A Bit of an Introduction

Welcome to my Instructional Technology Blog! This particular blog was initialized as a requirement of my EDUC2201 course. I'm very new to the concept of blogging, so I am looking forward to all that I will learn throughout this semester. I'm currently an Elementary Education major; however, I would ultimately like to teach education courses on a collegiate level. Whether I end up in an elementary or college class, I will need to have a good grasp on the technology available to me as an educator. I hope to gain that necessary knowledge from this course so that I will be more readily able to offer my students helpful technological tools to enhance their learning.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Website Validation

I examined Dog Island. While the website initially looks like an organized vacation spot for your pet, it is anything but. This website describes a free and happy life for your dog at Dog Island. They take dogs for free and separate them into size categories and put them on different islands. It lists statistics on the side as well as including rate, company, facility, FAQ, and Photos tabs. All of this looks very real and organized. It isn't until you start reading that you notice that everything the website says is complete nonsense!

First of all, at the very bottom of the page there is a disclaimer. I first looked at this and read the disclaimer that said this:
DISCLAIMER:
This site (TheDogIsland.com) was made in jest, for fun for love of dogs and for love of life.
You are to take NO actions, make NO decisions based on the content of this website.
In other words, we are not responsible for ANYTHING you do. If I could make this any clearer to you, I would. You can't blame us for ANYTHING. You can't be mad at us for ANYTHING. The only point for you on this website is to enjoy yourself. And if you don't enjoy yourself, you absolutely canNOT blame us for this lack of enjoyment - it is completely your fault.
We are selling nothing, we want nothing from you, not your personal information, not your credit card, not your dog, not your money... NOTHING. We have asked you for nothing, we will continue to ask you for nothing, so please, make sure to NOT GIVE IT TO US, as we will not accept it.
To all friendly, kind, loving people, who don't find a need to blame other people for any and everything, thank you for your time, sorry if you read this and felt unloved - WE LOVE YOU !!! :::))))

I don't need to go much further to prove how credible this website is. It is spelled out clearly in the disclaimer. However, if the disclaimer was not included, there are other hints.

For example, the copyright date of the website is fairly old. Also, no author is stated directly. The domain name is a .com, so that most definitely lessens the credibility in my mind. The website provides email links, but when you click on them it directs you to another page--not an email window. The page does not include any sources or other contact information. The "background" of this Dog Island included names of the founders, however when you search the names in Google, the only place they come up is on this specific website.

This particular website was very easy to notice how inaccurate and discrediting it was. It's important to remember that not all website are as easy to pick out as inaccurate, and we need to look for signs to see how credible the information is. Sometimes websites that look extremely accurate turn out to be very quite the opposite.

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