Topic outline
- General
- Welcome and introduction
Welcome to the final unit of study, 'how to evaluate digital teaching resources'!
During the ICT Essentials for teachers, we have covered some units that covered searching for resources, including:
- Unit 5: Searching for OER (open education resources)
- Unit 10: Using the internet for teaching
- Unit 12: How to use a search engine
- Unit 17: Using ICT for professional development.
Once you have found a resource, how do you know whether it is good enough to use? How do you know whether the resource is of good quality, credible and fit for purpose? During this study unit, we will identify criteria to evaluate resources.
By the end of this session, you will have been exposed to different evaluation criteria to determine the usefulness of online and digital resources.
- Evaluation criteria
There are many online evaluation criteria for both open and general resources. We have included some of these below (including videos), but to summarise, some of the main areas to look for when evaluating online digital resources include the following:
- How current is the resource?
- How relevant is the resource?
- Is the resource created by someone who is an authority on the topic?
- How accurate is the resource?
- Is it a quality resource in terms of production?
- Is the resource easily accessible?
- Is the resource interactive or does it encourage activities?
- How is the resource licensed? Is it OER? Creative commons? Full copyright?
Now that is a lot to think about, so let's take a step back and review some of the videos first!
Now that you've had a view of the videos, which both discuss different, yet similar, methods of evaluation, read the one page article below which proposes another selection of evaluation criteria for online resources.
- Forum discussion
Forum discussion
First review the two resources below.
After reviewing the two resources above discuss amongst your peers your opinions of the two resources. Would you use both resources in your lesson plan on this subject? State reasons for your opinions but make sure you use the evaluation criteria identified in the previous section. Please post at least one comment and two replies.
- Assignment
For this assignment, using your newly acquired OER search skills (unit 5) and your ability to develop rubrics (Unit 6 - Section 6) as well a ideas drawn from the discussion with your colleagues on evaluating resources:
- Search for three online resources on a specific topic of your own choice e.g. Newton's second law of motion
- These resources can be videos, articles or interactive resources but they must be online digital resources
- Create a rubric which details your evaluation criteria
- Evaluate these three resources using your rubric
- Submit your rubric and evaluation findings for both resources using the assignment submission tool below.
- Marking criteria File 89.5KB
- Conclusion, attribution and licence
Unfortunately we cannot assume that all the information available on the internet is factually correct and up to date. We encourage you to use the evaluation criteria which you have developed during this unit of study to ensure that the online resources which you select are credible.
The following references were consulted in this unit of study. Full copyright but free to use.
ICT Essentials for Teachers by UNESCO is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
All content not licensed under a Creative Commons licence is all rights reserved, and you must request permission from the copyright owner to use this material.
