Lie or truth

The e-tivity Lie or truth requires of students to study literature on certain topics and to write statements (1-2 paragraphs of text per theme) that are false but may appear true to someone who is only partly informed of the subject and not an expert. They also write true statements on other similar topics that can be judged as true only by those who are very knowledgeable of the subject. The paragraphs of text with false statements ("lies") are randonly mixed with paragraphs of true statements and given to other students for evaluation. Then other students have to evaluate the statements (judge if they are a lie or the truth), but to do so correctly they must engage in literature search, look for scientific articles on the subjects of evaluated statements, perform calculation / simulation / experiment, and may also discuss the content of the those statements. Finally, the students who are evaluating the statements have to decide if they are a lie or the truth, as well as provide argument or proof in form of citations from literature, logical or mathematical analysis, simulation, etc.

For the presentation of statements in this e-tivity a wiki or blog may be used. The true/false statements can be commented by use of the "discussion" option on a wiki page or as comments to blog posts. The arguments for the evaluation of a specific statements as a lie or the truth may be supported by collections of links to online resources that are placed in social bookmarking tools (Delicious, Diigo).