TeachersHomework

I just recently have begun to see old e-mail hoaxes becoming facebook posts. For example my Aunt Sally(name has been changed to protect the digitally naive) recently posted the following:
DON'T BUY THE PATRIOTIC PEPSI CAN coming out with pictures of the Empire State Building, and the Pledge of Allegiance on them. Pepsi left out two little words on the pledge,"Under God."...Pepsi said they didn't want to offend anyone. So if we don't buy them then they will not be offended when they don't receive our money that has the words 'In God WeTrust' on it. HOW FAST CAN YOU REPOST...
I immediately knew to check validity of this story to go to snopes.com. David and Barbara Mikkelson are the hoaxbusters behind the website where you can check to see if the e-mail or now Facebook post you just read is true or not. In Aunt Sally's case this one was horribly false and severely outdated. Yet she received two comments one just saying they liked what she posted the other commented "What is our country coming to?"
It is situations like this and those presented in our schools when a student is researching for a biography in which we need to educate ourselves, parents and students on the resources available to determine what we are reading on the internet or in our e-mail box is true.
Students have acess to Facebook they are reading the posts of their older relatives like my Aunt Sally. They are also being asked unassumlingly to complete research projects at home without a filtering system like at school. Without a filtering system the link for martinlutherking.org which is actually a site created by a white supreamcy group will come up #3 in a Google search for Martin Luther King. This site also has a large blue link at the top of the page saying Attention Students: Take Our Quiz Here!  
My awareness level just went up not only as an educator but as a parent too. I'm feeling a summer lesson for my daughters coming on. I plan to share this with my parents next year and educate my students as well.