Trust and the Web March 6, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in 21st-Century, Articles/Videos.trackback
Dennis O’Reilly on CNET Blogs has posted an article about authenticity on the web. The article is a nice update to the (what should be) familiar tasks of deconstructing the URL, checking sites that link to the page in question, and adds searching trusted directories for more information. The article makes the case for how to read web pages with the eye of a skeptic in an easy to understand and concise manner.
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13880_1-9886545-68.html
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As a former ed. tech. specialist in the Georgia school system, I wish we would have had a browser add-on I found called Web of Trust (http://www.mywot.com) which addresses the idea of a site’s reputation in a new fashion.
WOT is an online community for reputation rating that allows users to share their knowledge of sites with others. The ratings are based on standards of trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety.
A tiny traffic light style icon appears next to the site after you search on Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, etc, so it alerts you about that site. What I like about it is that it’s people-driven, so I benefit from other people’s experience and knowledge–plus I can add my two cents in there too!
I can see this tool being valuable for kids just beginning to surf the net, because it’s a preventative instead of a blocker. Our system used filters, which I suppose they all do, and that’s OK, but giving the kids a visual clue makes them more aware of the environment, and when they land on a “dangerous” page, WOT’s big red stop sign gives a dramatic warning.
Thank you! The folks at mywot seem to know what they are doing, and this Firefox plugin gives me one more reason to make Firefox my default browser. They also have a facebook app.