A Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus a Day

          Recently in Honors History we used two really neat activities  meant to teach us how to search and use online resources responsibly. One activity was called " A Google a Day." This activity tested our research skills by asking a series of three questions that you need to research the answers to by using the " A Google a Day"search engine. The second activity was a website called"Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" . This activity was used to prove how well we can judge liable websites. We needed to determine if the website was Accurate, Authentic and Reliable. 

          

          "A Google a Day" was a website that is powered, obviously, by the search engine Google. As I said before, it asks three questions from the categories of Sport,  Science, Pop Culture,  History,  Arts  and  Literature, or Geography. The website times you while you research and try to answer your question. One of the fun aspects of the activity was that it was a race between the groups in our class room. It was interesting to have to, not only accurately find information, but quickly as well. One difficult and frustrating thing about this activity was that the information could be difficult to find, granted that was the point of the activity. Although, when our group put our heads together we worked through the difficulties and found the answers to all the questions. ( A Google a Day link http://www.agoogleaday.com/#game=started ) 

          The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website activity was also a very interesting activity that we did in class.The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website is a fabricated website dedicated to teach about the " Tree Octopus". Our job was to decide if the website was Accurate, Authentic and Reliable. For a website to be accurate it has to have all correct information. For a website to be authentic it has to has to serve the purpose that the name implies. Lastly, for a website to be reliable, it needs to have a trustworthy source of information and a trustworthy author. The Tree Octopus website was neither accurate or reliable, however it was authentic. It wasn't accurate because the information was false, there is no such thing as a tree octopus. The website wasn't reliable because the author is just an author, he doesn't study endangered animals and doesn't know much about them. The website was authentic because it serves it's purpose, which was to inform people about  "The Endangered Tree Octopus."(Tree Octopus Link  http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ )