is "fake news" or not?

Seems like they could be fake, however the following are real people's names, from this page:

1. Jed I. Knight
2. Jurassic Park
3. Bud Light
4. MacDonald-Berger
5. Tahra Dactyl
6. Chris P. Bacon
7. Joelle Rollo-Koster

High school teachers that I know have had students with the following names:

1. Gangster
2. La-a (pronounced "La-dash-uh")
3. Shi-theed (spelled "Shithead")

How can you tell if the contents of a site is reputable, say if you want to use it in a research project? For instance consider the web site https://how-old.net supposedly from Microsoft that claims to be able to tell your age based on a picture of you:

Is this site legitimate? How do you know?

Take 4 minutes and create a rubric (a set of guidelines or things to check) that can be used to validate a web site's content. You might need to do this, for example, if you wanted to use a quote from that website for a paper or a debate, but first you want to make sure it is true. Your rubric should have at least 5 different aspects you can use to evaluate a website

Next apply your rubric to two of the following web sites. Many of these are older, and so are posted on the WayBackMachine site:

1. Introduction to Martin Luther King Jr. www.martinlutherking.org
2. Dangers of Dihidrous Monoxide www.dhmo.org
3. Report on N. Korea Leader Kim Jong-Un at bit.ly/uickjun
4. Pacific Tree Octopus zapatopi.net/treeoctopus
5. Treating DSACDAD with Havitol havidol.com
6. Use of Rennets in production of Cheese savetherennets.com
7. Sound in Mind and Body picture at bit.ly/dudepic
8. Kite Surfer Surprise at bit.ly/surfersurprise
9. Architecture (with Owen and Gail) at bit.ly/myarchpaper

Was your rubric effective in separating fact from fiction? Indicate whether or not you agree with the conclusion of the applied rubric.

Use the essays google form to post your "Real or Fake" essay:

• Your 5-aspect rubric and the results of applying it to two of the above sites
• A brief summary of some current event, with links to two opposite points of view about that event published in online media, with a brief summary of each.

Your essay will be graded using the following, worth 1 point each:

1. Website evaluation rubric has 5 aspects that are reasonably thought out
2. Website evaluation rubric has been applied to two sites in detail
3. Current event has been summarized
4. Links are given to media representing two different points of view on this current event
5. The two different points of view are summarized

Be prepared to have your work shown and discussed in class.