By Amanda Iadeluca on June 8, 2018
In February, I attended the Reading for the Love of It Conference in Toronto. One of the workshops that caught my eye was about Fake News and was presented by Joyce Grant, a freelance journalist, children’s author and one of the creators of the website http://teachingkidsnews.com/. The objective of the website is to help kids think critically about the news and they provide a whole bunch of lesson plans for current news topics and articles.
However, they also have a section on Fake News, which I think is becoming an important aspect of media literacy in a technology-rich learning environment . Students are exposed to modified or fake advertisements, websites, images, videos and news all over the internet and social media and they are not necessarily equipped to unpack the information that is presented. A Stanford History Education Group study found that “when it comes to evaluating information that flows through social media channels, they are easily duped” (2016, p. 4).
My middle school students might be able to quickly code a game in Scratch, but they have come to school regularly this year and told each other about things that they’ve seen on their Facebook or Instagram feeds that are true… but they are definitely not. The Teaching Kids News website has compiled information from various sources to help teach students how to look at the things they see online with a critical eye to be able to determine whether they are true or not. They also have media literacy activities and suggestions for discussing challenging news stories with kids.
The Stanford Study is very interesting. Here is the link: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:fv751yt5934/SHEG%20Evaluating%20Information%20Online.pdf
Hi Binal,
Thank you far sharing. I have a special interest in Digital citizenship and I believe media literacy is a big part of it. I bookmarked the Stanford Study for future reference as it looks interesting. I agree that our students, digital natives (as Marc Prensky would call them), are very computer (and mobile device) literate, but struggle with critical thinking when it comes to the news and information that is presented to them. On Radio-Canada (French CBC) there is a show I like to watch with my daughters : Decrypteurs. Every weeks they track down fake news that were spread through social medial. Their goal is to fight back against misinformation. It is eye opening. I highly recommend it (for those who understand French).
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/decrypteurs
Thank you Vero, hopefully our students (and others around them) will become more aware of the media they consume with continued repetition from all of us!
The issue of critical media literacy is a problem for people of all ages. I think social media sites have some degree of responsibility here, but ultimately, a reader needs to be empowered to determine the credibility and authenticity of what they read.
Teaching Tolerance has great resources for this, too! https://www.tolerance.org/frameworks/digital-literacy
Thanks for sharing, Mel! Definitely – everyone could use a lesson (or few) on media literacy, and starting young might help future generations avoid gullibility to some extent.
Hi Binal,
Thanks for sharing. Great resources! You are true – our students could be very proficient with technology but know little when it comes to media literacy. I bookmarked the Stanford Study page. The sample tasks and the evaluating rubrics are quite inspirational, and we can easily design similar tasks to teach our students media literacy.
I decided to post this mostly for its relevance in today’s times. For some comic relief, here is a short video from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Pay special attention to the bar graph at 6:25 (https://youtu.be/zio9QCbprrI).