Okay, so I know fake websites are out there. We've all seen them. I use Snopes on a regular basis to yell at various email contacts (sadly, usually family members) who forward me trash disguised as religious, political, or otherwise shocking news.
I'm a parent, too. I know there's a lot of scary stuff out there that is attempting to make its way into my children's lives. Nevermind the commercial crap.
The website that really freaked me out today was the MLK one.
WWW.martinlutherking.org
It sounds SO legitimate! It's a .org, for crying out loud! It contains a poignant picture of his, and is set up to look very informative and factual. A great place to send kiddos for research, right?
WRONG!
The stuff is pure crap. And I'm scared that I could have easily fallen for it.
I definitely learned a lot here. As a future teacher, I will only be allowing my students to explore websites I have THOROUGHLY checked out. And for myself, I really need to up my own filters. I probably would have seen the url address, and been pretty comfortable with the .org. And because the initial look of the homepage is not obviously horrific (no big words talking about MLK in a derogatory way), I might have okayed this site.
Big wake up for me! This stuff is really scary, and as a future teacher I need to be prepared, informed, and ready to guide.
No comments:
Post a Comment