News Literacy
Course
Big Takeaways [9:00]
- Learn ways to reinforce thinking like a fact checker.
- Learn several tools to provide your students to encourage a fact checking mindset.
- Learn the importance of teaching digital literacy.
Jackie: I love it. That's a great phrase. Why did you just say that?
Michelle: Well, we really want our kids to think like fact checkers. In fact, we want all of us to think like fact checkers. There are ways to help guide you to think like a fact checker; the First Draft News from Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. Snopes is another great place to get guidance on how to think like a fact checker. Can you think of a couple others?
Jackie: Yeah, I love those two, and I also like PolitiFact and Hoax Slayer. What I like about all four of these forum, are that they work with not just the words of stories that people are finding concerning or people are skeptical about content of the stories, they also are unpacking images that are going viral and videos that are going viral. They're really great resources for verifying a lot of different forms of media that we are receiving these days.
Michelle: Let's talk about reverse image searching, because that's also critical.
Jackie: Yeah, I think that that's a way students can start to practice their own image verification, their own fact checking before they even turn to the professional fact checkers. There are lots of tools out there that can help a student take an image and find lots of other places where that same image, or a very very similar image, may have been used or replicated. Using simple tools like Google's reverse image searching and then Google's option of letting you search for something that was published at a particular time, will allow students to look for an image that they are questioning, or that they really want to use and verify by going back in time, that it was created at the time and at the place that original source that they have found is claiming.
Michelle: And also give proper attribution for its content creator.
Jackie: Absolutely. Knowing full well that where they found it, may not be its original source.
Michelle: Exactly. So they can do that with the images and videos. Is there anything we should talk about?
Jackie: I think that we should give a shout out to WNYC and their Breaking News Consumer's Handbook. They have done a phenomenal job of putting together a print resource that can be used by educators, can be used by parents, can be used by students to give them just those last reminders of things they should be thinking as they're reviewing news and reviewing media; places they should go; and really what those habits of mind need to be, so they can really embrace the fact checking mindset.
Michelle: Right and the "Educator's Guide: The Types of Online Fakes," what is that, Jackie?
Jackie: I think that as media changes, those who are inclined to perpetuate a hoax are out ahead of those of us who are the information consumers. Those who are making hoaxes are manipulating media before we realize that that media is able to be manipulated. This guide to what kind of media is faked, how it is faked, what kinds of things to look for when you're consuming media to determine if it's fake or if it's real, these are really great tips for all educators.
Michelle: Excellent that's a great line up of resources. We also talk about social media and digital media reality and they're not even in the new landscape anymore. If we think about how much it's changed our lives, from shopping, to communicating, to navigating our communities, it becomes obvious that teaching and learning has to change too, right?
Jackie: Absolutely, that brings us back to Michael Wesch and what he said with mediated cultures. I thought it was interesting when he had his students navigate their world for several days wearing GoPro cameras and then bringing the footage that those cameras captured back into the classroom, so they could start to unpack it and start to understand when they were using media, how they were using media, how they were using technology, which kinds of devices they were using. Being able to have a really objective view of their relationship as a person, as a human being, as a student, as a friend via these vehicles of communication.
Michelle: Right. Our third takeaway is that learning happens through reflection and revision. Students must have guided practice analyzing and using social media if they're to use it purposefully, productively, and safely.
Jackie: Absolutely. We teach students to read from a very young age, and digital literacy doesn't just naturally develop any more than their print literacy does. We must dedicate time to nurturing these skills in ourselves and in our students. They're only going to learn these skills if we coexist as digital neighbors. We have to be in the same media spaces together in order for us to model and to guide our students.
Michelle: Absolutely. There are a lot of tools to help out there. Yes, right. We have SearchReSearch.
Jackie: SearchReSearch is tremendous, it was started by a Google innovator and it is a daily challenge for how to navigate the online world to answer a question. Sometimes, the prompt is a visual and there's a little context given to where he took the picture. Then the challenge is to answer the question that he's posed and chronicle the research path that you used to arrive at the answer. Then the next day, of course, you get the information confirmed or verified and there can be a nice online dialogue where people share their strategies.
Michelle: Of course, there's Listenwise, which is a database, but it's a database of NPR content that is really aligned with national curricular standards. It's really approached with the objective of getting students to consume news in new formats in ways that are actually kind of traditional as part of their research. What I love about Monica Brady Myerov, who is the brain of Listenwise, is that she's really developing additional supplemental materials and lessons to go along with this content that are really rich and dense, and she has a strong background in journalism, and she brings that to the table.
Jackie: Absolutely and their prepared lessons are wonderful and also easily adaptable to meet the needs of your particular students or your community.
Michelle: Then of course, we talked about ConnectSafely earlier, because we talked about rights and responsibilities. Let's talk a little bit more about that.
Jackie: Absolutely, ConnectSafely's mission is to provide parents and families the resources they need to productively, safely, and in a satisfying way navigate the digital landscape. Their resources really reach a much wider audience than just schools.
Michelle: Right. It's the parents and the students and the teachers. So, it's really a kind of a three-pronged approach.
Jackie: We've got to mention the Stony Brook Digital Resource Center. They have put together some really great news literacy lessons; from what news literacy means, to how we can explore it, how we can unpack it, all sorts of current issues, and it continues evolving so that it really is contemporary stuff—breaking news kinds of resources.
Michelle: I'm so glad you brought up that last point about continually evolving because I'm finding that to be true with a great number of these resources, but definitely Stony Brook is just constantly developing new material and that's so great and so appreciated. So we have a call to action here.
Jackie It's our final call to action.
Michelle: That's right. You've got this! Throughout this whole series, we've dropped a lot of names. Watch out for one of their talks, or read what they've written, and tweet us what you think.
Jackie: Absolutely. We'd love to hear from you. I'm @MsJWhiting.
Michelle: I am @MLuhtala.
Jackie: Thanks, Michelle. This has been fun.
Michelle: Thank you, Jackie.
This course has provided a plethora of resources, talks, and apps that will help guide your news literacy research. You will also find an incredible listing of resources in the Bibliography. Review and reflect up on 4-5 that really stuck out and perhaps look for additional talks or articles by those people. Complete the Review & Practice activity below.
MLA Citation
"News Literacy: Big Takeaway." School Library Connection, January 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2256633?learningModuleId=2256568&topicCenterId=2247905.
Entry ID: 2261417
Additional Resources
About the Authors
MLA Citation
Luhtala, Michelle, and Jacquelyn Whiting. "News Literacy. Big Takeaways [9:00]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, January 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2256633?learningModuleId=2256568&topicCenterId=2247905.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2256633?learningModuleId=2256568&topicCenterId=2247905
Entry ID: 2256633