Blog #4

One of my favorite educational sources on the web is the ever-popular Khan Academy. When learning new subjects in school teachers can go very fast and it is easy to miss some of the information, so it is nice to have another resource to cover the lessons you don't understand. Khan Academy provides videos with explanations of a wide variety of lessons. In high school I frequently referenced their videos about math and chemistry. The videos cover such a wide variety of subjects and always the views to pause, rewind, and rewatch all the videos, giving each person total control over their learning. https://www.khanacademy.org/

I do believe the internet for student research is a great idea and useful way of learning. I know from experience, I remember information better when I am forced to look for it myself rather than simply being told the answer. If students know how to properly use search engines and know which sources are credible, then they will be able to find really great information on their subject. I think Websearches/Webhunts are great for learning, because it prompts the student to look up multiple things and read all about a subject. I think the only time the internet can be harmful for students is for example if a teacher gets a paper online and all the answers are online (so the student can just copy the answers) or if the students get information from unreliable sources. 

While my methods of judging internet based sources aren't quite as extensive as the ABCDT method mentioned in the podcast, I do agree with everything she said to look out for. I agree that author plays a huge role in judging if a source is valuable or not, because I have learned that .edu, .org, and .gov sources are the more reliable sources. I also agree that design and content play a huge role in how credible a source is, because generally you can tell how reliable the information will be based on how good the website looks. Also, I definitely think bias plays a huge part in finding good sources, because it is important that a source should not only be one sided and only provide strong arguments for one side. After doing research for many years you learn what websites feel credible versus ones that you can tell right away are bad.