Information Literacy

           Are there really tree octopuses? I checked out the website http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ to find out. As silly as this may seem I certainly thought there were. When I first started reading about the tree octopus I was like, “Wow, very interesting”. As I kept reading it sounded a little fishy though. It sounded fake. I wasn’t convinced about the credibility of the website. It seemed more and more unreal as I went on. The embedded links are what kept me wondering. There were so many links that made it seem more realistic, along with the photos and videos included in the website. When I read about the octopus being hunted by Sasquatch and read the frequently asked questions, I honestly laughed. It talked about the tree octopus being endangered even though it wasn’t listed in the Endangered Species list. This made me suspicious. I can see anyone getting fooled easily by this website. It’s true that many people believe what they read if they don’t have enough knowledge in internet literacy.

            As I was working on my search activity I noticed there was more to it than I knew. For example, the .net extension means the information provided may not be as reliable. It just gave me a hint to look out for that kind of website.  The link command helped me find other websites that were linked. I checked out a few and that’s when I found out. There was not just one but several websites that said http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ was a hoax. Researchers were using this to test student’s skills and online savviness.  I found this website that reports how gullible people are: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352929/Endangered-tree-octopus-proves-students-believe-read-Internet.html . It completely changed my perspective of the tree octopus.

            I believe the purpose for the tree octopus website is for it to be used in internet literacy classes. It’s a good example of what you shouldn’t be looking for, false information. It certainly helped me learn a little bit more than what I knew. I now know what kind of websites to look out for when searching the internet. I’m not too confident on information I’ve used in the past for class assignments. I just assumed anything on the internet was reliable. Now I know. I’ll make sure my future students have an understanding of information literacy so they won’t do what I did and use the first thing they find in a search.