Computer Skills

Beginner

60 mins

Teacher/Student led

+105 XP

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC or iPad/Tablet

Research Without Getting Tricked — Sources, Scams & AI in 2026

Learn to spot trustworthy sources, verify facts against independent sources, and use AI safely for research. Build a Research Page with 5 verified facts for your Something Real project.

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1 Introduction
2 Key Concepts
3 Flip Your Instinct
4 Step-by-step: Verify a Claim and Check an AI Answer
5 Common Issues
6 Digital Safety Aside — Phishing and 2fa
7 Portfolio Build: Your Research Page
8 Reflection
9 Lesson Summary
Quiz

1 - Introduction

Illustration for Introduction

Welcome

Your Something Real project needs real facts, not guesses that sound right. Today you'll learn how to tell a solid source from a shiny-looking one, how to use an AI assistant without being tricked by it, and how to spot scams before they reach your account. By the end you'll have your Research Page in the portfolio: facts you can defend when an adult asks, 'how do you actually know?'

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Apply the CRAAP test to any website
Verify a claim using two independent sources
Check an AI assistant's answer and record what changed
Be aware of phishing patterns and know why 2FA helps
Know when AI help is fine and when it becomes academic dishonesty

Warm-up

Think of a time you repeated a 'fact' you saw online and later found out it was wrong, or a time you got a suspicious text about a parcel or a bank. What made you believe the first one, and what made you suspicious of the second?

Teacher Notes

Parcel and bank scam texts pretending to be from An Post, Revenue or delivery firms are one scam type students are likely to have seen, making them a good shared reference for the warm-up.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Key Concepts

Three ideas that run through the rest of this lesson. Phishing and 2FA get their own short aside later, just before the portfolio build.

Concept	Why it matters	Example
CRAAP test — five quick checks on any source: Currency — how recent? Relevance — does it apply to you? Authority — who wrote it? Accuracy — can you verify elsewhere? Purpose — why does this page exist?	A 30-second check catches most bad sources before they embarrass you in a portfolio.	A 2019 blog saying 'the Leap Card works on every bus in Ireland' fails Currency and Authority.
Hallucination — when an AI assistant makes up a fact (or a source) and presents it with full confidence.	AI sounds certain even when it is wrong, so you have to be the one who checks.	Asking an AI for 'a 2024 Irish study on teenage sleep' may return a plausible-sounding paper that does not exist when you click the link.
Source type ≠ source quality — a blog can beat a government page, and official advice can be reversed years later.	Judge by what you can verify, not by whether the URL ends in .gov.ie or .blog.	A dietitian's blog with CORU registration and cited studies beats a glossy news article recycling a press release with no sources.

A sample Research Page entry

Your independent practice builds 5 of these. This is what one entry looks like:

Claim: A student return Irish Rail ticket from Dublin Heuston to Galway costs from approximately €16 with a student Leap Card.
Source: https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/rail-fares-and-tickets/ (link opens)
Why I trust this: Official Iarnród Éireann fares page, checked today, cross-checked against Citizens Information. Named operator, current prices, no reason to mislead.

Teacher Notes

The sample entry layout is the template students will copy into their own Research Page. Make sure they notice the three parts: Claim, Source, Why I trust this. CORU matters: it is the statutory regulator for dietitians in Ireland, while INDI is the professional body — a dietitian citing both is showing evidence of authority, which is the third CRAAP letter.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Flip Your Instinct

You'll read 4 short claim-and-source pairs. First rank them by how much you'd trust them without checking. Then read the 30-second verification and notice where your instinct was wrong. The goal is not the right answer, it is catching the gap between gut feel and verified truth.

The 4 pairs

A specialist's blog. An Irish dietitian's personal blog, dated this year, writes: 'Moderate egg intake does not raise cardiovascular risk for most healthy adults.' Links to two peer-reviewed studies. Author lists her CORU registration as a dietitian and her membership of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute (INDI).
A slick news-style site. A polished-looking news site claims 'Scientists warn: Wi-Fi is lowering Irish teenagers' concentration by 30%.' No author credited. No study cited. Shared 14,000 times on Facebook.
A gov.ie page. The Revenue page on the standard income tax rate, updated this tax year, linking to the current Finance Act.
ChatGPT answering a current Irish fact. You ask 'What is the current Irish minimum wage for a 19-year-old?' and it replies confidently with a number and the phrase 'as of 2024'.

Instinct ranking — write it down

Before you read any further, grab a piece of paper or open a quick note and write down your ranking, 1 (you'd trust most without checking) through 4 (you'd trust least). There is no wrong answer here — the whole point is noticing where your gut and verified truth disagree.

The 30-second verification

A, the dietitian's blog: Trustworthy despite being a blog. Named author, CORU registration (the statutory regulator for dietitians in Ireland), INDI membership, cited peer-reviewed sources, current date. Passes CRAAP.
B, the polished news site: Not trustworthy. No author, no sources, sensational framing, high share count = optimised for spread, not truth. Polish is not quality.
C, Revenue.ie: Trustworthy. Official, cited, current. Instinct matches truth here.
D, ChatGPT: Cannot trust without verifying. Even AI assistants that can search the web will sometimes quote a stale article, mix up the UK and Irish rates, or invent a figure outright. Minimum wage changes with every Budget, so check gov.ie/enterprise before you use any number the AI gives you.

Compare your written ranking to the verifications. Any pair where your gut disagreed with the verification is the exact thing this lesson is fixing.

Exploration

Write down your 1–4 ranking on paper before reading any verifications
After reading the verifications, notice which source type surprised you and which instinct you'll have to change
Ask yourself: if I cannot verify a claim in 30 seconds, should it go in my Research Page at all?

Teacher Notes

This is a thinking activity, not a browser activity. Students read, write their ranking on paper, then read the verification. Before revealing the verifications, do a quick hands-up vote: 'who ranked A highest? B? C? D?' so the coming flip is visible to the whole class. Push any student who says 'I'd trust the government page most' to explain what they actually verified, not just what the domain says. A 30-second turn-and-talk with a partner works just as well as the hands-up vote if the class is quiet.

+15 XP

4 - Step-by-step: Verify a Claim and Check an AI Answer

Walk through verifying one demo claim (about a pretend TY trip to Galway) and checking one AI answer against an independent source. You'll land two demo entries in your Research Page that show exactly what a verified fact looks like.

This step has two phases. Take a short breath between them.

Phase A — verify a claim (instructions 1–9): open your portfolio, create the research page, and verify a fare against irishrail.ie.
Phase B — check an AI answer (instructions 10–15): ask an AI the same question, then compare its answer to the verified fact.

Teacher Notes

The demo project is 'pitch a TY trip to Galway'. Students are not using their own Something Real here — they'll do that in the Portfolio Build. This step is about seeing the verification process done correctly. Consider pausing the class between Phase A and Phase B for a quick check-in — it's a natural regrouping point if students have drifted.

+15 XP

5 - Common Issues

Common Issues

Issue	Solution
The AI gave me a confident answer but I cannot verify it on any official Irish source	Treat it as a hallucination. Do not put that fact in your Research Page. Record it as 'AI claim could not be verified' in your AI-verified entry, and find a different fact you can confirm.
Two independent sources give different figures for the same claim	Prefer the more recent official source. If both are recent and official, record the discrepancy in your 'Why I trust this' line and pick the one with clearer citations to primary data.
The page I found has no date anywhere on it	Treat it as low on Currency. Search for a dated version of the same information. If none exists, use a different source.
The AI gave me a link to a study or article that doesn't load when I click it	Fabricated sources are a well-documented AI failure pattern. Note 'source does not exist — AI hallucination' and do not use that fact.
I got a phishing text or email while doing research — what do I do?	Do not click the link. Delete the message. If it claims to be from a real company (An Post, AIB, Revenue), open their actual website in a new tab to check. Never log in via a link sent by text.

Teacher Notes

The last row is included because phishing attempts during research hours can genuinely happen. Worth a 30-second class mention — the next step goes deeper on why they work and how 2FA helps.

+10 XP

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Copyright Notice
This lesson is copyright of Coding Ireland 2017 - 2025. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.

Research Without Getting Tricked — Sources, Scams & AI in 2026

Teacher Class Feed

1 - Introduction

Welcome

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Warm-up

2 - Key Concepts

A sample Research Page entry

3 - Flip Your Instinct

The 4 pairs

Instinct ranking — write it down

The 30-second verification

4 - Step-by-step: Verify a Claim and Check an AI Answer

5 - Common Issues

Common Issues

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