Google Internet Keep Safe Workshop 1: Detecting Lies and Staying True Instructor Handbook User Manual

Page 20

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This is an informational site. It’s purpose is to give the public access to information. It is

clearly stated in a few locations throughout the site (Mission page, Disclaimers page, etc.).
They do not endorse or recommend any commercial products.

The website seems balanced, as they don’t endorse any specific point of view or any

commercial products. It doesn’t have any dates that show how current the information is,
but there is an option to subscribe to RSS email updates, which gives current information.

The second resource could be a personal page by Dr. Wallach. The URL shows that it’s a

.com (commercial). A quick Google search on his name gives many results that put the Dr.’s
credentials in question (for example:

http://www.skepdic.com/wallach.html

). It seems that

he is biased and has an agenda that he wants to push. The purpose of the site is to sell the
Youngevity products.

4. Since anyone can publish anything on the web, you need to be careful of what you believe.

Below are a few websites that discuss the Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax.

The hoax:
http://www.dhmo.org/

http://descy.50megs.com/descy/webcred/webcred/dhmo.html
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/dhmo.htm
http://www.armory.com/~crisper/DHMO/

Revealing the hoax:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1791960

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4534017/

http://www.snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp

5. To find information about more bogus sites, or “urban legends”, you can use these

resources:

http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp

http://www.urbanlegends.com/

http://urbanlegends.about.com/?once=true&

http://www.scambusters.org/legends.html

6. Sources for “good online sources” that you can trust:

http://www.ipl.org/

(Librarian’s Index to the Internet – UC Berkeley).

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/refsources.html

(Internet Reference

Resources – Cornell University).

7. Sources for web evaluation techniques:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html

(Evaluating

Web Pages - UC Berkeley)

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/eval.html

(Kathy Schrock Critical

Evaluation Resources. Contains many links to more reputable sources).

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