Lesson plan

Gapyear.com

Gapyear.com (company name The Gap Year Company Ltd) was a social networking website started in the UK, in 1998, by Peter Pedrick and Tom Griffith. It was one of the world's first social media networks and focused on assisting young and old volunteers and backpackers to take a gap year. It was the first company to consolidate and promote the gap year industry internationally and online. The website had more than 100,000 pages of hand-written advice, country-based content, ideas, and opportunities on everything related to gap years and backpacking, including information on planning your trip, destinations, volunteering, and working abroad. The site was built around a travel community where the members engaged through physical events, blogs, chat groups and message boards. The company collated data, performed research, invented products, phrases and concepts that have formed the skeleton of the international gap year industry seen today and played a role in defining the underlying principles of Fair Trade volunteering, building a long-running relationship with the UK government agency Connexions to give advice to students during A-level clearing.

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Article summary

Gapyear.com (company name The Gap Year Company Ltd) was a social networking website started in the UK, in 1998, by Peter Pedrick and Tom Griffith. It was one of the world's first social media networks and focused on assisting young and old volunteers and backpackers to take a gap year. It was the first company to consolidate and promote the gap year industry internationally and online. The website had more than 100,000 pages of hand-written advice, country-based content, ideas, and opportunities on everything related to gap years and backpacking, including information on planning your trip, destinations, volunteering, and working abroad. The site was built around a travel community where the members engaged through physical events, blogs, chat groups and message boards. The company collated data, performed research, invented products, phrases and concepts that have formed the skeleton of the international gap year industry seen today and played a role in defining the underlying principles of Fair Trade volunteering, building a long-running relationship with the UK government agency Connexions to give advice to students during A-level clearing.

Key claims

  1. publication date: 2001 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the publication date is "2001". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1376126714

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.