Using+the+Internet+to+Access+Information

toc Currently anyone with access to a browser and an Internet connection can post information online. The proliferation of information has had benefits and drawback. The benefits include easier access to quality information and media. Media is also being shared under creative commons licenses that allow others to use and sometimes modify another person's work to create something new and innovative (Don't forget to cite your source and make sure that if you change the image that the license allows a __**derivative**__ to be made!). HOWEVER, you must make sure that your use of other people's work (this includes text, images, audio, video etc.) DOES NOT VIOLATE ETHICAL PRACTICES or break copyright law. There are other drawbacks that include access to an over abundance of information that varies dramatically in terms of quality. This requires future teachers to be able to critically evaluate information. The resource included below are intended to help students do the following:


 * Understand copyright and fair use
 * Understand and recognize plagiarism
 * Locate copyright friendly materials
 * Locate information using Internet resources
 * Evaluate information
 * Collect information using online survey tools

Copyright and Fair Use

 * Understanding copyright and fair use || KOCE and PBS created a series of videos on copyright and fair use that clarify many issues ||
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Useful Websites:

 * Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom by the University of Maryland College
 * Copyright for Educators by KOCE
 * Guidelines for Using Material in Class from Sandhills Distance Learning
 * Copyright and Fair Use in Educationby Jason Ohler
 * Copyright and Primary Sources from the Library of Congress
 * The Four Factor Fair Use Test from the University of Texas
 * Citation Machine (Use this site to cite your sources!)

=Plagiarism=


 * Plagiarism Tutorial from the University of Indiana

=Locating Copyright Friendly Materials=

If you want to be sure that the materials you are using are copyright friendly you should make sure that the media is licensed under a creative commons license such as attribution. (There are other copyright friendly licenses such as a GNU license.) Other options include using media that falls within the Public Domain. Many photos created by government agencies such as NASA are free to use because they fall within the public domain. Finally, don't forget that you can use your own personal photos- just be sure to cite yourself! I have gathered a collection of copyright friendly resources on the wiki page Copyright Friendly Media Resources.

=Finding Information on the Internet=

Nowadays anyone can put anything on the Internet. It is more important than ever that you know how to critically evaluate the information that you find. In order to make sure that you are not violating copyright law or committing plagiarism it is also important to keep track of where you found your information so that you can properly cite it in your work. There are a few tools that are helpful when trying to keep track of your sources.

Tools to Help You Cite Your Sources

 * A word process such as Microsoft **Word**- copy and paste the URL of your source along with other important information such as author, title, and date retrieved.
 * Zoho Notebook- you can use your google login to access this tool.
 * Google Notebook
 * Citation Machine (Use this site to cite your sources!)

More Information on Searching the Internet
My two favorite websites for information regarding searching the Internet are Finding Information on the Internet by UC Berkeley, Internet Tutorials by Laura B. Cohen, and Searching the Internet by Internet4Classrooms. The UC Berkeley site also has information on evaluating website.

My favorite search engines are...
 * Google (For optimal results use the advanced features)
 * Bing
 * Clusty (This is a meta search engine and will search multiple search engines)
 * Dogpile (This is a meta search engine and will search multiple search engines)

My favorite subject directories are...
 * Internet Public Library (I am linking to the Resources by Subject page)
 * Google Directory

As CMU students and Michigan residents you are entitled to access to two search engines that will search various subscription based electronic databases. Basically there are two sites you should know about for searching library holdings.
 * CMU's online library resources ( Use the Finding an Article link to search for articles from home)
 * MeL (To search the catalogs of Michigan's libraries you want to search MeLCat)

There are so many options for your students in terms of search tools. It is important for future teachers to know how to search multiple types of search engines. Note this interactive poster image (called a Glog) came from a blog posting from Joyce Valenza. media type="custom" key="5225099"

=Evaluating Web Pages=

I hate to say this but not all web pages are created equally. Anyone can put anything on the Internet. As future teachers you want to make sure that you choose high quality sites for your students that are age appropriate.

Helpful websites for more information on evaluating web pages
 * Evaluating web sites from Lesley University
 * Evaluating Web Pages: Why and How from UC Berkeley

Websites to use with your students
 * Teaching Zach to think
 * Teacher Tap
 * Using the Webby Houghton Mifflin
 * Jo Cool or Jo Foolan Interactive Flash Tutorial with a Quiz

One important technique for evaluating a web page is to see what other sites are linking to the page you are evaluating. Alexa.com will let you know a lot of important information about the site including the sites that are linking to your page.

=Using the Internet to Collect Information=

Using websites such as Survey Monkey (an online survey tool), Poll Daddy (online surveys and polls), Google Forms (an online survey tool that also saves the information in a spreadsheet) and Quibblo(an online quiz tool) are methods for collecting data and information using the Internet. Furthermore, you can use these sites with other Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, and easy to create websites such as Weebly. Both Poll Daddy, Google Forms and Quibblo can be embeddedin a blog, wiki, or website. Google Forms is part of the suite of web-based applications (Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentations) in Google Docs. Just by copying and pasting a little bit of code you can increase the functionality of your website. You can embed videos, widgets (interactive elements that work with a third party), surveys, and much, much more. When you embed videos, quizzes, etc. the key is to make sure that all of the elements on your web page work together in a cohesive manner otherwise your students will be lost and confused.

Just a little bit more background information on embedding elements in your wiki. You can think of your wiki page, used for just its basic functions, as a Word document on the web with hyperlinks. But it is much more than that. It also acts like a stack of legos. However, a well designed stack of Legos can look like this............................ || ||
 * [[image:legoStackedit.jpg caption="Lego Stack by SocialisBETTER" link="@http://www.flickr.com/photos/27620885@N02/3018306107/"]]

As I mentioned previous, if you want to put a survey online the best resource is Google Forms. Some online survey tools such as Survey Monkey do not let you download your results for free. When you use Google Forms your data is saved in an electronic spreadsheet that can be downloaded as an Excel file for an in-depth analysis. Google Forms also has an analysis function. You just can't perform as many types of analyses.

Google Forms
 * PDF of Google Form Tutorial
 * Video Tutorial by bert0313
 * Video tutorial on Vimeoby Robert Gilbert
 * Google Forms