Half of my pupils use MSN or Yahoo messenger.
A third of them use the internet as their main source of information!

When I want to do work on newspapers, the best way seems to be to use a website with links to all the newspapers

The exam boards seem to be a bit slow to catch up with the new media.

After all the government finds it harder and harder to sustain its lies when there are websites questioning, providing alternative views and even telling the truth!

Derek McMillan

This also highlights the importance of teaching critical evaluative skills (the sort historians have!) to our students. As well as a vast array of fascinating information, there is also a load of nonsense published on the Internet some of which is extremely harmful and/or misleading. How to assess the reliability/usefulness of such material is an essential skill.

I agree.

To give the devil his due, the government framework for ICT does examine the issue of reliability. They do have the interesting view that if the website has ".gov.uk" in it then it can be taken as reliable. In one sense of course this is true. I expect if a government site tells me the temperature in Manchester then they will probably have accurate data. And if they tell me about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction....ho hum!

Evaluate. Compare. Question. Whether it is a website, a book or "what my mum always says".