I recently came across this post: 4 Fake Sites to Teach Students Website Evaluation, which includes some of my favourite fake websites, and wanted to share some of my experiences using them, and an idea for extending how we teach website evaluation.
DHMO is a classic. I have to always bite my tongue as I just want to tell them that Dihydrogen Monoxide is just another way of saying H2O. In my experience one of the best parts of this site is that includes links to what seems to be supporting evidence, but is really just another page of the DHMO website. This forces kids to look at the URL. Some of the other links go to legit websites like the Environmental Protection Agency, which can be confusing to kids, who think the first site must be real because it links to an actual real site. This is a good chance to discuss links, and that any website can link to a legit website. At this point I like to show students how to use the link: prefix in a Google search to find out which websites link TO the site they are trying to evaluate.
The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is another great one. In the past I have always shown this to my students in the Pacific Northwest, usually accompanied by loud howls of disbelief as they all know intuitively that this is a fake site. After all, my students spent most days in the forests described in the website. The conversation in this case usually focused on HOW they know it is fake. I want my students to understand that their intuition about ‘fakeness’ is based on their personal experiences, and that they have to be very aware of when they can trust their judgement because they have sufficient experience, and when they need to use the toolbox of strategies that I try to teach them. Interestingly, this year I had the opportunity to show this site to students in Malaysia, and they had a difficult time deciding whether this was a true site.
I would also add to the list Petrol Direct http://www.petroldirect.com and Mankato http://descy.50megs.com/Emankato/mankato.html.
One thing I always try to do when I am teaching students about website evaluation is try to include real websites that look fake. In my experience, if we just expose students to fake websites they quickly catch on and only engage with the skills we are trying to teach in a surface manner. But if they are given a list of real and fake sites mixed up, and are asked to use their ‘internet detective skills’ to figure out which is which, they are more engaged and use the strategies in more sophisticated ways. This has led to a search for real sites that look fake, as I want my students to realise that the way a site looks has very little to do with the information being reliable and valid. Here are some of the real sites I have found so far:
Blinkee.com – It sells things that blink (update: this site has been updated and now looks much more polished).
Penny Juice – An awful looking site that sells Fruit juice concentrate designed for childcare centres (update: this site has had an upgrade and unfortunately looks more professional).
Pacific Northwest Xray Inc – A legit site for selling Xray Equipment. As an added bonus it is also in the Pacific Northwest.
I am always on the lookout for real sites that look fake to use in my website evaluation lessons. Does anyone have any more good ones?
Thank you! I was trying to find real sites that did not look legitimate as a comparison for my class. Fantastic links.
Thank you for this. I too have struggled to find real sites that don’t look so legitimate to test my students investigative skills. Another “real” site to add to your list: Mike the Headless Chicken – http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/mike
Thanks for the shoutout and link. Unfortunately, although they say there is no bad publicity in this case I think that may be wrong.
We aren’t a fake website however. We actually sell things.
As a matter of fact we’ve been successful for 15 years and we have high ratings on amazon, google, facebook and yelp.
Here is more information about that:
https://blinkee.com/about/
It is good to guard against fake content, but please vet your sources carefully.
Thanks for the comment Matt. THe funny thing is that in my post I actually list Blinkee as a real site. The point I was trying to make is that when teaching students how to spot fake sites we need to include real sites in the lists we give them, and ideally real sites like Blinkee, which (although real) don’t necessarily look as polished as some other sites (which is often how kids judge whether a site can be trusted).
Hi Phil,
I don’t mind the few visitors we get from this article every day.
I wrote a little article of my own:
https://blinkee.com/client-list-fake-website/
cheers,
Matt
I agree that it is more valuable to include sites that look fake and are real when discussing how to evaluate trustworthiness. I used to use the KFC sunscreen page but this page has been taken down now. All my students thought it was fake until they realised it was on the KFC.com official website or they found the information that it was a promotion elsewhere. I also use a Hedgehog Cafe in Tokyo as an example.