Lesson Plan
Topic:	Web-sites and web searches	Date:	DAY FOURTEEN
Objective:	1.  Students will be able to identify effective methods for producing effective internet searches.  2.  Students will be able to describe five criteria for examining the validity of a web site.  3.  Students will be able to explain and demonstrate how to use the internet as a source for information and review for Oedipus the King. *Computer/Technology Skills Competency Goal 3.2 – Learners will be able to use electronic resources for research.
Activities	Description of activity	Time	Materials
Anticipatory Set	Q: How many of you use the internet? Q: What do you use it for? The internet is a great way for us to keep in touch with different people and to download music, but it is also a great resource for school.  There are many websites that can help us study and give us helpful information for research projects.  However, we do face obstacles when we use the internet.  Often, it is difficult to know where to start and then, once we find sites, whether or not we can trust them.	4 min
Objective	Today, we are going to discuss how to do effective web serches and how to evaluate websites.  Then, we will practice using the web as a study resource.	1 min	handout
Instructional Input/ Modeling	What is a traditional ending for a web site?  Go through the different domain names and have students use computers to go to different sites.  This is guided practice for maneuvering through the web as well as an opportunity for them to gain a hands-on understanding of the different domain names.  .com – for-profit commercial companies .net – internet agencies www.northern.dpsnc.net .org – non-profit organizations www.kidney.org .gov – United States government www.ed.gov .mil – United States military www.uscg.mil .edu – higher education www.unc.edu or www.duke.edu (Example of .com will come later)	30 min	computers, computer projector
	Useful search engines: www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.altavista.com, www.metacrawler.com, www.lycos.com, www.nlsearch.com (customized special collection) Explain the benefits of each search engine and have students visit each one and do a practice search for different elements from Oedipus.
	Q: When we search for Oedipus how many sites do we receive? (167,000) Drama? (6,260,000) Tragedy? (2,320,000)  Oedipus study? (28,000) Oedipus myth? (15,600) How can we minimize our search results?  - use more specific subjecs - quotation marks - AND OR NOT - Stop searches – using + in front of words that must be included in results
	Once we are able to find a manageable number of sites to explore, it is also important that we have the tools to assess whether or not the site is useful and/or valuable.  A number of ways to evaluate web sites exist.  One way is to use the following criteria: 1. Authority – who operates and created this site?  2. Accuracy – difficult to determine without extensive background in subject 3. Objectivity – does the site contain bias? 4. Currency – when was the site last updated? 5. Coverage – what is the range of information on the site?  Is it specific or wide ranging?    Model with site specific to school – www.northernsave.freeservers.com
Guided Practice	Have students go to the Oedipus site www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/myth.htm  Call on students and go through the five criteria for evaluating a site as a class.	5 min
Independent Practice	Have students take the quiz on the classics page Oedipus site (from above).  Walk around answering questions and ensuring that students stay on task.  Be sure to emphasize how this site offers a valuable interactive way for the students to prepare for their test tomorrow.  Homework: Study for test!	15 min