It can be hard to find good online sources. In this post, I will discuss four questions that you may ask yourself when you are f selecting good online sources for your family.
Firstly, it is important to check that the website’s information is accurate, creditable and from a reliable. For example, the NASA kids website is more credible than Wikipedia because anybody can publish content on Wikipedia. Whereas the content on the NASA Kid’s website is published by experts and is more closely reviewed. It is worthwhile to talk to your children about how to identify a creditable website.
Secondly, consider the purpose of a website and whether this content is appropriate for your children. Take DOGO news, it is a website which produces news articles for kids. It contains a lot of articles that can support students to be reflective readers. It is worth explicitly discussing with you children that every article has a subjective point of view and is not necessarily comprehensive. Here, questioning can be used by both you and your children to critically engage with texts. Moreover, websites often target a specific age group. Some websites were created with an adult audience in mind. Similarly, there are websites that were made with 3 year olds in mind that may not be appropriate for 13 year olds and vice versa.
Thirdly, is the website engaging for children? I quite enjoy finding education papers on google scholar to extend my understanding of teaching. Although, my students would probably not find these papers engaging. It is important to consider the complexity of the information present on a website any interactive or immersive (i.e audio, visual, or multimedia) features that a website may have.
Fourthly, can my children actively engage with this website? Good websites support children to represent information and explore new content to extend their understanding and to develop their understanding. For example, applications like Google Maps can allow students to explore geography and geographical ideas in real time. Indeed, such websites can help children to really extend themselves.