Web site project
June 13, 2010
Your Web site project is due *Sunday, February 20, 2011*. Please email it to me via Blackboard or via the Blackboard assignment submission.
When you are looking for quality Web sites on a topic – what do you do? Type your search into Google? If you do a Google search, how do you evaluate the quality of the sites you find? How do you remember the good links you find? A lot of people start and stop at Google, but there are better ways to search for sites that have already been recommended by others.
Search and evaluate
Check out this “How to Evaluate Information” presentation: http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/checklist.html Click through each of the 6 sections. (Make sure your pop-up blocker is turned off.)
1. Based on the above reading, summarize how to evaluate Web sites for quality information. (250 word minimum.)
You can also use online directories to search for sites on your topic.
- IPL2 http://ipl.org/
- Open Directory Project http://www.dmoz.org/
- Feminist eZine – 1001 Feminist Links http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/ [the search box is on the right under the Rosie the Riveter picture]
2. Compare a search of the same term(s) in Google and in these directories. Search for anything we deal with in this class – sexism, racism, body image, etc.
Are the results similar? How are they different? (250 word minimum.)
Save links
Your collection of Web sites will be gathered using a social bookmarking tool called delicious.com.
Delicious is easy to use once you get the hang of it, plus you may very well find it handy for uses beyond this class!
WATCH THIS VIDEO to understand how delicious works: http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english
Using delicious
* First you must register for a free account – click on “Join Now” on delicious.com. You’ll need to use an existing yahoo account or create a new one. Just follow the steps.
Soon you’ll get the hang of how to add pages to your delicious account. Copy the URL of the site you want to add, and on the delicious site, select “Save a new bookmark.” Links can be Web sites, YouTube videos, etc. Links must go to the correct page.
Using the browser buttons is recommended if you are using a non-public computer. You can install them by visiting the Tools page and selecting the right set of buttons for your browser.
To save bookmarks without installing the buttons, you can use the “Save a new bookmark” link in the top right corner of most delicious pages, or visit delicious.com/save directly.
3. Add 10 Web links to your delicious account (Web sites, YouTube videos, blogs, etc.). The sites you add should be quality information, on either one topic or a variety of topics – as long as they relate to the course. Each link must have 5 tags: one must be wost210, the other 4 will be words you’d use to describe the site/page. Phrases should be run together as one word or joined with an underscore. For example, body image could be bodyimage or body_image. Send me your delicious account so I can check what you’ve added. (The URL should be http://delicious.com/your_user_name )
- Example – check this account for a student from a previous semester as an example: http://www.delicious.com/knefkm01
Social aspects, recommended sites
Once you’ve added a few links on delicious, you’ll notice some of them have a number in a blue box to the right of the link. (See the “3″ below – the red arrow is pointing to it.) When you put your cursor over this number, it turns green and reads “PEOPLE.” This indicates the number of other people who have also added the site. The higher the number of people, the darker the original color of blue.
Click on several of these links – you’ll see who else added the link and the tags they used. Who else has bookmarked the same sites as you? Check out some of their other saved links. Did you find any interesting sites this way?
4. List the delicious usernames of three other users who have similar sites to those you’ve marked.
