Toward a Multicultural Approach for Evaluating Educational Websites

Gorski, Paul (1999). Toward a multicultural approach for evaluating educational websites. Multicultural Perspectives, 19, Retrieved 04/12/09, from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/net/comps/eval.html

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With the advent of world Wide Webs and huge amount of information that's contained there, students need to be able to evaluate a web page for accuracy, design, navigability, authority, bias, citation, dates, contents and links, handicapped and relevance. The ability to evaluate information is an important skill in this information era. Accordingly, the most important factor when evaluating the websites is your search, your needs. What we are using the web for? Sports? Entertainment? Or Academic work? Therefore, as teachers we must be able to evaluate the quality of the website we will be bringing into our classroom. Good educational websites have certain criteria the teacher must consider before introducing them to the students. Many websites found on Internet can be of low educational value and shouldn't be used in a classroom setting. If the educational website to be used in the classroom, the content should be without particular commercial, political, gender or racial bias, the teacher must address the bias in a classroom. Why therefore, a Multicultural Approach for Evaluating Web Sites? the writer said," there are two factors: First , despite( or because of ) the troubling number of educators who continue to equate it with Black History Month or annual diversity festival, we must continue to push toward an actualization of multicultural education that examines, critiques, and transforms all aspects of education. A tight focus only on curriculum or teaching styles or any one aspect of education does not constitute multicultural education, as stated so clearly by James Banks(1993; p.25):

Multicultural education views the school as a social system that consists of highly interrerrelated parts and variables. Therefore, in order to transform the school to bring about educational equality, all the major components of the school must be substantially changed. A focus on any one variable in the school, such as the formalized curriculum, will not implement multicultural education. A second factor relates to the clear intersections between Internet media and multicultural teaching and learning practices.”
According to the writer’s study all the approaches he has examined, failed to assess to which extent the educational websites utilize the multicultural potentialities of the Internet medium, also they failed to address all multicultural teaching and learning principles: attention to varied learning styles, engagement and inclusion of diverse and divergent perspectives , active and participatory teaching and learning, etc.Through an understanding of educational evaluation, multicultural education, and the Web as an educational medium. In order to help the reader understands how to apply the given criteria, I navigated the following websites to see to which extent these websites comply with these criteria, according to Cornell University Library Criteria (rubric), I chose the first one as an example to under go my evaluation.

Http://www.funschool.comu

Http://www.edchange.orgu

Http://www.education.gov

Findings:
Funschool.com is an educational website targets children from pre-school age to grade six. The Primary purpose for this site is teaching children different subjects, such as Mathematics,Geography, Science, and Ecology. The website has recently updated. For my personal opinion, I like this website and I recommend it for class use. The funschool.com is well organized and it is easy to navigate through the pages and links are relevant to the topics and clearly marked, colored and easily take the user to the new page. The site’s content is appropriate for the targeted children as well as the texts, graphics and the language use, and free from spelling mistakes, grammatical and syntax errors. Funschool.com is also free from commercial, political and gender bias. I did not notice any option for handicapped to help them easily access the website. In general, funschool.com is very for suitable for six grade students because it includes a lot of games, coloring and doing activities that suitable for lower grade students.

References:
Http://www.funschool.com
Http://www.edchange.org
Http://www.education.gov
Http://www.memebers.fortune.com
Http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework