Educator of the Week!

Obama Pic

Caption: President Obama meets with National Incident Commander US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen for a briefing on the BP oil spill at Coast Guard Station Gulfport in Gulfport, Mississippi, on Monday.

Out of the two picture I saw, this one gives me more confidence in Obama. Having Admiral Thad Allen there boasts my confidence that there might actually be some discussion going on. Obama looks as though he is speaking, and the Admiral is intently listening. The caption supports this assumption. Now if the caption were to say something like...


Caption: President Obama meets with National Incident Commander US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen for a briefing on how to cause the entire state of Louisiana to be flooded.

That caption would cause me to question the leadership of our President.

It's amazing how much a picture and caption can influence our perception of a situation or person. The background images in this photo do a good job of placing focus on what's going on, and the caption describes what that situation is.

Think Aloud

Mitchell & Martin 

Standard I. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity.

B. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.

After using think aloud, I realized how useful it can be in allowing the user to understand information. I used think aloud to analyze a website that dealt with the issue of arming teachers with guns. This is a real world issue going on right now, and by using think aloud I was able to learn more about it. If I can increase my knowledge of real world problems by making a think aloud, then surly my future students will be able to as well. Think aloud is an excellent tool that should be utilized to its maximum potential. 

Website analysis worksheet

Here is the website I found for gun control.


Is there an author? Is the page signed?

-Yes, the author is Brad Bannon.

And there is a link to his profile.


Is the author qualified and/or reputable? An expert?

- His profile says,  "Brad Bannon, a Democratic consultant, is president of Bannon 

Communications Research, a Washington, D.C. based political polling and consulting firm".


Who is the sponsor?

-He is a guest writer for Politix.

Is the sponsor of the page reputable?

How reputable?


-This particular page was written by a guest writer. So, it would be more sensible to do more research on that writer. However, since the website allows anyone to write without using sources, I would say the site isn't very reliable. 


If the page includes neither a signature nor a sponsor, is there any other way to determine its origin?

-There is a signature and a sponsor.


Are there links that take you outside of the site?

-None that I could find.


Is the information reliable and error-free?

-The writing itself was fine, but there were some statistics which failed to be cited. 

That causes me to be a little worried about the reliability of the page.


Is there an editor or someone who verifies/checks the information?

-None that I could find.


Where doubt exists, can the information be cross-checked with a reliable source?

-No outside sources were given. 


Does the information show a minimum of bias?

-No, it shows a lot of bias. 


Is the page designed to sway opinion?

-Most definitely. 


Is there any advertising on the page?

-I didn't see any.


Is the page dated?

- It was added Jan. 9th.

All links work.


Is there an indication that the page has been completed, and is not still under construction?

-It looked completed to me.


What topics are covered? How in-depth is the material?

- The material is meant to sway the audience toward favoring gun control. The information is very biased, and no sources are given. Not very in-depth at all. I don't believe this to be a reliable source, and would not use it. 

Website technical analysis worksheet

1. Study the URL

-It's simply a .com

2. What is the overall context of the page you are viewing?

-The page is an article written by a guest. This is what the website primarily consists of overall. 

4. Does the page have overall integrity and reliability as a source?

-From what I've seen, the articles on this site have a lot of opinion thrown in the stories. This might be okay for casual reading, but I wouldn't use it as a source. 

5. Who owns the domain name?

-It comes up as Iregistry Corp. 

Wikipedia User Profiles

After looking through 3 users on Wikipedia, I was able to glance through their contributions. It's pretty cool to see all the awards users can gather through their work. It really made it seem more reliable to me. I've always enjoyed using Wikipedia, and this assignment just increased my opinion of the site. 

Wikipedia Reliability Worksheet.

Here is my review of the reliability of one Wikipedia article.