Week Eight - Task Three: Criticise each website

In your blog criticise each website (without giving details that would send a reader directly there) in terms of up-to-dateness, usability and practicing what it preaches.

1. My first website which deals with digital immigration is dated May 2008. This is relevantly up-to-date, nearly a year old. The author is an assistant professor of secondary education, so has an insight into the world of these ‘clashing cultures’, which gives this article a usability factor. The article explains what digital immigration and digital nativism are, and then gives a real life example of the two different types of people in one situation which helps visualise the oppositions. Although this page has a primary focus of digital issues in schools I think it practices what it preaches, as the author clearly states that the education system needs to incorporate these new digital tools to aid the new digital native generations of students.


2. This second website has the problem of being a bit out of date as it’s from nearly six years ago; May 2003. However, although the article is not as recent as my first choice, I think that is still has usability. The article is based around critiquing another article on the topic which was written by the man who coined the term ‘digital immigrant’ and ‘digital native’. Due to its nature, I found this article very usable as it gives a different side to the story and provides a different angle of the topic. The author advocates what he suggests in this article as he is an instructional designer for ‘Preparing Tomorrows Teachers to Use Technology’. Also, the criticism of the opposing article is backed up with rationale and argument which makes this webpage useful for understanding this topic.


3. This third webpage is a dictionary insert but has an article underneath from an author, which provides insight into the subject. The article is dated as August 2008, making it only seven months old. This piece of text is only short, but helps clarify the dictionary’s definition. It may not be that usable in terms of academic reference, but the information is backed up by other websites which say the say things in different words.


4. This webpage is similar to number 2: it’s a critique of the same article by the author who coined the terms ‘digital immigrant’ and ‘digital native’. This pages is from November 2007, so in terms of up-to-dateness it’s reasonably recent being just over a year old. I feel that after reading this article, it isn’t that usable. The points are fairly valid and the facts are correct however, I didn’t get a very academic or professional feel from the page. I felt it was more of a negative attitude towards this other person’s work, and that criticising the ideas of the author was the main priority.


5. This webpage is a wiki page, but it’s not open for general produsers to edit; only the creators have this power. This site can be trusted, as the creators are the people who run the digital native project and are using the wiki site to initiate a larger scale research project. In terms of how new the information is, this site doesn’t have a specific date as it’s an on-going piece of work and is continually updated. This is a positive aspect of this page as the most recent information is available. Although this particular page is more about the project than providing a lot of information, it is useful to read why and what the creators are using the project for. There is also a portal section, where people can sign up and share their thoughts within a forum environment. There is also an introduction section which has some useful definitions of words associated with the digital world.