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Introduction

Teaching students to evaluate the Web can be hard.  Despite repeated lectures, students tend to use whatever information is easiest to find.  As the Web is easy to use, and since bad site owners have a knack for optimizing for search engines, this usually means the students often use Web sources of questionable quality. 

There are several volunteer created Web directories online.  These are excellent places to find some of the better resources on the Internet as all entries in the database will have been reviewed by humans.  This kills much of the spam.

Most students would benefit from volunteering to edit at one of these volunteer directories.  Learning the criteria for the selection of sites and learning how to write an informative description for them would invariably help students learn to evaluate sites better.  Unfortunately, most of the volunteer directories would be difficult to access for class purposes.  For example, most students would be rejected on their first attempt to edit at the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org) and the time required to pass all the required tests at Zeal (http://www.zeal.com) would make it hard to give students a Zeal based assignment.

Joeant (http://www.joeant.com) is an easy to use site that allows instant access for new editors.  In addition, the volunteers at Joeant give quick and friendly feedback to new editors allowing individuals to learn the basic elements of editing at Joeant fairly quickly.  As such, it is an ideal setting for giving students an assignment working on a volunteer directory.

Preparing to Teach

Before a teacher assigns a Joeant assignment, the teacher should spend some time editing at Joeant.  The teacher should register at Joeant, read the guidelines, and submit 10-20 sites to get a good feel for the system.  Spending some time reading forum posts would also be beneficial.

Joeant editors Lorenzen and Netlibrarian are both librarians in real life.  If the teacher has questions, these would be good editors to ask.

Teaching Joeant

The teacher should spend at least one class period (50 minutes or more) explaining how Joeant works. This lecture should include:

1.   An Overview of Joeant:  What is Joeant?  What is a volunteer edited directory?

2.   How to register and select a topic area.

3.   The Guidelines:  What they are and why they are important.  Students should be encouraged to read them.  Further, the important sections on selecting and describing sites should be lectured on.

4.   Best Subtopic:  Encourage the students to find the best fitting subtopic.  Sites submitted in the wrong category will be rejected.  Spending the time to find the best place for a site is worthwhile.

5.  The Anthill:  The teacher should explain how to navigate and use the Anthill.

6.  The teacher should demonstrate how to add a site to Joeant by doing a submission in class.  The teacher can explain why the site has been selected and why the description is being written in a certain way.

7.  A description of the review process, What happens now?  Why have I been asked to revise my submission?  Why was a site declined?

Joeant: The Assignment

If possible, the teacher should set aside a second class period to allow the students hands on experience with Joeant with the teacher present.  This should be done in a computer classroom.  This will allow for feedback and advice as the students become engaged in the Joeant submission process.

Here is a sample assignment-

You are to visit the Website Joeant (http://www.joeant.com) and do the following:

1.  Register as an editor and select a topic which is of interest to you.

2.  Post a message in the forum identifying yourself as a new editor and that you are completing a class assignment.  (There will be a new thread started for students in this class for this purpose.)

3.  After familiarizing yourself with the guidelines, submit 10 sites for inclusion in the directory.   Be sure to look for the best subtopic when submitting.

4.  Visit Joeant later to see if your submissions were accepted.  If not, revise them.  Repeat the process as necessary until you have 10 accepted sites.

5.  Click on your profile which is located on your anthill.  Print this out.  Bring a copy to class.  This assignment is worth 10 points.  You will get one point for each accepted submission.

Conclusion

Afterwards, the teacher should have a final discussion about the editing process at Joeant.  This discussion should include connections with evaluating sites on the Web for quality.  If any of the students liked Joeant, they should be encouraged to continue their efforts at Joeant.