Evaluation of Social Media Sources

Next, I looked up two articles from Storify to find social media related posts to further the debate on the education of a preschooler. I found two posts to be best beneficial to my debate.

The first, an article by ASCD; The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, which states how important preschool is to a young child and to a future student and scholar. This association is directly linked to how a preschool will teach toddlers and so this post is highly important to determine their stand on the issue. Since this is a journal article from this association directly, it is hard to say who would be the main collaborator. This company collaborates with other companies with the same or similar missions on social media, though they tend to post their own articles, journals, books, etc. for the public to read. The article shared is from 2013, so it is still relevant, though there may be new and improved information on this topic. I would say that this source is reliable due to the fact that it is the ASCD.

The second, an article by MapleBear Canadian School systems, is a great article on how preschools around the world, in particular, India, are using play effectively through their program. Showing the perspective outside of the United States tends to pull in more interest from the audience of a paper and to show contrast. I think this post is credible since it is posted by an education system. Since the MapleBear Canadian school system is all over the world, including in India, their company is directly linked to someone in the India school system, so location doesn't seem to be greatly effected. I would say that this post is also highly reliable.

• Credibility - Can you corroborate who the person who posted the social media message is. Can you Google them? Do they belong to an organization or institution that bestows credibility on them (for example, a university, governmental organization, non-profit, company, etc.)?
• Location - Are they in the place they are tweeting or posting about? Are they directly involved with any of the events relevant to your controversy?
• Network - Who is in their network and who follows them? Do other individuals with institutional credibility associate with this person on social media?
• Content - Can the information they’re relying on in their tweet or post be corroborated from other sources?
• Contextual updates - Do they usually post or tweet on this topic? If so, what did past or updated posts say? Do they fill in more details?
• Age - What is the age of the account in question? Be wary of recently created accounts.
• Reliability - Is the source of information reliable?