The second reading I asked you to do was http://www.anovember.com/articles/zack.html this article focused on making sure that the information that I find on the internet is valid and reliable.

For the last question or activity you had to find some articles related to Educational Technology in Middle School and Assessment.

What I would like for you to do is validate that the articles that you found in the previous question are valid and reliable resources. What do I mean by that? I want you to find out who the author is, what school or organization the author is from, what other sites are linked to that article (use the link technique in AltaVista), and what other information can you find out about the author and the school or organization. Using this information and any other information you find make a decision on the reliability and validity of the articles you found.

Are your articles valid and reliable? Why or why not?

-- Lane D. Rankin (lrankin@csusb.edu), November 16, 2001

Answers

In the first article "Adapting to Technology that Works" in Meridian Winter 2001 issue, I consider this to be a valid and reliable resource. Meridian is an electronic journal dedicated to research & practice of computer technology in Middle School classrooms. It is published twice a year by an interdisciplinary team of North Carolina State University grad students. There are two authors of this article; Lisa Grable (director of the Center for Learning Technology at NCSU and Carlos Curto (Master's student in Dept. of Math, Science, and Tech. Edu. at NCSU. Both are members of SERVIT (Science Ed. Research in Visual Technologies. Links from this article include: NCSU, email addresses, NCSU address, SERVIT, and resources. The second article "Middle School Assessment and Evaluation" from MiddleWeb.com, I also consider to be a valid and reliable resource. It is produced by the Focused Reporting Project with grant support from the Program for Student Achievement of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. It focuses on Middle School students and provides resources, links and articles. For example, there were 41 articles with links on the Assessment & Evaluation page of MiddleWeb.com. Other links include: PALS (Performance Assessment Links) and NBETPP (National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy). I found both articles to be valid and reliable resources.

-- L. Nicole Zegler (schoolprincess98@hotmail.com), November 23, 2001.