Volume 4, No. 17
1 April, 2005
[To view this newsletter on line:
http://www.emck.net/eline/05_04_01.htm] |
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The E-Line welcomes new members
from Boone, Nelson and McCreary Counties in
Kentucky, the Kentucky Department of
Education, Cincinnati, Ohio, and New Market,
New Hampshire! We keep growing!
 Don't forget...we'd
love to hear from you! Send us your resources,
ask us to find something for you, or just say "Hi!"
Simply respond to this email. We're real
people - we'll answer your questions! |
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April Fools!
Bogus Websites have a long and
glorious history on the World Wide Web. Some
of the older ones are still around (the
Aluminum Foil Protector Beanie is still
up, and so is the
end of the Internet).
 Hollywood
has gotten into the act, putting up websites
of fictional entities appearing in its movies
(here's the site for Manchurian Candidate's
Manchurian Global),
 and online commercial
sites put up silly stuff as a way of drawing
traffic to their marketing (see this
bogus
online talk capability from FunPhone.Com).
Other sites are off-shoots of web designers or
artists whose imaginations just got out of
hand (see
Boilerplate from
Anita
Benet and Paul Guinan). Of course, there are
lots of websites that might fall into this
category...unintentionally! That is, their
designers are completely serious! (We'll leave
you to find those!)
As a tireless supporter of
classroom practice, The E-Line has wrapped
this collection of silliness into our
obligation to instruction. Media awareness,
and assessing the credibility and accuracy of
"published" sources, is an appropriate lesson
for Language Arts, Social Studies, and
Business classes. See our selected lesson
plans below!
And, for good measure, we've
included some linked resources in the battle
against unsolicited commercial email
(affectionately referred to as spam).
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Bogus Sites |
For an effective
lesson plan, mix the following
ringers in with a variety of
legitimate websites, and then have
your students rate them all in
terms of credibility! (See "Lesson
Plans" below for evaluation
criteria and other resources.)
Thanks to Alex Boese and his
on-line blog Museum of Hoaxes (http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/)
for many of these bogus sites.
 A
New Identity -
http://anewidentity.com/ - A
twist on identity theft, this site
promises to create a "new you,"
shedding bad credit and other
record blotches in the process.
 Pho
Monastery -
http://www.phomonastery.org/
- Appropriately named, this
really slick website serves as an
information source for a supposed
religious order.
 Clubbo
Records -
http://www.clubbo.com/ The
"indie" movement in the music
industry is in high gear, and this
long-standing independent music
production and marketing site has
lots of artists (and even example
MP3's and slick banner ads!) to
prove it! Of course, they're not
real!
 Santa
Rosa Institute
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http://www.srigenetics.com/
- "Celebrating 50 years" of
genetic research, this web
presence is quite
believable...until you click their
"Home" link at the top, and a new
link button pops up leading to the
"Federal Vampire and Zombie
Agency," an Albuquerque museum of
dubious stature!
 World
Jump Day
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http://www.worldjumpday.org/
- This one is actually pretty
funny. It's supposedly an attempt to
organize a sufficient number of
participants who will, all at the
exact same time, jump on the
earth, perturbing its orbit enough
to cure a host of environmental
problems! |
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Lesson Plans |
 Kathy
Schrock's Critical Evaluation of a Web Page -
http://kathyschrock.net/eval/ - Kathy is one
of the most experienced Web innovators, and this
lesson plan, aimed at grades 6-8, is one of the
oldest on the Web. It's full of printable
resources, and even one suggested bogus site.
 Education
World -
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson230.shtml -
Here's a collection of lesson
plans from Education world,
several aimed at lower grades.
They have a complete lesson plan
of this subject online at
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr194.shtml.
 Oracle
Foundation
-
http://www.oraclefoundation.org/pages/WebEval/evaluation.html -
This lesson plan from the
educational foundation supported
by Oracle is, besides being an
extensive lesson plan covering a
variety of grade levels, a great
collection of links and resources
on the subject. |
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Internet Resources |
 Spam
It's
official...unwanted email is
becoming really annoying! Here are a
list of information and help
resource sites on combating this
growing e-communications headache
(courtesy of School Library
Journal, suggested by Wanda
Jaquith).
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