Website Evaluation

http://www.thedogisland.com/
WHO:
The people responsible for the information are Xiao Min, Han Fei, Linda Reyes, and Diana Rogers.
Information abou the organization is clear because they have a company information tab to click on.
You can not contact them through real world addresses but you can email each of them.
you can not confirm they are credible.
WHAT:
The information is biased in that they are telling you only the positive aspects of dog island because they are a commercial site and charge money to send your dog.
The site relies on loaded language, emotions are used, and the site only offers their viewpoint.
It clearly states the topics it intends to stress and it is clear and easy to understand and well written. they only offer their point of view. I could not find the copyright material.
WHEN:
The information is currrent because there is a date stamp on the top left of the screen that shows the date and there is also a weather report for dog island on the day you are viewing the site.
WHERE:
It is a .com site so that means that it is a commercial site which means they make money off of it.
WHY:
I can't get this information faster offline, the material suits my needs, but i can not verify the information looking at the site alone.
HOW:
I can perform a search to find that there are many references to dog island and even a map.

all scores are fairly low. Special Ed students on level 1 had the highest scores and Asians on level 1 had the lowest. Throughout each sample level 2 had higher scores than level 1 nine times out of twelve. The majority of scores fall between 20%-40%. 

excel statistics chart

this chart shows that Japanese test scores have a negatively skewed distribution. American scores have a positively skewed distribution. Japanese scores are leptokurtic which means a more peaked distribution. American scores are platykurtic which means a less peaked distribution. Japanese test scores mostly fall in the range of 41-56 and American scores fall mostly in the range of 39-59. Negatively skewed data falls to the right of the mean and positively skewed data falls to the left of the mean. 

Click to watch my voki video

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=4569951&height=267&width=200

Magazine cover

double entry journal

Quote:" In the United States, almost two-thirds of a national sample of adults doing online searches were not aware of the difference between paid and unpaid search results and believed that search engines provide fair and unbiased results for any given search (Fallows, 2005)." 


Reaction: I believe that media literacy needs to be an actual class or subject taught in schools, beginning in Kindergarten. Children are, at a young age, using technology and the internet for school as well as entertainment. They should be taught that everything they see isn't exactly truthful or accurate information. I give the example of Wikipedia. Some people do not realize that anyone can write down information on there and it can be incorrect information. Then you have a student doing a Google search on a subject and most likely Wikipedia comes up and since the information on there is laid out easy to read and the whole subject you are searching for on there they may use that site. However, let's say someone wrote something incorrect on there and the student uses that information, they will get their facts wrong for the assignment they are doing. I think we as educators need to be able to help our students to "weed" out the useless information and be able to find information that is reliable and correct. They also need to know that most places advertise to make money to run the site so they may sway their opinions to fit into that of their advertisers that are paying them. Media literacy has to become a course in which we begin at a young age to teach our students so they will better be able to be informed and know what they are looking for when using the internet. 


Related content:

This cartoon shows this guy who has to go to a psychiatrist because advertisers on the web don't target him. In fact advertisers target everyone, so the guy must be crazy right? 

References: 

Article:

David, J.L. "Teaching Media Literacy." Educational Leadership. 66:6, p. 84-86. Web: October 9, 2011.

Image:

Web retrieved October 9, 2011 from bonnie-vie.net photo by Schwadran from Fiona Otway. 

Journal Posting

Quote:
"Citizens must understand that a news story is always constructed by choosing from the information given, shaped by the "lens" of a particular writer or photographer, written for a particular audience, and told from a particular setting." (Abilock, 2003).

Reaction:
I think that if more people knew that information given on the news is shaped by the "lens" then more people would not take all the news they read or hear at only face value and actually try to find out why that is the message the news media is giving you. All the major news companies distort the news they give us because they want us to hear the news and take it from their point of view rather than letting the citizen know the whole truth so the citizen can form their own opinion. The article talks about how the news coverage of Iraq didn't show people being killed in war, but rather settled on showing bombing runs from a far away point of view. I believe this is wrong because if they really wanted to report the full unedited or unswayed opinions then everything should be shown and not just bits and pieces.

Reference:

Abilock, Debbie. “A Seven-Power Lens On 21^st-Century Literacy: Instilling

     Cross-Disciplinary Visual, News Media, and Information-Literacy Skills.”

     MultiMedia Schools November/December (2003): 30-35. Web: October 1, 2011

Related content:

This is a Youtube video that tells about a former FOX news employee and gives inside information, it's a little long but interesting. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drg35szV75A