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Search and find

'S' for security

Actions such as checking the weather or reading the news online do not take any risks regarding personal security. However, entering your private information to access your bank account website or to buy clothes online can be dangerous. People usually search for all kind of websites using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask, among others. But, are all the websites secure?

At the end of this section, you will have...

  • listened to some information about secure websites.
  • practised modals of obligation and necessity.
  • carried out a webquest about secure and fake websites.
  • designed a digital poster on secure websites.

Click on the Secure Websites video and listen carefully to some important information. Then, with a partner, comment on how you can get to know whether a website is secure. But first, it is advisable that you check the meaning of words such as reliable, trust and fake.

Before discussing with the classgroup on the video contents, we suggest that you watch the Engvid video and revise the use of verbs of necessity and obligation such as Have to and Need to. Practise these forms and Mustn't for prohibition at the grammarbank site.

Have you understood the use of these verbs? Can you produce sentences to talk about what a secure website has to be like?

Follow these steps:

In pairs, discuss about secure websites. Read the information on the BBC Bitesize webpage and the text on the document 'Evaluating digital content' and get some more ideas about how to evaluate positively a website . 

Create a chart using cacoo.com and type the headings A good website needs to have/be... ; You have to... and You mustn't... Complete the chart with your ideas. Then share it on Pinterest so that your classmates can include their comments and you can comment on theirs.

Post the link to your chart on the 'Internet vocabulary' section on your Weebly site. It will be very useful if you keep all the key vocabulary about the Internet because you will need it for carrying out your final challenge.

Your webquest

Your mission is focused on a guided webquest that you are going to carry out together with two other students.

First of all, read the instructions below to perform your webquest accurately:

  • Your teacher will put you in groups of three students. 
  • You need to have Internet connection to browse websites related to the following situations:
  • You want to buy some clothes on an online shop.
  • You want to know about what is going on in the world. In this case, you need to find a digital magazine or newspaper.
  • You need to check how much money you have in your bank account. Search for a bank website that you are familiar with.
  • You would like to book plane tickets for your next holidays on a travel website.
  • You need to find information for an academic essay on social sciences or any other subject.
  • You want to get in contact with new epals.
  • You have to take some screenshots of the parts of the websites that prove to be secure. Save the screenshots as images into your computer.

The objective of this mission is that you visit and evaluate several websites or webpages regarding their degree of security and confidence. Please, consider the questions below:

  • Do you have to enter personal details to access the website? 
  • In case that you have to register, is the website secure? Why/ why not?
  • What kind of information do you have to enter?
  • Did you find easily the information that you wanted?
  • Do you think that the information that is shown on the website is reliable? Why/why not? Who wrote the information?

With your group, put the webpages that you have visited in order, from more secure or reliable to less secure. Compare your order with another group's list of websites.  Are the website types that you have found in the same order as the ones from the other group?

Sign in at canva.com and design a digital poster showing what a good website has to look like. Remember to include some of the screenshots that you have taken and sentences starting like this: A secure website needs to be/have; A reliable webpage has to...; You mustn't...

Share your poster and comment on your classmates' posters on Pinterest. Also, post it on your Weebly site, on the page entitled 'My digital resources'.

Your teacher will evaluate your work according to the criteria stated in the 'Rubric for assessing a digital poster' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Learning diary

We hope you finished your mission successfully. Reflect on how you performed it and write down your reflections and thoughts about your learning process in yourLearning Diary (download in editable odt format,download in pdf). This will help you become aware of what you have achieved or what you need to reinforce.

Learning diary

Peter O'SheaWriting tools (CC BY)

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'Search and find' and answer the following questions:

  • What are the most difficult aspects?
  • What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?
  • What do you think is the most important aspect you have learned?
  • Are there any aspects you didn't understand?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)