Introduction

In 21st-century schools web-based resources are becoming the most common way for teachers, teacher librarians and students to access information. This chapter focuses on the need for teachers and teacher librarians to be experts in evaluating websites (Chapter 7 covers how to teach students to evaluate them). The importance of effective, as opposed to cursory, website evaluation cannot be underestimated. When teachers and teacher librarians are searching the web to find relevant websites to use in teaching, or for students to use, they will ensure that they find the best possible sites for themselves and their students by evaluating potentially useful websites.

In this chapter a range of website evaluation criteria are introduced, and some examples are critically analysed. Then the author lists his evaluation criteria for websites, which can be practically applied by school staff. The chapter ends with an example of a workshop for school staff, which can be adapted to suit local needs. Being able to evaluate websites effectively is an undervalued skill in most schools, but given the increasing use of websites in schools it should be among the core competencies of today's teachers and teacher librarians.

Website evaluation criteria

Why evaluate websites?

Brown (2002) identifies a number of reasons why teachers and teacher librarians need to evaluate websites:

Brown (2002) argues that the ‘best form of monitoring available for teachers and students is the use of critical thinking skills and constant questioning about the validity and quality of the information being encountered on the Internet’. For teachers and teacher librarians, perhaps the most important reason for evaluating websites is that they have a professional and ethical responsibility to use the best available information they can find for their teaching and for their students to use.