Zapato Productions
Kunal Mishra
Objective: Determine the validity of this website by navigating through zapatopi.net and see if the information on the website has any factual based evidence for it's claims. Use search engines such as google.com and bing.com to cross-reference information displayed on the website.
Activities and Procedures:
1. Go to website zapatopi.net
2. Choose one of the pages on the website to evaluate, either the page about the 'Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus' (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) or the page about the author of the website (http://zapatopi.net/zapato/)
3. Answer the following questions based on your findings:
a. Are the credentials of the author 'Lyle Zapato' valid?
b. What does a biology expert or an accredited biology professor from Rutgers have to say about the existence of the 'Pacific Tree Octopus'?
c. What valid information is out there on the web about Kelvinic Univeristy? Use one of the search engines mentioned above to cross-check your findings.
Purpose/Goals of this Activity: This activity should enable users to be able to tell right away when a information from a website seems invalid or not backed up by factual evidence. This activity would be useful for younger students who have just learned about how to use and navigate the world wide web. It would show younger students and anyone who does not frequently use the internet that you can't trust all the information you come across and why you must always question the validity all a website's references.
A. After viewing the site http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/, I did not see any credentials for the author. At the bottom of the page, it says "The author of this article and its subsections is Lyle Zapato", which seems to be the only mention of an author on the entire page. Since I did not find any information on this page, I chose to also look at http://zapatopi.net/zapato/, which honestly seems like a joke. When I read "Martial Status: Armed, Dangerous" I could not take the website seriously. After reading the information about Lyle Zapato, it should be clear that the website is not a valid source of information.
ReplyDeleteb. I used Google to search more about the Pacific Tree Octopus and found an article on DailyMail.com called "It must be true, I read it on the Internet: Elusive 'tree octopus' proves how gullible web generation is." In this article, it says that Donald Leu, a researcher from the University of Connecticut, used the website in question to test his students ability to distinguish between a real and fake website. Even after the website displayed a ridiculous idea and summary of the author, the article still says that "the students not only believed all of the fabricated information, but also insisted on the existence of the octopus, even when researchers explained all the information had been made up" (Daily Mail Reporter). This shows that children are not being taught the proper way to navigate the Internet, which needs to be fixed immediately.
c. Since the website mentioned that the information came from Kelvinic University, it is important to do some research on this school. When using Google to search more about Kelvinic University, I could not find valid information confirming it to be an actual school. One website, being http://www.eoht.info/page/Kelvinic+University, said that it was a "fictional school of thermodynamics conceived by Internet writer Lyle Zapata" (Sadi-Carnot). This is more evidence that the original website is not a website that should be used for information.
a. Are the credentials of the author 'Lyle Zapato' valid?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the website, Lyle Zapato is the creator of Zapato Productions Interdimensional. When I google Lyle Zapato’s education, the institution did not seem credible. In addition, there was no photo of the author and founder of the entire website and the last date it was edited was in 1999. In addition, when typing his name into a search engine many websites state that he is the creator of a hoax website. (Wolchover, 2011)
b. What does a biology expert or an accredited biology professor from Rutgers have to say about the existence of the 'Pacific Tree Octopus'?
At the bottom of the page, the website states, “This site is not associated with any school or educational organization, other than the Kelvinic University branch of the Wild Haggis Conservation Society.” Therefore, other experts would have nothing positive to say since the website does not come from more than one scholarly source. On the faq, the website itself admits that a lot of professors and educators believe that the octopus is a myth therefore, this calls into question the websites credentials.
c. What valid information is out there on the web about Kelvinic Univeristy? Use one of the search engines mentioned above to cross-check your findings.
In order to find the accreditation for the University, I decided to look it up on the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). When I looked up Rutgers University, many links popped up however when I searched for Kelvinic University, nothing showed up. If we even try to inset it into google maps, nothing would appear. However, if we tried to do this with any other institution both the home page and location would appear. When comparing the websites, KU has limited sub links where Rutgers has various links and also looks updated.
Works Cited
Wolchover, Natalie. "Kids Believe Literally Anything They Read Online, Even Tree Octopuses." Live Science. Purch, 04 Feb. 2011. Web.
"Council for Higher Education Accreditation Home Page." Council for Higher Education Accreditation Home Page. CHEA. 2016. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
-Jessica Hernandez
hmmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteThis is all so fake the photos are photoshopped. Some of them are stuffed animals and this university if you look at the address it says Zapato pi sounds familiar well yes because it’s the other web address for the tree octopus.
ReplyDeleteThat was me
Delete