It is no news that we live in an internet age with all information available at our fingertips.
It has become increasingly difficult to filter information from the bad as we are constantly bombarded with information on education and other areas of life.
 
This post will help teachers/students/parents select good resources to use in their instruction by providing a checklist to evaluate online educational materials.
 
How to Find Good Sites
 
There are many useful, high quality Web pages. Many sites have been reviewed, authenticated, or sponsored by highly reputable organizations. Some sites are dedicated to gathering valuable educational resources for educators. Find some reputable organizations in your field of study that act as reviewers for the Web. A wise beginning strategy would be to ask questions of your school’s library media specialist.
 
If you need to search and find good sites by yourself, the first task to master is searching for pages relevant to your subject. One must research and practice searching techniques to narrow search results to pages that are most probably relevant to the search topic. After finding your  topical Web pages, the next, and probably most critical task, is assessing the pages found. How, then, do you determine if your findings are jewels or just stones?
 
Here is a  Checklist for Evaluating Online Educational Materials
 
The following are seven major topic areas to consider when evaluating web-based materials for use in instructional settings.
 
Judge the accuracy of the information and take note of the date modified.
 
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
 
Does the site provide evidence that it comes from reputable sources?
Does the site contain any obvious biases, errors, or misleading omissions in the document?
Does the site contain advertising that might limit the nature of the content?
Is the information current and up-to-date?
Is the level of information in this site appropriate for the intended audience?
 
Further questions to ask yourself:
 
Does the site contain information appropriate for the intended learners with respect to their maturity and cognitive abilities?
Does the site contain any extraneous and unsuitable vocabulary, language or concepts, bias, or stereotyping?
Is the information in this site presented clearly?
 
Questions to ask yourself:
 
Is the information arranged in an orderly fashion?
Is the information presented clearly?
Is the information in this site closely related to purpose, content, activity, and procedures?
 
Questions to ask yourself:
 
Is there a clear tie among the purpose, content, and procedures suggested?
Does the site contain any activities irrelevant to the topic?
Does the site contain any redundant or isolated activities without a relationship to objectives?
Is the information in this site complete in scope and ready for use?
 
Questions to ask yourself:
 
Does this site contain complete breadth and depth of information related to the topic it claims to cover?
Are there any content gaps in concept development?
If a website has activities, are the content, presentation method, and learner activity potentially engaging?
 
Questions to ask yourself:
 
Are the suggested activities challenging, interesting, and appealing for the intended learners?
Does the information in the site emphasize and promote relevant action on the part of the learner?
Does the site have the potential for developing confidence and satisfaction as a result of learner effort?
If it claims to be comprehensive, is the information in the site well organized?
 
Questions to ask yourself:
 
Is the information in the site easy to use and logically sequenced, with each segment of the resource related to other segments?
Does the information flow in an orderly manner, use organizing tools (e.g., a table of contents, a map, or headings), and avoid the use of unrelated elements that are potentially ineffective or overpowering?
Are references, bibliographies, or other supporting evidence provided?
After you are comfortable recognizing the elements of good sites by using the above seven questions and sub-questions, find and evaluate some sites on your own. With some practice, finding and evaluating Web materials for instruction will become second nature. Keep in mind that instruction might be found in different sized chunks. You might find several parts in different places to construct your own lesson, or you might find good entire lesson plans.
 
It is also a good practice to search for tools that can help evaluate websites.
I hope you find a helpful information anytime you think Google ! Educational resources.