Learn When to Trust a Website and When to Avoid It

Blog posts and Facebook status updates are the best sources for factual information.

• True
• Fasle

A web URL that ends with ".gov" means that the website is associated with what?

• a company
• a school
• a government agency
• a charitable organization

"Fake" digital images are common on the Internet.

• True
• False

Which of the following is not an example of a personal website?

• a newspaper article
• a Twitter feed
• a YouTube video
• a SnapChat photo

Which of the following is NOT true about the Internet?

• Some websites provide very reliable factual information.
• Some websites manipulate data in order to sell a product.
• A person must apply for a license to create a website.
• Some websites are created as jokes.

If you wanted to find out the ages of President Barack Obama's daughters, which website would be your best source?

• A blog post created in 2008 by "YesWeCake," a cake store that specializes in political cakes
• An article on a comedy website entitled, "Area Man Just Realized He Doesn't Even Know When Barack Obama's Birthday Is."
• The official presidential biography found on www.whitehouse.gov
• A Happy Birthday President Obama video posted on YouTube

You wake for school only to discover that four inches of snow fell overnight.  Using the Internet, what's the best way to find out if your school has been canceled or delayed?

• A. Check Instagram to see what your friends are doing.
• B. Check the school's website to see if the administrator has posted anything there.
• C. Check the website of your local television station; it has a whole section on closings and cancellations
• Either B or C

Imagine you are researching the pros and cons of putting oxygen in drinking water.  During the course of your research, you come across a site that claims that oxygen can be dangerous in water.  However, certain aspects of the site make you question its accuracy.  As you assess the website, which of the following would NOT necessarily raise a red flag?

• A statistic provided by the American Dental Association regarding oxygen in water
• The fact that the site is sponsored by the Association to Keep our Water Oxygen-Free
• Numerous grammatical and spelling errors
• The fact that the site had not been updated since 2001

You are researching space exploration and you find a website that details all of the Apollo space missions.  In evaluating the legitimacy of the site, you examine where links go from the site.  Which types of links would most add to the site's credibility?

• Links out to an astronaut's Instagram page
• Links out to the ice skater, Apollo Ono's, personal website
• Links out to the move Apollo 13
• Links out to www.Nasa.gov

You can tell that a website is associated with a college or university if the URL ends with...

• .com
• .gov
• .edu
• .org