Mankato, Minnesota

Recently in class we were evaluating websites and were asked to visit http://descy.50megs.com/Emankato/mankato.html. I have provided the link so that you may also visit this incredible sight.

Mankato Minnesota

I really liked the website. It reminded me a lot of the movie Forrest Gump (which I also really liked). The website took many world wide renown places or events and added to their own town. During the flooding season they compared it to Venice, Italy. They even had a US president (Bush) fishing in the middle of a street. Mankato has it's own pyramids, Atlantis, Mountains, Aquarium,and of course the End of the Internet. I forwarded this site to my husband for our next vacation spot and I hope to meet some of you there.

The site must have taken an incredible amount of time and energy to build; (I wonder if it has copyrights?) The thought that people have and do take the time to build sites for the curiosity of others is incredible. Even looking up the pictures takes time, but almost every picture has a write up. I can't even open my email everyday never mind make a website. It had over 17 different links of which some were meticulously detailed. The site even had legitimate links. We were told that a professor wrote the site to teach people to evaluate what they read as true.

I think students of all ages need to evaluate everything they see and hear. I reminded everyone I spoke to about the commercial about the House Hippo living in your house. I really liked that commercial. My children and I looked for our House Hippo the first time we seen the commercial. I told them that my house must be very clean because we didn't find any: they were disappointed. They also pointed out that we do have Hippo (not Dust) bunnies. It was a great learning tool for my children to learn not to believe everything they hear no matter how real it looks.

See hippo link to view the advertisement.

House Hippo

Some of favourite movies at home are fake documentaries. One is about Dragons and the other is about the Death of Paul McCartney.

The fact is there are people out there willing to go to great lengths to fabricate stories either for pleasure or as a menace. Do you remember some of the great hoaxes? If not visit this next link.

Hoax or Real?

When siting references students must remember to acknowledge who the audience is. Who is the author trying to address.

Who wrote the reference? Was it someone knowledgeable and do they sight their sources. Can you find a couple of more collaborating sources?

Does the website seem legitimate, free from errors with current links. Is there a date of production and a date last edited?

It is a peer-reviewed article. Did someone critique the website? Do other people link to the sight?

These are a few of the things you can do to make sure that the source is reliable. Remember not everything produced is fact. It could be fact-based but that does not make it reliable. Be do-diligence when siting source just to be safe.