Lesson video

Welcome to the RSHE , internet safety and harms. Reality versus the online world.

My name is Mr. Duffy and I'm really glad you joined me today.

Today we're going to look at understanding online information.

It's really important that you understand that this lesson covers issues about internet safety.

If this is a sensitive topic to you, we recommend checking with a trusted adult before starting or doing the lesson with a trusted adult nearby.

Alright, so just a little bit about what we're going to look at today.

So let's take a closer look then.

So we're going to look at critical viewing and how to decide on the best source of information.

We're going to look at how do search engines work.

What are targeted search engine results and cookies and deciding what information to trust.

So let's take a look at some key words now.

So critical viewing is having the ability to decide on what is the best information.

So just looking at the information in this manner, it's not the best information for what I need it for.

Is it accurate? Is it real? Then search engine.

This is a programme that searches and identifies items in a database that correspond to keywords or characters specified by the user used, especially for finding particular sites on the World Wide Web.

So www.

So in this lesson, as usual, you're going to need an exercise book or paper and obviously you going to write lots of things down today, which you will need a pen or a pencil.

So let's look at critical viewing then.

What do we mean by critical viewing? What we see online might not always be the best piece of information.

Also, the information we see could be fake.

A lot of time what you tend to find on the internet is some of the information that has been written by someone else and anybody can create a website.

Absolutely anybody.

Me or you could do that and then obviously, what we then put on that website could be inaccurate.

It might not be the correct information.

You might be slightly inaccurate, could be misleading.

It could be from my viewpoint, it could just be my opinion, might not be correct.

So it's really important that we have a critical eye over the information.

We look critically at it, is it accurate? Therefore, we need to ensure we critically view the information we are looking at in order for us to make sense of it.

So what websites do you use to get information from? So pause the video and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic, hopefully, you've got some really good ideas.

So it's really important that not all websites, we use to help us with our homework, have information on them that we can trust and that's something that you will find, you know, especially some of students doing tech support for me for example, will look at information that they think is accurate, it's correct but actually it fits the GSEP specification.

So it's really important we have this critical viewing eye and that we can see whether the information is accurate.

So can you think of any? Can you think of any websites where the information might not always be accurate? Fantastic.

So the biggest one that I can think of is Wikipedia, alright? Anyone can, it's open to all and can be modified and edited by anyone.

Absolutely anyone can modify, edit, change Wikipedia alright? However, Wikipedia's administrators protect some pages from direct editing.

If they believe they are regularly subject to vandalism, for example or to prevent abusive language or falsehoods but Wikipedia, anyone can set up a Wikipedia page.

Anyone can edit a Wikipedia page.

A lot of times people will put references in there but the information that you see on that isn't always accurate.

It's not always full and correct information.

So it's really important that we critically view the information that we see okay? So what is then, the number one search engine worldwide in 2020? Nice little question for you there.

What is the number one search engine worldwide in 2020? It is Google.

It's amazing how much Google has progressed and built up over the years.

It's massive, it takes up nearly 90% of the market share.

It's huge and Bing is in second place with only 5% nearly 5% that's it and Baidu and Yahoo are third and fourth respectively.

So the biggest search engine, the most that people use is Google.

However, when you're doing your search engines.

When you're using these search engines sometimes to come up with different information.

So what do you think the term targeted search engine results mean? Okay, so I said Google, Bing, Yahoo will get different information.

Okay, they might put websites in different orders and they will get different information.

So what do you think then that targeted search engine results mean? Pause the video and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic.

So let's take a look at how search engine work.

It's quite simple barely.

What they use is they use a thing called web crawlers okay? Crawling hundreds of billions of pages using their own web crawlers and they'll go off and find the information that you put in your Google search.

So they'll look at key words or key phrases and they will use algorithms to then go and find all that information and it's referred to as a search engine bot or spider.

So targeted search engine results in order to optimise a website's ability to be found through search engine they create a list of specific words.

So what they'll have is a list that if anyone uses this specific word, it will then try and bring up their website and, as I said earlier phrase and then they will make sure that these keywords are searched for their site will be in the results page.

So if you search for your favourite band or your favourite celebrity or your favourite football team.

That those key words will come up in your search engine and it'll be hopefully at the top.

So search engines work by using creepy crawlers Do they use creepy crawlies true or false? Obviously false, they don't use creepy crawlers.

They use web crawlers alright? Which are also known as bots or spiders.

So not quite creepy crawlers that we see maybe running around the house on the floor or in the bath.

For some reason, they seem to get in there and a search engine navigates the web by downloading web pages and following links on those pages to discover new pages that have been made available.

So that these algorithmic web crawlers will go and find all this information that you want and what's really interesting is it's at the snap of your fingers.

You will find them straight away.

They pop up and then you can click and go through them.

So when we put in our key words into Google, when we're using the internet, you may have come across this term cookies.

So you may know.

So what are cookies? And I don't mean the ones that you eat.

I mean in an internet term.

So what are cookies? Pause the screen and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic.

So cookies can be quite complicated.

Again, you could literally talk about cookies all day long but I've tried to break it down for you.

So it's a little bit more simple.

So cookies are technically text files with small pieces of data.

For example, a username, a password that's used to identify your computer as you use a computer network okay? So a cookie is a store that stores this small bits of data, stores this information.

Data stored in a cookie is created by the server upon your connection.

This data is labelled with an ID unique to you and your computer.

So every single device that can connect to the internet whether its a mobile phone, whether it's a laptop, a desktop computer.

Anything that connects to the internet has an ID unique to that device.

The number that gets registered and then all the information that you know, that you type in away that you doing online is stored and the idea is it's stored for your ease of use.

That's why it's there.

It's there for ease of use.

When the cookie is exchanged between your computer and the network server, the server is the ID and knows what information to specifically serve to use.

It's quite clever.

It's almost it so you're not having to start again.

Yeah, we don't always want to have to put in our username and password every time we log onto the computer to go into our email.

Yes, sometimes it is easy just to turn your computer on and log in and then go into your emails and your emails were already there.

Yeah, sometimes you think "Oh, what was the name of that website? "I can't remember what that website was called." I could go into my history.

The cookies are stored in there, fantastic.

There we go easy.

Also what cookies are used for is targeted things at you.

So they'd build a profile of you.

So there's two types of cookies then.

We have what's known as magic cookies and these cookies are an old computer term.

They're still used but we tend to now use what's known as a HTTP cookie and if you go on your internet web browser and you click on the website that you are.

Clicking the top bit in the search, you'll see they'll start with HTTP.

All right, that's what I meant.

So magic cookies I've said, are an old computer term refers to packets of information that are sent and received without changes.

Whereas HTTP cookies are a repurposed version of the magic cookies but built for internet browsing.

You've got to think that the internet's not really been around that long and things are progressing so quickly and so these were built specifically for the internet.

The HTTP cookie, is what we currently use to manage our online experiences.

It is also what some malicious people can use to spy on your online activity and steal your personal information.

So we've got to keep this information safe and that's when in previous lessons, we've talked about the spyware and the malware and all these kind of viruses that could affect your computer and how to keep those safe.

So we've discussed a little bit about cookies and what they are.

So what are cookies used for? Pause the screen, write it down on a piece of paper and I'll be with you in a second.

Fantastic.

So cookies are used for essentially, to store basic information.

Things like maybe so you don't have to rebuild a shopping cart, yeah you've been shopping maybe for some clothes, you've gone off, you've gone and done something, whatever.

Those cookies will store that information, and then you don't have to read, look at it and redo it all again.

It's already there.

It's just to improve and streamline your web experience.

So you don't have to redo things over and over and over again and also it targets things that are specifically for you.

As I mentioned, it makes almost like a profile of you.

So it'll get into understand what you like, what you don't like, what things you're searching for and again, build up this profile.

So it might be recommending holidays that you might want to go on.

It might recommend clothes that you might like or sports that you might be interested in looking at and doing a bit more research on.

So it's just to make your web experience a lot more enjoyable and streamline that information and cookies are an important part of internet experience.

They are really important.

And like I said it's just to give you a better experience on it.

So we've identified why cookies are useful, give you a better experience.

It gives you the opportunity that you're not having to read passwords in and search for certain things.

It's there for you at your fingertips allow you to research for things but when can they become dangerous? Pause the screen now and I'll see you in a second.

We're going to look at are cookies bad? Since the data in cookies doesn't change.

Cookies themselves are harmful.

So cookies are harmful.

It's just they can't infect computers with viruses or other malware.

However, some cyber attacks can hijack cookies and enable access to your browsing sessions.

The danger lies in the ability to track individual's browsing histories.

Now one of the things that they could potentially do is say that you've been doing online banking, they'll try and get into your browsing history go into your banking information and try and get around in that way but providing you've not given any passwords out, providing you've not given out any personal details, you should be okay but they can try and get around and get into your browsing history.

So now that we know that actually they're not that bad and that they're there to improve your experience.

They can't really be hijacked.

They might get the browsing history but generally they can't be hijacked.

Should we allow or remove cookies, what do you think? So the thing to say here is before you start removing cookies and all those kinds of things.

You really needs to speak to an adult okay? Please make sure you've got permission of an adult before you start going around and removing cookies off your computer okay? It's really important that you do that and but cookies can be an optional part of your internet experience.

You can either have them on or off.

It's simply personal preference.

If you so choose, you can limit what cookies end up on your computer or mobile device.

If you allow cookies it will streamline your surfing.

For some users no cookie security risk is more important than a convenient internet experience.

So sometimes it might be just, "I don't really want to be putting in these passwords.

"I don't want to be searching things, "I like things that come to me, "I'm going to keep them up." Or you might think, "Actually, I don't want a travel company to see my cookies "because actually, could that affect the price of my trip? "They know that I'm looking, "I'm interested in going on a holiday.

"Could they put my price up? "Could they do something, "I'm going to turn them off." So it's entirely up to you.

As I said, before you start removing cookies, please, please speak to an adult but removing cookies can help you mitigate your risk of privacy breaches.

So you're just reducing that risk.

It can also reset your browser tracking and personalization.

So again, you're not maybe getting unwanted pop ups, unwanted advertisements.

It just stops those kinds of things happening.

So it just makes things a little bit more enjoyable.

Fine then and I don't need to close these pop ups.

Removing normal cookies is easy but it could make certain websites harder to navigate.

Without cookies, internet users may have to re enter that data for each visit and the biggest example of that is anything that requires a password.

Anything where you need to log in and use a password for example, your email.

Before removing cookies, evaluate the ease of use expected from a website that use cookies.

In most cases, cookies improve the web experience, but they should be handled carefully and again, I will stress that please speak to an adult before you start removing cookies because they may say, "No, no, no", they're staying on, they're staying on.

Or they might say, no they're staying off.

So please speak to an adult first.

Remember to always ask an adult before you remove the cookies, it's really important that you do that.

So how do you decide what information to trust when online? So we've looked at critical viewing.

We've looked at cookies, but how do you actually decide what information to trust online? How do I know that that information is accurate and fit for purpose? Pause the screen and I'll see you in a second.

So we need to look at well, what is a credible source? Practically anyone can make a website, online.

Anybody me, you, schools, businesses, government, entities, churches, anybody can create a website.

Absolutely anybody.

It can be a personal site, could be a blog to write about my family, friends, work and any other subject.

Corporations can make websites, promote their products.

Political activities can publish websites, to promote their cause.

Anyone with an idea can basically create an internet web page, anybody, okay? It's just about any content they want.

They can talk about whatever they want.

As usual, life online has undoubtedly changed and the procedures used to gather and assess information for this has changed.

We have got an amazing ability to gather information instantly.

Yeah, we mentioned this term, 24/7.

24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If I want a piece of information on how to build some furniture, I can do it yeah? If I want some information on what to use in this lesson, for example, I can find that information online but I need to be careful, I need to trust the sources where I'm getting that information from.

So what I want you to do is complete the worksheet that you've got, watch the video Now just to make you aware that Oak National Academy are not responsible for third party content and the video may be blocked on a social school network but what I want you to do is, watch the video and I want you to comment and just write down.

What is your reaction from watching the video? Okay, off you go, and I'll see you in a second.

Fantastic so I really enjoyed watching that video.

I find it really funny and at first I'll be honest with you.

I believed it, I was watching this video, really professionally made isn't it? It's made by Google.

It's actually a spoof.

It's created for April Fool's Day.

If you remember, some of you might remember BBC did something similar about pigs flying and it was on the news and it was really funny and but you watch it thinking, well, it's a credible source.

It's Google.

Yeah, BBC, they're not going to lie to me but it was a spoof and it's really funny.

It was really interesting to see how they can make the spoof.

How they can make something that's not real sound real by using that language, by looking at the production.

The production was really professional, wasn't it? Yeah they used actors, it looked really really neat and tidy and professional.

When you did, I was watching first 15 seconds I thought "Yeah this is about rising plausible "they could have come up with this delivery service." But then as more and more details sort of revealed that the scenario becomes increasingly unlikely and actually, it was really funny.

I enjoyed watching it.

However, sometimes things are not so clear-cut and even after watching or viewing, you are unsure whether to believe what you read.

We've heard quite a lot recently about fake news, particularly with COVID.

Yeah, people's opinions regarding the vaccine, people's opinions regarding the COVID itself, that we need, it's hard to differentiate.

Well, is that real, is that accurate? Is that accurate, is that fake? Is that's all making it up? Is it someone's viewpoint? What, where's real within all of this? Where's fact and it is about trust, isn't it? So we've got scenario five, which I'd like you to do.

So finding information for your studies.

You are researching the Australian bushfires in Autumn 2019.

For your assignment, you know from previous experience, that the most reliable information is generally found in library online journals.

The problem is that little has been published in the academic literature so far.

You find some promising looking websites, however, you are not sure about the sources used.

So what would we do in this situation? So how would you decide the information you gather is credible? So think about the scenario itself.

We're looking at the bushfires.

It's quite recent 2019.

There's not a lot out there.

How would you gather credible information? What would you do to ensure that that information is credible? Pause the video, I'll see you in a second.

The first is our trustometer.

Yeah, bit like a barometer here in the picture.

We need to know where's my trust? Is it right over here? Wait, yeah, I trust that source, absolutely.

Or wait, no I don't trust that, I don't think that's real.

You could think of decision making process as a kind of barometer, which changes in response to a variable set of factors.

Your trustometer, if you like.

So this is how we decide if information is credible or not.

So let's look at this scenario.

When writing an essay, you will probably want to spend time verifying the information you find on the open web and ask the advice of your tutor if it proved difficult to get hold of reliable sources on the topic.

So one of the things is ask your teachers, ask your parents.

Is this right? Is this information correct? But you will lose marks for including sources which turn out not to be accurate or credible and that's really important.

We don't want to be doing if we're doing an essay or we're doing maybe a history work.

We don't want to use information that isn't accurate or credible because we don't want to lose marks do we? If we're doing an essay in this situation yeah? We don't want to lose those marks.

We need to make sure that the information is credible.

So what we can do is we can start with sites you know.

Go to those credible websites that you know.

So your teachers, whether it's your history teacher, your geography teacher or your beats export teacher will already know of credible websites, which they know are accurate.

So use them first.

Yes, as for my subject teachp.

com is brilliant.

It's a really good one okay? The biggest thing to do is check the date, check the day when it was written because actually what you could find is what you're reading actually was written before the event.

Yeah, they might be talking about another bushfire.

They might not talking about the one in Australia.

So you need to check the date.

Check the credentials.

What we mean by that is who wrote it? Is it a trusted author okay? And it could just be joke bloggers on the street, who's just written something about the bushfires.

It could be an Australian who was annoyed that happened or whatever and it could be disgruntled and actually write something quite biassed.

So it's important to check the author.

Check the credentials of the person.

Are they trustworthy? So check the domain as well.

Check the internet website.

Is it a.

org? Is it a.

gov? Sometimes things like.

gov we know are government websites.

So we know that the information is going to be accurate.

So check the domain, check the website.

Dig a little bit deeper.

Yeah, do more research.

Don't just rely on one website for all your research.

What we always tend to find in doing science is so you test three times to make sure that the results are reliable.

We're kind of doing the same thing here.

Check three or four different websites 'cause what you're going to do is you'll read all four, three or four and you'll start to understand that actually, this is the middle ground.

This is where the accurate information lies.

This don't cover it, not overly accurate but sort of is all right I can use that a little bit.

They're kind of saying the same thing.

So you can start to come up with your own information.

You can come up with your own knowledge really.

Your own understanding of what is happening.

Check your local libraries.

Obviously, it's a bit difficult at this moment in time.

We've got issues with COVID and libraries been open.

but libraries of books written by authors about to be published.

We know that they're going to be credible information.

Use your library.

Libraries are amazing places for research.

We don't always have to do it at a computer and actually, it's quite nice to go into a physical building and pick up a physical book and read through it and don't trust your first source.

As I said earlier, do a bit of research.

Look at three or four different websites and then try and come up with your own opinions around.

Well, this is what this means and then draw your own conclusions from that but what's really important is to check the date and check the credentials and going back to the scenario is what we don't want to be doing is getting into habits of using false information because when you get to GCSEs or A levels or university degrees.

When you're writing essays is we need to make sure that the information is credible, because actually, you could potentially write something that's inaccurate, that's wrong and end up losing marks on the basis of that.

So it's important when you're doing your independent study, your revision, you are using credible sources and this here with regards to our seven step process is really important.

So I'm really glad you've joined me today.

Really, really, really hope you've enjoyed the lesson today and I've been Mr. Duffy.

Remember, if you'd like to please ask your parent or carer, to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Like I said, I've been Mr. Duffy I'm really glad you joined me today and I'll see you soon, goodbye.