Life in the Information Age - Finding reliable, valid information

Activity 7 - Finding reliable, valid information:

On the internet there are many unreliable websites - these are sometimes known as hoax websites and they are much more common then you would think.

Hoax websites can hold content on a wide range of subjects, examples of which are:

• The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency
• Dog Island
• We want your soul
• The White House
• The Wingmakers
• Sellafield Zoo
• Britain for Americans
• The Haggis Hunt
• The Uncyclopedia
• The Daily Rash

The websites above tell you how to hunt vampires, sell your soul and how to be a successful tourist in Britain - however, these websites are fake and the majority of them could cause more harm than good on your computers.

Assessing whether or not a website is reliable can sometimes be very difficult. To start with you must always be suspicious of a website if it's TLD (Top Level Domain) is .net or .org. Furthermore, if you click on a website and it looks extremely unprofessional then the likelihood is that it probably is.

On some hoax websites it is very obvious what they are immediately. For example, a fake website for The White House shows this on its home screen when the link is clicked:

It is unlikely that the official website for The White House would be hacked and, should this happen, the problem would be fixed straight away. This is clearly not official because The White House's website, coincidentally, looks like this which is much more professional and clearly reliable:

You can also tell that the first website was fake because it ended in .net while the second website - the official one - ended with .gov which shows that it is an official government website. You can also tell by the icon in the top left corner beside the web address:

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Open University task)

Education has changed hugely in the last ten years. We have also discovered that it spans to include more people, including students from the ages of four to sixteen, who then follow their education with A-Levels or other courses, which can be completed at sixth form in a school or college.
Education has also become part of work, as some companies/workplaces fund their employees so that they can complete further studying - this could be at college or university - while they are working and gaining experience.
The Open University has "changed the face of education" and has allowed many people who did not get a chance to study at university after school to access higher education through part-time courses.
Schools and colleges have set up Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) or Moodles, to help with learning outside of school or college. Work can be uploaded onto it, as can revision and helpful tips.
Since the previous Labour government changed the age that students are allowed to leave school from sixteen to eighteen, every student must be in a place of education until they are eighteen years old.
These changes in education mean that we are now offering "life long learning", which has an effect on work as staff are now expected to engage in some form on Continuing Personal Development (CPD).
The Open University were the first establishment to change higher education by allowing people who have left education long ago to continue learning and so improve their job prospects.
A newer establishment that allows "free world-class education for anyone anywhere" is the Khan Academy. It describes itself as "an organisation on a mission" which wants no profit and has a goal of changing education for the better by providing "world-class" education for free.
All of the site's resources are available to anyone - the link can be found by clicking here - whether you are "a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after twenty years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology". This shows that really anyone can access the website and its free education, improving higher education for the better.
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Websites I used:
http://www.khanacademy.org/about
 http://www.philb.com/fakesites2.htm


** WARNING: Please be careful when clicking on the links to the following websites because - as amusing as some may seem - they ARE hoax websites and could damage your computer with viruses, etc. **

 http://www.fvza.org/
http://www.thedogisland.com/
http://marineparade.net/wewantyoursoul/
http://www.whitehouse.net/
http://www.wingmakers.com/
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.thedailyrash.com/