21st Century Information Fluency Project: WSI

WSI: Web Site Investigator

Information Forensics

Everyone loves a good mystery, which is why shows like CSI and books like Nancy Drew or Sherlock Holmes have been so popular. Mysteries capture our attention and interest. Now imagine using mystery and investigation to teach students how to evaluate internet resources.

Imagine you have assigned your students a research project. Your requirements were quite clear, students should incorporate information and material (i.e. pictures/video) from numerous sources. Now you are evaluating the student's projects, or they are presenting their information in a class presentation. How many educators have found their student's information to be flawed? One of my favorite projects for my Fashion Design class is a historical fashion research project, with this project I require that students find actual historical photos of fashion examples from their time period. The first few times that I assigned this project students would simply use Google Images and select a picture, many of these would be Halloween costumes. The examples that they found did not provide a true image of the fashion of that time period. I finally realized my mistake, I had not taught my students how to evaluate web site information or images for validity. Here is where WSI can become a great resource in any classroom.

The WSI website provided by the 21st Century Information Fluency Project is an interactive website that can be used by teachers and students to learn how to become an "Information Forensics Specialist". Imagine using this website to help students learn how to evaluate web resources and providing them a badge to certify that they are skilled enough to know what clues help to determine if a web site is reliable or not.

There are two main purposes of the WSI:

1. Finding facts that can be used to determine the credibility of the information

2. Finding facts than can be used to cite the information

My favorite part of this resource is how interactive it is. The site offers eight Investigator Training Modules that include the following lessons: Author, Publisher, Date, Bias, Links To, Links

From, Accuracy, and Evidence. Students can work through each of these lessons at their own pace or with groups and share information as a class. The modules are interesting and have great information about learning to identify web site authenticity.

After students have completed the information modules they can then utilize their knowledge in

the Cases to Investigate segment of the WSI. There are five cases that feature interactive "suspect web sites". Students can evaluate the web sites using their specialized investigator training from the previous modules. Each case offers a unique problem for students to look at and can be a great way to include critical thinking in the classroom.

As students investigate each of the cases they can organize their findings in an investigative report. This activity would be a great way to incorporate writing skills and summarizing. Students may choose one case on which to file a report and then can be printed to be compared with other classmate reports.

Using a great resource such as the Web Site Investigator can truly help students identify accurate, valid websites as well as learn to cite and create their own accurate media. I know that incorporating this resource would be an engaging way for students to learn the information.