OER 4 Digital and tech for language and learning

5.2 Facilitators – Activity 2

Searching and reliability

1. Discuss basic online safety measures, like:

• Don’t share personal information online.
• Not all downloads are safe and some may contain viruses or malware.
• Public Wi-Fi networks may not be protected by a password.
• Do not click on any ‘pop-up’ ads.

2. Demonstrate how to search the internet using key words or a question by asking learners to choose a topic and find out something about it, using key words or asking a question. For example:

1. Question – Who was the first woman explorer?
2. Key words – Woman explorer world

Learners can do this in pairs or groups and each pair or group can find out a different fact about a topic. See which key words work better for good results!

3. Discuss how to decide if the information learners find is reliable.

1. What is the source of the information?
2. Is the source a political party, a charity, a government department, a business, a well-known author, a university or an anonymous person?
3. How would we decide what is more and less reliable and trustworthy?