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Tweet from Earth Pics (screenshot preserved for when it gets taken down). Retweeted over 1,000 times in the first hour.
Seth Dixon's insight:
This is a real island...well, sort of. It is an island off the coast of Thailand (most certainly not Ireland) and there is no castle on the top. Photoshopping and easy file sharing make it harder to assess the validity of online resources (this fantastic digital manipulation is the work of Jan Oliehoek). Most students start their research with online sources. This isn't to pretend that that I've never mistakenly assumed that some online content was accurate when it wasn't true; I think we all have. I think that it's an important conversation to have with our students so they can be more critical consumers of online information and use some geographic skills to assess the quality of that information.
students need to be very careful in the type of sources that they used to glean information. People can manipulate photos and suggest things as fact when they are completetly made up. It is understandable that Wikipedia can not be used as an entireyl reliable source because people have access to add whatever they want to the content matter. Photoshop and other online tools can be used to trick people into beleiving certain things. This photo claiming to be from ireland is really from Thailand is a small island but the castle itself on the top os photoshoped and the image was retweeded like crazy within the first hor. wee must check our sources and make sure that we are getting good primary or at least good secondary services from legit websites.
This just shows that you can't believe everything you see on the internet. In this picture it is said to be of an island in Ireland but in reality it is in Thailand. People believe what they want to believe.
Before reading this article, I assumed that I was capable of telling fictional from factual information apart. But now, after having my eyes opened, I realize that the internet can truly play you like a puppet. From this article, I've now learned that there are more ways than one to judge the authenticity of a site. one such way is to search for an "original" copy of whatever it may be that you're researching. If none pop up, you have the true article.