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Media Literacy . WEBSITES AND SEARCH ENGINES. Don’t Believe Everything You Read!. Not all websites are good. Some have a ton of pop-ups and scams promising you money. Some are sites that look good but can infect your computer with a virus when you click on the link.
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Media Literacy WEBSITES AND SEARCH ENGINES
Don’t Believe Everything You Read! Not all websites are good. Some have a ton of pop-ups and scams promising you money...
Some are sites that look good but can infect your computer with a virus when you click on the link...
So which sites are good? Any website including or ending with “ .gov” . or “.ca”. The “gov” means it is a government site and the “ca” means it is a Canadian, government or government-sponsored site. Examples include: The official Government of Canada website: http://www.gc.ca/ The official Province of Manitoba website: http://www.gov.mb.ca/ The Addictions Foundation of Manitoba: http://www.afm.mb.ca/ The official United States of America website: http://www.usa.gov/
Any website including or ending with “.edu”. This means it is an educational institution such as a university, generally in the United States. Example: University of Illinois: http://illinois.edu/ *Note: Canadian University websites end in “.ca”: University of Winnipeg: http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/ University of Manitoba: http://umanitoba.ca/
Websites including or ending with “.org”. This means it is an organization of some kind. Examples include: Turtle Island Native Network: http://www.turtleisland.org/front/_front.htm Seven Oaks School Division: www.7oaks.org/ *Note: Some organization websites are good; some are not. You must decide, based on how consistent the information is, whether it looks official or has many pop-ups, etc. Wikipedia, the infamous “anyone can edit” dictionary, is an organization: http://www.wikipedia.org/
Can I use Wikipedia? • As a starting point / background information ONLY. • Never use Wikipedia as a cited source • Scroll down to check their sources and external links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
Beware of: Any website including or ending with “.com” indicates that it is a commercial website. Some might still be good, but many are useless.You must make that judgement call. Examples are: • Youtube: www.youtube.com • Hotmail: www.hotmail.com • Facebook: www.facebook.com • Amazon: http://amazon.com/
BUT... Some “reliable” websites are not actually reliable! http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~abutz/index.html
So How Can I Tell? Pay attention to details!
Find out who owns / published the site: Internic.ca or Whois.Net
Still Not Sure? Cross-Reference! The more sources the better!
So how do I use search engines? When you need good information, use “Advanced Search” to save time and get better results.
Read “Four NETS for Better Searching” handout in full and then find websites using your new skills! http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/fournets.htm